Neal is a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur with 9+ startups under his belt, and one of the best seed-stage hit rates in cleantech. Neal helped launch the CVC fund at Royal Dutch Shell, co-founded 7 tech startups, and co-founded Jane Capital Partners a leading cleantech investor whose seed investees raised over $400M.
- Old Growth Ventures (TX) – Managing Partner of family office backed real estate partnership Historic Preservation Fund I.
- Royal Dutch Shell (TX) - Hired to lead N. America VC arm of Shell’s $400M venture fund. Investor Magseis (IPO Oslo), Salamander (Spinout), Geli (Storage software, Acq by Hanwha Q Cells), Launched and led Shell’s $100M spinout fund.
- Jane Capital Partners (SF) – co-founder at age 25. Seed investor in Zenergy, (IPO LSE), Block Shield (IPO LSE), Smart Wires. Advisor to $1B+ in corporate venture capital at ConocoPhillips, Meridian Energy, Shell, Macquarie Bank.
Neal has co-founded 7 startups from energy to SaaS, variously held CEO, VP, CFO, and Chairman roles, including smart grid startups Smart Wires, where he was also CFO of the modular power flow controls startup; and Zenergy Power, a superconducting smart grid technology (IPO). He also launched a solar IPP for Meridian that built one of the 1st utility-scale solar farms in the US.
He began his career in private equity, and at Bankers Trust in energy, before learning startup investing at the parent company behind Yellowpages.com (Acq by AT&T). Neal maintains one of the largest networks in the sector.
He founded and operates Cleantech.org, and has been cited on energy in 100s of publications from Time Magazine to the WSJ. In 2018 he took time off to run for US Senate from TX against Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz, winning the Libertarian Party Nomination, and nearly upsetting the race. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Texas A&M.
