Ricardo Angel holds engineering degrees through a PhD from the University of Illinois and built his investing career inside major industrial and energy institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Chevron, GE Ventures, and the $300 million Energy Technology Ventures joint venture with GE, NRG, and ConocoPhillips, before starting Piva Capital. Born in Colombia and now operating with connections across more than 90 countries, he focuses on whether industrial and energy technologies can actually scale and pay off financially, pointing to realistic returns in the 20 to 50 times range rather than promising 100x, and looking closely at details like manufacturing software and quality control when judging hard technology companies such as Velo3D.
About their Fund
Piva Capital started with $250 million funded entirely by PETRONAS, and while it operates independently, this gives portfolio companies access to a global energy company and Southeast Asian markets; the firm focuses on later-stage, hardware-heavy climate and industrial companies—in areas like steel, cement, and aviation—that need patient capital to scale, led by a team with backgrounds from major energy companies like GE Ventures, Chevron Ventures, Shell Ventures, and BP Ventures who are comfortable taking on technical risks other investors avoid. Piva also stands out for publicly measuring its own carbon footprint (carbon neutral since inception, offsetting 147 metric tons of CO2 in 2023 at $150 a ton), helping build climate-investing standards through groups like the Venture Climate Alliance and VentureESG, backing frontier ideas like natural hydrogen, and maintaining a majority-female team in a field where that’s uncommon.
















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