10 Impact Ideas for 2025

Issue 104 l Eka’s Weekly Roundup (7 January 2024)

Jan 07, 2025

Welcome to the first 2025 edition of our weekly ⭐

We’re bringing you 10(ish) ideas for 2025 across our thesis areas. These range from rumoured IPOs in climate & health, to new price paradigms in direct-air-capture, and finally to AI workers across the largest consumer areas including health & sustainability.

Did we miss a theme? Reply, comment, and/or let us know your thoughts. We’re always keen for a discussion (estia@ekavc.com) 👋

Our hypotheses for 2025 🗞️

Let’s see if we can do better this year compared to last year’s predictions (retro post coming soon…).

Prediction: there are a number of high-profile IPOs across climate & health

This is a pretty consensus prediction. There are many names flying around as being potential candidates for an IPO in 2025. For example, Crunchbase reported that Hinge Health (initially broken by Business Insider last April) could be filing for an early 2025 IPO. We have internal bets on who else might be coming to market, but will be keeping those to ourselves for now 🤐

Liontree’s Q4 TMT newsletter, flagging rumoured IPOs for 2025.

Theme: global climate policy at a crossroads

A new US president has the potential to re-set the scene for the global climate policy landscape. There are lots of impacts here: what happens to the EU green deal, where does China fit in with its broader climate strategy, and how does the US navigate pre-existing commitments?

Regardless, we are still incredibly excited about investing in our Shared Value thesis, where innovators unlock both impact & financial scale in lockstep. We view these areas as less dependent on policy & regulation, which means they should be sheltered from the broader climate policy landscape.

Prediction: drastic new price set in direct air capture

We anticipate the cost to remove carbon dioxide to get reset in 2025. There are a number of factors at play here: for example, the world’s largest facility for carbon removal is set to open in Texas this year… But we are also excited about many other (stealthier) factors!

Render of anticipated Texas facility, operated by Stratos.

Theme: AI agents get big in climate: sustainable supply chain sourcing, energy optimisation… something else?

We’re excited to see new innovations within climate & AI agents. We’ve backed two incredible companies who are on the edges of these markets:

Axle Energy who are decarbonising the grid using residential assets.
Sourceful who are helping brands better source sustainable packaging.

Is there something else we’ve missed? Get in touch 👋

Prediction: green data centers find their ceiling.

AI & the green data center boom as a definite (missed) theme of 2024. There have been many articles about how capex investment into AI seem to be very high relative to the expected value out.

From Ben Evans’s annual presentation on technology. This year’s theme: “AI eats the world”.

Will OpenAI find a way top optimise compute? We’ve heard of initiatives which can now queue jobs for 24h and find optimal running times to better optimise for energy consumption and and grid loads.. unconfirmed!

Theme: Social shopping gets even bigger

TikTok shop & other social shopping platforms (WhatNot, Tilt) have exploded this year. I joined the craze a few weeks ago and bought my first few items on TikTok shop (supplements were 50% off!). TikTok actually released a pretty in-depth report on its social shopping in August last year - take a read.

There is a nuanced debate here when it comes to sustainability vs. fast fashion. On the one hand, these platforms are great for showcasing vintage & second-hand purchases. On the other hand, they can also fuel massive over-consumption and impulse buying. Let’s look to 2025 to see what the net impact turns out to be.

From my 16 year old brother who just (!) discovered TikTok Shop. Sent last night. Timely!

Prediction: The NHS app gets major updates and 40%+ people log-in in one month

This is a very fresh & unfolding story as there have already been some headlines on this in the BBC as of this weekend (Jan 5th). The NHS app is rumoured to:

Allow patients who need non-emergency elective treatment to choose from a range of providers (inc. private sector).
85% of acute trusts will be able to view their appointments on the NHS app (intended to come into place in March).
For context, 78% of the 18+ population is registered on the NHS app, and 19% are using it on a monthly basis.

From the Darzi review, published late last year.

Theme: AI health stack proves serious ROI at scale in the UK & US health systems across admin and treatment & delivery

Copy-past from last year… but we think there will be at least 5 “obvious” & “no-brainer” examples of AI helping deliver ROI at scale. We’re really excited about companies within the Eka portfolio here including:

Isla: digital pathway platform leveraging AI to support patients.
Oxcan: enabling curative lung cancer treatment through earlier detection.
Flok: the UK’s first AI physiotherapy clinic.

Theme: New major innovators in consumer health & wellness using AI unlocks across verticals like nutrition, community, or family organisation

We’re currently conducting a very large dive on AI agents within wellness, consumer, and broader health. So far we’ve mapped 40+ solutions across agents, companions, and broader software and believe this will be a key focus into 2025. Building here? Reach out 👋

Prediction: Alcohol alternatives get big (>£100m of revenue) in Europe & UK (probiotics, non-alcoholic, other)

Spacegoods and Xoxo grew really quickly last year. We’ve spoken about a UK/EU drinks champion for a while, but so far no one has reached the scale of Olipop in the US. Is this the year it changes…?

My colleague Hamish’s photo, titled “Battle of the Prebiotics”. From last July.

Prediction: GLP-1 either: (1) gets a reality check [and/or] (2) are the future of addiction treatment

We saw some bubblings of GLP-1 controversy last year when a nurse died two weeks after taking Mounjaro. There have been 23 suspected deaths linked to the drugs in the UK since 2019. There may be more examples of unknown risks arising this year…

And/or we may discover GLP-1s have many more benefits than are currently being touted. For example, there have been claims that GLP-1s could be helpful in addiction treatments and mental health conditions.

For now, we will still admire the amount of buzz & hype there seems to be around weight loss treatment..

Google results list when I typed in “GLP-1”. That’s a lot of sponsored space.

Bonus: Interesting third-party predictions we loved!

Fred Wilson: “Apple and Google will leverage their existing market power to surpass OpenAI/ChatGPT in consumer AI prompts by the end of 2025.”
Susie Stanford: “Consumers will still feel the pinch on non-discretionary (groceries), but their thirst for experiences will only grow, aided by digital book-ability. If consumer health also gains wallet, I suggest apparel gets squeezed … or down traded (Shein/Temu or vintage)?”
Christoph Janz: “Startups will solve the “last mile problem” of AI”.

The whole Eka team is looking forward to another year meeting & working with incredible founders who are disrupting the hardest societal problems across climate and health.