How Overstory Cuts Outages and Wildfire Risk for Utilities - Inevitable

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[00:00]
A
Vegetation management is one of the largest operating expenses a utility carries. Utilities in the US spend 6 to 8 billion dollars a year managing trees along their lines. And it's also one of the biggest sources of outages and catastrophic wildfires. And as we've all seen, that risk isn't confined to just the west either. The south, the east coast, and Europe are all dealing with it now, too. And it's only intensifying as storms get worse and fire seasons get longer. Fiona is running the company utilities are turning to as that risk becomes unavoidable. From McJ, I'm Cody Sims, and this is inevitable. Climate change is inevitable. It's already here, but so are the solutions shaping our future. Join us every week to learn from experts and entrepreneurs about the transition of energy and industry. Fiona, welcome to the show.
[01:09]
B
Thank you so much, Cody. It's so great to see you.
[01:11]
A
Well, this is a super full circle moment. You were reminiscing before we hit record about the chair you're sitting in and the room you're sitting in. And I'll let you tell the story, but super fun to get a chance to reconnect in this context after you and I, my gosh, I mean, I think we first were working on user research around New York Times website users back in like 2004. So it's certainly been a minute.
[01:38]
B
Absolutely, yeah. 2004. It may even have been earlier than that.
[01:42]
A
Earlier than that might have been. Yeah.
[01:43]
B
We worked together on the early days of the New York Times website and always had such respect for you. So it was awesome to reconnect in the climate world. So, yeah, I'm in North Carolina right now and sitting in the exact seat where I reconnected with you after what, 16 years? I think it was that we were both in an MCJ webinar, I think it was. And I saw the name Cody Sims and I was like, wait a second, I knew a Cody Sims and I reached out to you and then we had a call and you were working at techstars then. And we were talking about all the companies in the techstars portfolio that had a climate angle and Overstory was one of them. And Overstory had been on my list of companies that I had wanted to connect with. I at the time, I knew I wanted to work in climate, but I didn't know where and with whom. So I was talking to a whole bunch of companies and was thrilled. And so you're responsible for it all. You're the reason that I am at Overstory because you connected Me to Indra, the original CEO and co founder.
[02:51]
A
I will take zero credit because you're responsible for the path you've created for yourself. But so fun that you weren't yet at Overstory and I wasn't yet at MCJ the last time we were both sitting in the exact chairs we're currently sitting in.
[03:04]
B
Absolutely, yes. I think it was May of 2020 maybe.
[03:10]
A
Probably, yeah. We were all doing these weekend Covid era webinars, learning about climate change. What a crazy time.
[03:17]
B
This is actually my parents house in North Carolina and so I did that pandemic thing where moved in with my parents for three months.
[03:26]
A
People who listen to the show may not know this, but I actually record this show in a closet off my living room that I've now turned into a podcast studio. But I used to actually use it as a little office that I could shut door on and get away from my family when I was on calls. And so quite literally, you and I are both in the exact same seats. We were in in quite different professional seats at the time.
[03:47]
B
That is super, super cool. This is also the seat where I first talked to Indra and the place where I started to talk to him and his co founder and partner Anique about seriously joining Overstory. And my daughter was standing outside the door and I opened the door, I didn't know she was listening and she said, we're moving to Amsterdam.
[04:09]
A
Surprise, surprise. Yeah. And you've been in Amsterdam now for many years, I think.
[04:15]
B
Coming up on six years in the fall, I moved there to join Overstory after having lived in New York for 21 years. Moved with my husband and two children who were 8 and 4 at the time. So yeah, I was employee number 10 at Overstory, joined as chief product officer. So back in those days we had a bunch of models but didn't really have a product yet. So I got to work on the first version of the product, which was super fun.
[04:43]
A
Well, I want to dive right into the product itself and I think to do that maybe important to set some context on the utility space at large. And one of the things that has always stuck with me is I remember one of the first times you and I chatted after you became an expert in this space and were running the company. We caught up and you shared a fact with me that sticks with me to this day, which is basically telling me that vegetation management is one of the single largest opex line items for utilities. That the average utility generates power, has poles and lines, and does tree trimming. That always really Stuck with me. I'd love for you to maybe add a little context around that.
[05:25]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I think in the US utilities spend between 6 and 8 billion dollars a year managing trees along their line. So they are also big tree trimming companies. In most cases, they actually rely on contractors to do that, but it's often the largest line item in their operational budget. It's a huge source of outages. And unfortunately, some of the most catastrophic wildfires have come from the interaction of trees and or sparks coming off of the equipment and igniting dry grasses. So it's a real issue also when it comes to wildfire prevention.
[06:06]
A
Maybe describe in that case what Overstory's offering is today and just bring us up to speed and up to date with how the company has evolved.
[06:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So at a high level, we map a utility's whole network with satellite and aerial imagery in order to identify where trees could strike a line and where there are dry grasses or shrubs that could catch a spark, ignite, and spread into a catastrophic wildfire. And so we're trying to give the utility specific things that they can do to reduce risk. So to make their actions really data driven and to make it really clear where they can spend the time and money to have hopefully the biggest effect on eliminating risks, because that's what we're here to do. And this is both the risk of wildfires, but it's also the risk of power outages, which of course, in a world of a changing climate, power outages can mean lives lost, of course, has huge economic impact. So it's really the whole piece.
[07:15]
A
And is Wildfire the North Star at this point? Are you building products around wildfire management or would you say broadly? The idea is helping them have a 360 degree view of their system.
[07:32]
B
Overall, it's more the latter, so it's more resilience broadly. Now, Wildfire is a huge piece of that and it's a big focus of ours right now and has been a big focus for the last 12 months and will continue to be. But I would say, well, just to take a step back, we started in 2019. We were part of the Techstars program, which is of course how you got to know Overstory. And early on, we were really focused on understanding vegetation broadly. And so in the very early days, we weren't yet focused on electric utilities. We were like many early stage startups. We were trying to get to product market fit. And we worked with some forestry companies, some railroad companies, NGOs. It wasn't until 2020 that we really narrowed that focus onto electric utilities and we've been laser focused on them ever since. So that's our only focus is really helping utilities prevent power outages and wildfires. So it started with that very specific trees along power lines. And now our goal is to be the one stop shop resilience platform where we are allowing utilities to have a network wide view of all the different risks and how they intersect. Because that's a big problem right now is there's a real siloed understanding of all the risks. And of course that's not life, that's not how it actually works in the real world. It's a combination of the health of the asset and the potential fuels around that asset that lead to what could potentially happen. So it's a broader focus now.
[09:11]
A
How have they historically managed that problem?
[09:15]
B
Well, I think very much in silos. So you have the vegetation management department which is doing their thing and trimming the trees, and then you have the departments that are focused on assets. Sometimes you have a separate wildfire department. So it is very siloed. And they're investing a lot in these areas. They're doing a lot. There's a lot of innovation, they're working with a lot of outside technologies. But I think if you talk to just about every utility that I talk to right now, they want a more holistic picture because they want to have a truer sense of where they can actually invest, to have a real impact on being more brilliant and how much
[09:58]
A
of the need is better data and how much of it is they don't even have the staffing capability to do the type of analysis that needs to happen today. I assume these utilities are dealing with the same workforce issues that every other industry is dealing with right now in terms of adequately staffing these types of functions.
[10:19]
B
Absolutely. I think that there's huge staffing pressures right now. Of course, every utility is different. So I'm going to make some generalizations here. In some cases, of course, they do need better data and more data. But broadly, I would say it's pretty rare for a utility to say to us, please just give us more data and give us more problems. They generally feel like they can't even address everything they already know about. So it's really about helping them prioritize and make sure that they are spending the time and money. And there's also a huge safety component to this as well, because every time they send someone out into the field, there are safety risks. So if we can help them be even smarter about when they need to send people and when they don't, and where and what equipment to send that helps on all of those fronts.
[11:15]
A
Is the regulatory space changing around them with respect to vegetation management today?
[11:22]
B
Yeah, I think the regulatory space is always changing and that's a very big aspect of what they have to deal with and what we really hope to help them deal with. To help them show in a very data driven and specific way what they're doing and why. To be able to address all of these different risks. It's a big component of what they're dealing with.
[11:48]
A
Maybe just before we go super deep into how the business is evolving, just describe the product. Walk us through what a utility sees when they're using overstory and what ultimately they're getting from the system.
[12:03]
B
At a high level, they see a bird's eye view of their network. So the only thing that a utility has to give to us in order to get to be onboarded onto overstory is we have to know the location of their poles and lines. So it's a very seamless process. Often that data is not correct because in the past they probably only needed to know where the location of a pole was to the fidelity of someone going out and finding that pole. But for us, and we're getting down into feet or in some cases inch level measurements, we need to really be certain that the pole is where we think it is. So we've actually built a lot of technology to help correct that data, to be more certain about where the poles and lines are so they get a sense of, okay, they can look a bird's eye view of where the highest risks on their network. And that takes into account a bunch of different things. It's proximity of the vegetation to the line. It is also where there are a bunch of unhealthy trees. It can also take into account historically where there have been outages. For customers that are really concerned about wildfire. We're also looking at the intersection of asset health and the potential fuels around those assets and how they could ignite. So it really depends on what is the problem that the utility is trying to solve. That depends on what their view in the product is going to be. And then we spend a lot of time listening to our customers and understanding what their sense of risk is. And so they really define the risk matrix and what's going to be high priority, what's going to be low priority. And then we run a series of models that determine where the risks are. Of course, the height, location, the health, and in some case the species of every tree on their network. And from that we recommend actions within the product that they could do to go out and reduce those risks.
[14:09]
A
And where do you get the data? Where does that data come from?
[14:13]
B
So the data that we acquire is the remote sensing data. So we have a bunch of partners who are, we're getting satellite data from and we also use aerial data. And so in the early days we basically had one or two sources. Now we have many, many sources of those data, which allows us to get that data quickly, to get to process it fast, and also in a more cost effective way. So that's the remote sensing data that we acquire. And then of course, we are getting more and more data from our customers as well about where the outages have occurred and other types of data that helped to make our recommendations even more useful to them.
[14:55]
A
How have technology changes in the last few years, particularly around computer vision and AI, changed what you've been able to offer?
[15:07]
B
So I think like every tech company in the world, we are remaking how we build the product and how we do everything we do every day. And so I think that LLMs broadly are helping us build our models more efficiently, build our product troubleshoot qa. That's a story that's probably not unique to us. On the computer vision front. Almost all of our models are home built. That's very much a part of our intellectual property. So we are constantly staying on top of all the advancements on that front and getting more and more accurate so that utilities really feel like they can absolutely rely on all the recommendations that we're giving them.
[15:52]
A
I saw a video I don't know if you guys posted on LinkedIn or where it was, but it was. You show a blurry bird's eye view picture of a bunch of trees with power lines. And then you ran a swiper over and it went down to, I mean, it looked like the highest resolution photo I've ever seen. And I was curious if you could describe what that is that you're overlaying on top of it. Is it you guys providing an intelligence layer on top of the imagery you're able to ascertain?
[16:20]
B
Yeah, I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I think the LinkedIn post you're talking about is probably relating to our fuel detection model, which is very high fidelity and the first on the market at that degree of resolution, which really, when you're talking about fuels and the likelihood of a spark turning into a wildfire ignition, you really need to have A high degree of fidelity and high resolution imagery in order to be able to make the recommendations that you need to make. And so I think in that case, that's what that was about, is sort of showing we can really get down to the level of understanding the different fuels that might be under the line
[17:02]
A
in this case and on the wildfire side in that regard. How much of your customer use is long term preventative maintenance? And as we saw here, where I live in Los Angeles, with the Palisades fire last year, there was quite a bit of oh my gosh, within the next week, we know there's going to be this major wind event. And is there some last minute work we need to do to navigate specific impacts of what we expect from this specific event?
[17:32]
B
It's really both, I would say in the near term, we do have some customers who are using overstory to determine whether and when they should do a, what's known as a psps, a public safety power shutoff. So that's one near term way. I would say in most cases it's not absolutely right now. Once there's a red flag warning, it's more about what to do in the future. But utilities are using it in both cases.
[18:00]
A
I guess the PSPS as you refer to it, I hadn't heard that term before, would be, oh, shoot, we didn't get these lines trimmed, even though we probably knew we should have. And so we probably need to shut things down for now. Is that how that would work?
[18:14]
B
Well, I don't want to make it sound like a PSPS public safety power shutoff is a failure in any sense because that's not necessarily sometimes. It's just that the conditions are so bad in terms of wind and the dryness that it's simply the most responsible thing to do. And listen, utilities, their entire way of operating is to keep the power on. So you can imagine if they are considering turning the power off that things are pretty bad. And that's a big area of focus, is putting together these programs of really understanding when they need to turn the power off and not. So that's just one area that we've seen our customers using overstory.
[18:56]
A
How did they use overstory in the broader suite of solutions they use in this space, whether it's drones, whether it's truck rolls, whether it's dynamic line rating technologies. If I'm a utility executive today and I'm building my portfolio of grid intelligence, how am I thinking about constructing it so broadly?
[19:17]
B
We are in the realm of prevention. So there's A bunch of technology, really interesting technology that happens either after the spark in the wildfire realm, after the spark, or after the wildfire has actually started. But we are all in the prevention space and lane. And so I think where they're thinking about us, and as I said a little while ago, I think there's clearly signals that they want to bring more together so things feel too segmented. But where they're looking to overstory is they're thinking about, okay, how do I make sure that where I'm spending all this money to try to prevent power outages and wildfires, how do I make sure that it's actually having an impact and that I'm not spinning my wheels on things that are not actually where the biggest risks are, are so broadly, that's where we come in, is how do they make sure that the work that they're prescribing is the right work at the right time and that it's done in the most efficient way. Largely that has been in the vegetation realm. It's starting to be more broadly into asset health and other areas as well, just broadly in the whole realm of resilience and also of course, anything in the realm of wildfire mitigation.
[20:43]
A
What have you learned now, multiple years in, about selling into utilities? Take this as a moment to be the wise sage who can share both with other startup CEOs about what you've learned and what maybe they might want to take as advice. But also hopefully quite a few utility executives are listening to this episode as well, and maybe what advice you could give them about the sales process and how you have navigated it. Use this as your bully pulpit to share a little bit about your learnings.
[21:14]
B
And also investors as well, many investors
[21:18]
A
who think, oh, utilities, that sounds hard. I don't want to do that.
[21:21]
B
At least a few years ago when I would be talking to investors and say that we sell exclusively into utilities and sometimes see the blood come out of it. But that has changed a lot. And I think that AI and the fact that the tech industry and utility industry, their futures are more entangled than they were a few years ago. And the tech industry has come to have a lot more, at least I hope they have a lot more respect and understanding of just what it takes to generate all this power. But sort of getting back to your original question, we are all in on utilities for a reason. We are here to help communities adapt to to climate change and to be more resilient. And we see utilities at being right at the heart of that. And you cannot solve climate change without having a resilient and reliable electrical grid. It just can't happen. That's why we think that there's just huge impact here. And that's why we've decided to stay focused on this one industry. Sure, utilities, and they will own up to the fact that they are often not the fastest moving group of people, but they've got a huge amount of risk that they're dealing with. And the risks are just getting worse each year. The storms, I talk a lot to utilities in the south, and the storms that they're dealing with, the utilities now that are having to deal with wildfire risk in the south and in the East. PGE runs this incredible wildfire conference every year. And there are east coast and southern utilities there, which would have been unheard of even a year or two ago. But now the risks that they're dealing with are real and ripe, and in many cases, they're existential. Listen, I understand why they want to ask a lot of questions, why they have serious cybersecurity requirements. All of this makes a lot of sense. You have to go in eyes wide open that this is not going to be a quick process. And that's why, you know, we've focused a lot on the partnership side and why building that trust, really understanding their pain and what they're trying to accomplish is key. If you go in and just with a bit of a cowboy attitude and say, okay, we can get this done in a month or two without actually like really building those relationships, then it's not going to work. So that's the approach we've taken.
[23:54]
A
Anything you've learned about how to structure an initial engagement, how to navigate pilots contracts that you think works broadly, you don't need to unveil any overstory secret sauce, but things that you think are the right shape for this industry and this customer segment?
[24:10]
B
Well, I would say especially in the US And Canada, where utilities are not competing with each other, that word of mouth recommendation matters a ton. So that's why your reputation matters a ton. And so we often when we're talking to a new prospect, we will try to connect them with one of our existing customers as quickly as possible. And in some cases, they'll get on a call. And that, of course, is the best for us to have our customers speaking on our behalf is the best. And so I would say that's one thing that we focus on a lot of. And we care deeply about that trust and reputation. And we're not perfect. We make some mistakes. Occasionally and our approach is to own up and fix as quickly as possible. Because that's how you build those reputations
[25:00]
A
and you sell to everybody from giant utilities like PG and E to small rural co ops. Have you found that it's the same product you're selling to each of these customers or do you need to build different products depending on the customer type that you're going after?
[25:19]
B
Our initial focus was on the co op so on the smaller utilities. And then we actually found that that product that we built for the co ops had a lot of traction with the larger utilities, what are known as the investor owned utilities. The bulk of our focus now is with the investor owned utilities. So we serve six of the 10 largest utilities in North America. At a very basic level, they're trying to accomplish the same thing. They're trying to avoid power outages and wildfires. Of course there's a different degree of resources. The budgets are bigger, often a different degree of technical depth. And some of them have in house data science departments, whereas the smaller utilities don't. And so I would say it's a very different engagement process. But ultimately what we are giving them, we want it to be working for them and working in their systems. And that is the case whether it's a very small utility or the largest. We have taken a very open approach. And one of our key results is how many programs have been permanently changed at the utility because of overstory. That's how we measure success is are they actually changing their workflows? Because if you're just dumping a bunch of data on them and trying to tell yourself you're doing a great job because of all the data, you're not. So that's why we have to meet them wherever they are, in whatever system they're using, because that's how you're going to actually have an impact.
[26:54]
A
And you talked about how many of these utilities are relatively siloed. They might have vegetation management in one department, they might have wildfire in a different department, they might have asset management in a different department. Do you have to go get all of them lined up to make your initial sale or can you sell into one department and then expand the business into others?
[27:15]
B
In the early days it was quite a bit more siloed. We are now lucky enough because of the reputation that we build and because of the traction that we have that most of our contacts are at the C level. And so therefore we'll go in in one department, but we have those broad contacts across the other departments as well. So we're able to pull it all in.
[27:39]
A
That's part of, I guess, landing bigger deals as you've become a bigger company.
[27:43]
B
Exactly.
[27:44]
A
How has the geographic interest shifted you talked about in the U.S. now you're talking to utilities on the east coast and in the southern states. But outside of the US as well, where are you seeing lots of interest in wildfire management, in vegetation management, in uptime management? Obviously the company itself is based in Europe and Amsterdam. But I'm curious what that overall, if I were to take a step back and look at what are the heat spots on the map around the globe that are really, truly deeply worried about wildfires today, what does that look like and how has that changed even in the time you've been in the role?
[28:22]
B
So one technicality is we were founded in the Netherlands and we have a very global team, so represent about just north of a hundred people, 16 nationalities, 16 languages spoken. We work from 12 different countries. So we are fully remote and for a company of a hundred people, I think one of the most truly global companies, at least that I know. But we actually flip. We are now a US Company. We have a Dutch subsidiary now. So that's the technicality. But to answer your question, I mean one of our superpowers has been our focus. So we have really stayed focused on the US And Canada because honestly we've just had so much momentum and would sort of be irresponsible to shift that focus. But that is changing and you're going to see us be looking into other areas more seriously. I think what has happened in Europe this summer with the heat wave, it is a very, very big deal, especially what France has gone through. The wildfires right now in France, what the horrible tragedy that happened in Spain a few weeks ago with many lives lost. If you're asking, unfortunately, Wildfire is a global problem. There's even wildfires in Britain and the Netherlands where there are known to be very wet countries. But I think the southern European countries and including France is an area that are really feeling the pain a lot. The European Union is putting a lot of emphasis on firefighting. So that's an area that we're looking up.
[29:55]
A
What's next for overstory? And I'll ask the question in a very open ended way, what's next on product? But also you've navigated a lot of change in the organization over the last two years or so. Some of it very hard, I'm sure, for the company to manage, maybe reflect a little on that and then talk about what's next for the business you laid out this incredible global company that's got a fully remote workforce. How has the company evolved and where do you feel like you're going?
[30:26]
B
We started with in 2020, I moved across the ocean to join a 10 person startup that was based in Amsterdam and like every company in the world in March of 2020 suddenly had to go remote. But at that time we thought we were going to be going back into the office. We work in Amsterdam. And so that's why I picked up and moved my whole life after 20 years in New York to join these two amazing co founders, Indra Denbacher and Anik Skelton. Because I was just super excited about who they were as people and I wanted to build a business with them. And tragically, Indra was diagnosed with cancer in late November of 2023. So he and Anique, who was his co founder but also his life partner and Anique was the coo, Indra was the CEO. And so they had to step away from the business overnight, literally. So I stepped in as CEO. Then tragically, we lost Indra in October of 2024 at the age of 35, which is just unimaginable. And they are and were very close friends of mine. I feel close to their families. It has been a tremendous thing for the company to navigate. I know Indra would be so proud of how we have done that and resilience so to transition into what's next for overstory. So we really want to be the one stop shop resilience platform for utilities. And I think resilience is a word it's sometimes you could say maybe it's overused, but is absolutely a word that applies to our team. I mean the way that we have dealt with what was truly a personal tragedy and really done Indra proud in everything that we've been able to build and how we've been serving our customers. I'm super proud of that. So yeah, what's coming next is. Stay tuned, there are going to be some exciting product announcements coming. But we started in the vegetation space. Being the satellite vegetation people, we are already much broader than that in terms of the impact that we're having in the wildfire space and more broadly and how util are making decisions about how to create a resilient grid. And we're going to be building a lot that is right for the AI world that we are living in. And that's what we're excited about.
[32:56]
A
First of all, thank you for framing the founding story the way you did and obviously I didn't know Indra super well, but knew him when he was in Techstars and McJ. We made our very first investment in the company when Indra was leading the business.
[33:09]
B
He's been on this podcast, too.
[33:11]
A
He's been on the show. An amazing visionary founder that we all lost way too early. And I think the way you described the resilience of the company and what you've built and what you've continued to build and your ability to step in and drive as a leader, Fiona, through that is unbelievable and incredible. And I can't even imagine the strength it took to do that over the last few years.
[33:37]
B
Well, thank you. I keep a picture of him next to the shelf where I work back in my office in Amsterdam and think about him a lot. And all the amazing decisions that he made with Anique in the early days, and so much of that focus, that positivity, that really caring deeply about customers, caring deeply about the mission, all of that is very, very much a part of what Overstory is. And so I've been proud to carry that forward. Also, Indra had an incredibly wonderful sense of humor, a biting sense of humor, and I think it's very important to laugh. Building companies is hard, and this work is hard, and so I try to remember to laugh a lot. I think that's really important.
[34:24]
A
That is a good lesson. And, you know, and you're working in a space that is very serious as well. So I think being able to help a large, now global company also maintain its sense of culture, I'm sure, has been interesting. What do you guys do? Do you do team off sites or how do you navigate that? Largely distributed team.
[34:45]
B
So we believe fully in remote work and think that our ability to tap specialized people in all corners of the globe comes from the fact that we. We let people work where they're working. I also am really proud of the fact that we're about 50% female, and I think that that is not all that common in deep tech companies like ours. And I think that flexibility. We work really hard. We care deeply about our work, but we also prioritize life too, and that's a good thing. So we believe deeply in remote, but we also care deeply about our time together in real life. Before I worked at Overstar, I worked at meetup, which is all about bringing people together, the power of bringing people together in real life. I care deeply about that as well. So the things that we do, the whole company comes together once a year, usually in Europe, in different fun places. And so we spend three or four days together really just connecting. Connecting with the importance of our work. So that happens once a year. We also have mini team gatherings. So the different teams will get together in different spaces. And then we also give everyone at Overstory a budget to go meet up with other overstorians. And the only requirement is there's at least three people there. Just so you can't go visit your friend Sam in Stockholm, but at least you need to bring some people together and that has been awesome. So it's all self organized, obviously and it brings together people from different departments, different disciplines. They've rented a house in San Sebastian and they just come together and cowork and go hiking. We've gone to Athens, to Stockholm, to Edinburgh, Montreal. Lots of great connections. I'm not going to tell you we've 100% cracked the code. But we are very intentional about this. We're constantly evolving, trying to keep that connection and I think it's working.
[36:49]
A
We're a remote culture at MCJ as well. Much smaller team than you. But I'm curious, there's a bit of a movement right now of people wanting to go back to the office. In particular, I would say a lot of young people I talk to in their 20s are looking for that personal connection. How have you navigated that portion as the leader of the company here?
[37:09]
B
So the great news is that with the size and scale that we're at now, there are natural hubs that have formed. So we have mini hubs in New York City, in Philly, in San Francisco, in Philadelphia, certainly in Amsterdam, in London. Even a mini mini hub in Porto, in Portugal.
[37:30]
A
That's not terrible, not a terrible place.
[37:33]
B
Very, very nice place. We have a few within an hour or two of Paris and so we give everyone a budget for coworking every week. And so it's not required by any sense of the word. But a lot of folks, they genuinely like to get together and they do that ad hoc. So that's really great. It all depends on people's personal circumstances. But we really try to lean in on both, do all the remote best practices, but yet also really make time for that in person connection. Because of course there's nothing like it.
[38:07]
A
We at MCJ are proud to be three time investors in Overstory. Maybe trace a bit about the financing history of the business and how you have envisioned continuing to grow the company beyond that.
[38:21]
B
Yeah, we are thrilled to have MCJ as a multi time investor and we started by talking about I am at overstory because of McJ. 100%. That is how I connected with them. And we've had multiple people who have also come because of delonguo larger MCJ community. And so we really continue to thank you for that and the high caliber connections and just the high caliber of people that come into and out of the MCJ world. So that's a very, very much a part of the Overstory story. So one of our earliest investors were techstars. Hugo August, who was with techstars led that early investment and then he is now a partner at Samapa Next which has also been an early investor in Overstory. Pale Blue Dot, a very significant early investor for Overstory out of Malmo in Sweden. So a lot of our earlier investors were European. We brought on quite a few more American investors.
[39:25]
A
By the way, just a plug for Pale Blue Dot. Anyone who wants to really dig in on the European climate space, they host an amazing event which I was planning to be at this fall and then I've had to cancel unfortunately. But an amazing event in Malmo every fall called the Drop.
[39:42]
B
Totally agree.
[39:43]
A
Which is really the place to be I think for European climate tech.
[39:48]
B
It is wonderful. Yeah, I was there two years ago, so also totally agree with that plug. They've built a really, really good community. So that's awesome. So yeah, we are lucky to have some wonderful, wonderful investors and we talked about this company has been through a lot and those investors have a hundred percent been through that with us and have been really, really supportive. Closed our Series B late summer last year led by Bloom, which was a wonderful fund based in London. Also have an office in Amsterdam. Also brought on EIP Energy Impact Partners which has strong ties in the utility world. And then all of our other investors have participated in all the follow on rounds and so I feel really, really lucky to have the investors that we have and we're not fundraising now, not looking to fundraise in the near term. But the quality of the people is really, really important to me. And so whatever new investors that we bring on, it's a partner in building this business. That relationship is really, really important. We're lucky that I think that we can get money from a lot of people. But to me it's about who are the people who are going to join the journey with us.
[41:04]
A
Where do you need help right now?
[41:06]
B
Well, we are hiring for a bunch of critical roles, so go to overstory.com and check out the Careers page. And I would say MCJ World is a great source of great talent. So especially in the engineering and product realm, we've got a bunch of key open positions. So I think that's the main area where I would ask the listeners of this podcast to send great people our way. I'm a little bit biased, but I think it's a fabulous place to work.
[41:36]
A
Fiona, you're building a company that when you are wildly successful, the world doesn't know what you did saved lives. Your customers should know. I assume you're helping them maybe understand a little bit about like, oh, this work that we helped you do a year ago, if you hadn't have done it. Here's the counterfactual how do you think about your impact in that regard? It becomes, it's this sort of, I don't know the right way to phrase it, but this unseen hero role that
[42:08]
B
you fill for us talking about the number of catastrophic wildfires that we've prevented, that would be ridiculous at least to actually put forth a number would at this stage in the journey of utilities tracking their ignitions. Now, there's a growing degree of sophistication on that front. PG&E, for example, their ignitions data is incredible. But many other utilities do not have that data. And even if you can track your ignitions, of course there's a lot of other factors that go into what becomes a catastrophic wildfires. So I'm not going to lie, it's hard for the business that we're in to come up with the exact impact measurement. In the early days, we looked as a very broad measurement just in terms of the miles that we were analyzing as a proxy for impact. Now we're much more focused on, and I mentioned it earlier, is how many utilities are actually permanently changing operational programs because of Overstory. And that right now is the closest proxy that we feel like we have to saying, okay, what kind of an impact are we having? Of course, we have one customer in Canada who can attribute a 45% drop in vegetation related outages to using overstri. That is incredible. In many cases, the data, the fidelity of being able to track that. And the last thing we want to do is put out phony numbers. But I certainly hope in the future to be able to have more reliable data points like that to be able to share. But we know just based on the customer feedback, the size of the contracts, et cetera, we know that the impact is there. But exactly how you talk about things that you've helped them avoid is tricky.
[44:05]
A
Well, it's an amazing challenge that you all are taking on. And I assume each of the employees at Overstory hopefully recognize there probably are many sliding door moments in the world that Overstory has flipped the narrative on because of the work you've done, that if your platform hadn't been there, things in the real world would be very different than they are today for many, many lives out there.
[44:31]
B
Yeah, I still interview every candidate before they join Overstory, and I talk a lot to those people about why they want to join Overstory. And so I know that having a real impact on this front and helping to make communities safer in the face of climate change is why people want to work at Overstory. I certainly hope that the team feels that and we try to talk about it a lot as a team. It's why I'm working at Overstory. It's what I want my life's work to be. And so I'm not going to fake it. I'm not interested in working on something that doesn't have a real impact.
[45:06]
A
Diona, thank you so much. This has been awesome. It's great to catch up. Congrats on all that you've built and all that you're doing to lead this company.
[45:14]
B
Well, thank you, Cody. It's great to chat with you. Thank you for everything that MCJ has done for Overstory over the years. And yeah, look forward to many more chats and connections in the future.
[45:27]
A
Inevitable is an MCJ podcast. At mcj, we back founders driving the transition of energy and industry and solving the inevitable impacts of climate change. If you'd like to learn more about mcj, visit us at MCJ VC and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Newsletter MCJ vc. Thanks and see you next episode.

Summary8 min read

Podcast Summary: "How Overstory Cuts Outages and Wildfire Risk for Utilities"
Inevitable (an MCJ podcast) | Host: Cody Simms | Guest: Fiona (CEO, Overstory)
Original Release: August 11, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Cody Simms talks with Fiona, CEO of Overstory, a company specializing in advanced vegetation management solutions for utilities. Through satellite and aerial imagery, Overstory is making utility networks safer and more resilient, minimizing the risk of outages and catastrophic wildfires—a growing challenge as climate impacts intensify globally. The conversation covers how Overstory’s technology works, its evolution, the realities of serving utility customers, lessons on organizational resilience, and reflections on having a real impact in the fight against climate-driven disasters.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal & Professional Background (00:00–04:43)

Reconnection Story: Fiona and Cody reminisce about their early careers and how a chance MCJ webinar during the COVID-19 pandemic led Fiona to Overstory, with Cody facilitating her initial introduction to the company.
Life Transitions: Fiona moved from New York to Amsterdam to join Overstory as Chief Product Officer and is now CEO.

Utilities' Vegetation Management Challenge (04:43–06:17)

Vegetation management is among the largest operational costs for utilities ($6-$8B/year in the US), and a primary source of outages and wildfires.
The issue is no longer confined to the American West—now affecting the South, East Coast, and Europe as climate change worsens storms and lengthens fire seasons.

"Vegetation management is one of the single largest opex line items for utilities. The average utility generates power, has poles and lines, and does tree trimming." — Cody Simms (04:43)

"...some of the most catastrophic wildfires have come from the interaction of trees and/or sparks coming off of the equipment and igniting dry grasses." — Fiona (05:24)

Overstory's Mission & Platform Evolution (06:17–11:15)

What Overstory Does: Provides a comprehensive platform using satellite/aerial imagery to map utility networks and identify risks from vegetation and fuels.
Evolving Focus: Initially generalized across industries, Overstory narrowed in 2020 to electric utilities, now serving six of the ten largest in North America.
Goal: Become a holistic “resilience platform,” enabling utilities to assess and act on a broad range of risks—not just vegetation.

"We are trying to give the utility specific things that they can do to reduce risk... to make their actions really data driven." — Fiona (06:17)

"Our goal is to be the one stop shop resilience platform where we are allowing utilities to have a network wide view of all the different risks and how they intersect." — Fiona (08:04)

How Utilities Operate, and Where Overstory Fits In (09:11–11:15)

Departmental Silos: Utilities historically manage vegetation, assets, and wildfire separately, leading to incomplete risk management.
Key Utility Needs: Not necessarily “more data,” but prioritization and actionable insights, as staffing is a serious constraint amid safety risks.

"It's pretty rare for a utility to say to us, 'please just give us more data and give us more problems.' They generally feel like they can't even address everything they already know about." — Fiona (10:19)

Overstory's Product Walkthrough (11:48–14:54)

User Experience: Utilities provide the locations of their poles/lines; Overstory uses its tech to “correct” inexact field data, then delivers a dynamic, risk-based bird’s-eye view of their network.
Customization: Utilities define risk matrices and priorities; Overstory delivers recommended actions based on multiple data layers.
Underlying Data: Primarily from remote sensing partners (satellite and aerial imagery), supplemented by customers’ outage and incident data.

"At a high level, they see a bird's eye view of their network." — Fiona (12:03)

"We've actually built a lot of technology to help correct that data, to be more certain about where the poles and lines are." — Fiona (12:29)

Technology Breakthroughs: Computer Vision & AI (14:54–17:02)

LLMs and Computer Vision: Overstory leverages large language models and custom-built computer vision algorithms to build accurate, reliable models.
Unique Fuel Detection: First-to-market high-fidelity model for detecting ground fuels under power lines, crucial for wildfire risk mitigation.

"Almost all of our models are home built. That's very much a part of our intellectual property." — Fiona (15:07)

"You really need to have a high degree of fidelity and high resolution imagery in order to be able to make the recommendations that you need to make." — Fiona (16:20)

Use Cases: Prevention & Crisis Response (17:02–18:56)

Preventive & Reactive: Overstory is used for both long-term preventative maintenance and near-term event response (e.g., decisions about public safety power shutoffs, PSPS).
Integrating with Other Tech: Positioned as a prevention tool, Overstory works alongside drones, truck rolls, asset health tech, etc.

"We are in the realm of prevention." — Fiona (19:17)

Navigating Utility Sales & Scaling the Business (20:42–27:43)

Industry Focus: Utilities are cautious buyers, requiring trust, partnership, and long sales cycles, but Overstory’s focus and reputation have paid off.
Advice: Build trust, understand the customer's pain, don’t rush integrations, and leverage strong word-of-mouth in this close-knit sector.
Customer Base: From small rural co-ops to huge investor-owned utilities; product is adaptable, but engagement varies by resources and technical depth.
Expanding Reach: Increasingly, sales originate with higher-level (C-suite) contacts, enabling broader adoption within organizations.

"We are here to help communities adapt to climate change and to be more resilient. And we see utilities at being right at the heart of that." — Fiona (21:20)

"We often try to connect [new prospects] with one of our existing customers as quickly as possible." — Fiona (24:10)

"We serve six of the 10 largest utilities in North America." — Fiona (25:18)

Global Trends & Overstory’s Expansion (27:43–29:55)

International Footprint: Overstory started in the Netherlands, now a US company with a Dutch subsidiary, fully remote with >100 employees from 16 nationalities.
Geographic Trends: Historically US/Canada-focused due to market traction, but escalating European wildfires (notably France and Spain) are creating global opportunities.
Wildfire as a Global Problem: Increasingly a threat even in historically wet countries.

"One of our superpowers has been our focus. So we have really stayed focused on the US and Canada because honestly we've just had so much momentum." — Fiona (28:21)

Organizational Resilience & Future Vision (29:55–32:55)

Leadership Transition: Fiona describes the sudden, tragic loss of Overstory’s founder/CEO Indra, and COO/co-founder Anique stepping back, and how the company navigated grief and maintained focus.
Resilience as Core Value: Overstory aims to be the leading resilience platform for utilities, constantly evolving products for the AI-era.

"Indra was diagnosed with cancer in late November of 2023... and so they had to step away from the business overnight, literally... then tragically, we lost Indra in October of 2024 at the age of 35, which is just unimaginable." — Fiona (30:26)

"Resilience... is absolutely a word that applies to our team." — Fiona (31:12)

Company Culture & Remote Work (34:23–38:07)

Fully Remote and Diverse: >50% female, 16 languages, hubs in major cities worldwide, annual team gatherings, support for local meetups.
Balancing Flexibility and Connection: Regular in-person offsites, budgets for co-working and travel, but core commitment to remote work.

"We believe fully in remote work and think that our ability to tap specialized people in all corners of the globe comes from the fact that we let people work where they're working." — Fiona (34:44)

Funding & Investor Partnerships (38:07–41:04)

Funding Journey: Early investments from Techstars, Pale Blue Dot, MCJ; later, larger rounds led by Bloom, Energy Impact Partners, and others.
Investor Relationships: Emphasis on high-caliber, values-aligned investors; not actively fundraising as of this episode.

"To me it's about who are the people who are going to join the journey with us." — Fiona (41:04)

Measuring Impact—The Unseen Hero Role (41:36–44:31)

Impact Challenge: Difficult to measure avoided disasters or indirect benefits, but operational changes at utility partners and customer feedback suggest major impact.
Meaningful Work: Overstory employees are driven by the mission of keeping communities safe and building climate resilience.

"In the early days, we looked as a very broad measurement just in terms of the miles that we were analyzing as a proxy for impact. Now we're much more focused on...how many utilities are actually permanently changing operational programs because of Overstory." — Fiona (42:08)

Noteworthy Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Utility Challenges:
"It's really about helping them prioritize and make sure that they are spending the time and money... Every time they send someone out into the field, there are safety risks." (Fiona, 10:19)
On Selling into Utilities:
"You have to go in eyes wide open that this is not going to be a quick process. That's why we've focused a lot on the partnership side and why building that trust, really understanding their pain and what they're trying to accomplish is key." (Fiona, 22:30)
On Organizational Resilience:
"Resilience is absolutely a word that applies to our team. The way that we have dealt with what was truly a personal tragedy and really done Indra proud in everything that we've been able to build and how we've been serving our customers. I'm super proud of that." (Fiona, 31:12)
On Overstory’s Impact:
"We know just based on the customer feedback, the size of the contracts, etc, we know that the impact is there. But exactly how you talk about things that you've helped them avoid is tricky." (Fiona, 42:08)

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:00 – 04:43: Fiona’s journey to Overstory and reconnecting with Cody
04:43 – 06:17: Vegetation management as a utility challenge
06:17 – 11:15: What Overstory does and evolution of the platform
11:48 – 14:54: Product walkthrough and data sources
14:54 – 17:02: Computer vision, AI advances, and unique tech
17:02 – 18:56: Use cases: long-term maintenance and crisis response
20:42 – 27:43: Selling to utilities and scaling the business
27:43 – 29:55: Geographic expansion and global wildfire risk
29:55 – 32:55: Company resilience and future vision
34:23 – 38:07: Remote work, company culture, and team connection
38:07 – 41:04: Funding history and values in investor relationships
41:36 – 44:31: Measuring the impact and making a difference

Conclusion

Overstory is tackling one of the most pressing (and costly) problems in the energy sector: preventing outages and wildfires through smart, data-driven vegetation management. Fiona and Cody’s conversation brings to life the challenges, breakthroughs, and deeply human elements of leading a mission-oriented company through personal loss and sector-wide transformation. Overstory stands as a quiet force, helping utilities—and communities—stay resilient in the face of inevitable climate impacts.

For more:
Explore Overstory careers (overstory.com), and connect with the broader MCJ community for updates and opportunities.

Loading summary

Transcript81 lines

[00:00]
A
Vegetation management is one of the largest operating expenses a utility carries. Utilities in the US spend 6 to 8 billion dollars a year managing trees along their lines. And it's also one of the biggest sources of outages and catastrophic wildfires. And as we've all seen, that risk isn't confined to just the west either. The south, the east coast, and Europe are all dealing with it now, too. And it's only intensifying as storms get worse and fire seasons get longer. Fiona is running the company utilities are turning to as that risk becomes unavoidable. From McJ, I'm Cody Sims, and this is inevitable. Climate change is inevitable. It's already here, but so are the solutions shaping our future. Join us every week to learn from experts and entrepreneurs about the transition of energy and industry. Fiona, welcome to the show.
[01:09]
B
Thank you so much, Cody. It's so great to see you.
[01:11]
A
Well, this is a super full circle moment. You were reminiscing before we hit record about the chair you're sitting in and the room you're sitting in. And I'll let you tell the story, but super fun to get a chance to reconnect in this context after you and I, my gosh, I mean, I think we first were working on user research around New York Times website users back in like 2004. So it's certainly been a minute.
[01:38]
B
Absolutely, yeah. 2004. It may even have been earlier than that.
[01:42]
A
Earlier than that might have been. Yeah.
[01:43]
B
We worked together on the early days of the New York Times website and always had such respect for you. So it was awesome to reconnect in the climate world. So, yeah, I'm in North Carolina right now and sitting in the exact seat where I reconnected with you after what, 16 years? I think it was that we were both in an MCJ webinar, I think it was. And I saw the name Cody Sims and I was like, wait a second, I knew a Cody Sims and I reached out to you and then we had a call and you were working at techstars then. And we were talking about all the companies in the techstars portfolio that had a climate angle and Overstory was one of them. And Overstory had been on my list of companies that I had wanted to connect with. I at the time, I knew I wanted to work in climate, but I didn't know where and with whom. So I was talking to a whole bunch of companies and was thrilled. And so you're responsible for it all. You're the reason that I am at Overstory because you connected Me to Indra, the original CEO and co founder.
[02:51]
A
I will take zero credit because you're responsible for the path you've created for yourself. But so fun that you weren't yet at Overstory and I wasn't yet at MCJ the last time we were both sitting in the exact chairs we're currently sitting in.
[03:04]
B
Absolutely, yes. I think it was May of 2020 maybe.
[03:10]
A
Probably, yeah. We were all doing these weekend Covid era webinars, learning about climate change. What a crazy time.
[03:17]
B
This is actually my parents house in North Carolina and so I did that pandemic thing where moved in with my parents for three months.
[03:26]
A
People who listen to the show may not know this, but I actually record this show in a closet off my living room that I've now turned into a podcast studio. But I used to actually use it as a little office that I could shut door on and get away from my family when I was on calls. And so quite literally, you and I are both in the exact same seats. We were in in quite different professional seats at the time.
[03:47]
B
That is super, super cool. This is also the seat where I first talked to Indra and the place where I started to talk to him and his co founder and partner Anique about seriously joining Overstory. And my daughter was standing outside the door and I opened the door, I didn't know she was listening and she said, we're moving to Amsterdam.
[04:09]
A
Surprise, surprise. Yeah. And you've been in Amsterdam now for many years, I think.
[04:15]
B
Coming up on six years in the fall, I moved there to join Overstory after having lived in New York for 21 years. Moved with my husband and two children who were 8 and 4 at the time. So yeah, I was employee number 10 at Overstory, joined as chief product officer. So back in those days we had a bunch of models but didn't really have a product yet. So I got to work on the first version of the product, which was super fun.
[04:43]
A
Well, I want to dive right into the product itself and I think to do that maybe important to set some context on the utility space at large. And one of the things that has always stuck with me is I remember one of the first times you and I chatted after you became an expert in this space and were running the company. We caught up and you shared a fact with me that sticks with me to this day, which is basically telling me that vegetation management is one of the single largest opex line items for utilities. That the average utility generates power, has poles and lines, and does tree trimming. That always really Stuck with me. I'd love for you to maybe add a little context around that.
[05:25]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I think in the US utilities spend between 6 and 8 billion dollars a year managing trees along their line. So they are also big tree trimming companies. In most cases, they actually rely on contractors to do that, but it's often the largest line item in their operational budget. It's a huge source of outages. And unfortunately, some of the most catastrophic wildfires have come from the interaction of trees and or sparks coming off of the equipment and igniting dry grasses. So it's a real issue also when it comes to wildfire prevention.
[06:06]
A
Maybe describe in that case what Overstory's offering is today and just bring us up to speed and up to date with how the company has evolved.
[06:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So at a high level, we map a utility's whole network with satellite and aerial imagery in order to identify where trees could strike a line and where there are dry grasses or shrubs that could catch a spark, ignite, and spread into a catastrophic wildfire. And so we're trying to give the utility specific things that they can do to reduce risk. So to make their actions really data driven and to make it really clear where they can spend the time and money to have hopefully the biggest effect on eliminating risks, because that's what we're here to do. And this is both the risk of wildfires, but it's also the risk of power outages, which of course, in a world of a changing climate, power outages can mean lives lost, of course, has huge economic impact. So it's really the whole piece.
[07:15]
A
And is Wildfire the North Star at this point? Are you building products around wildfire management or would you say broadly? The idea is helping them have a 360 degree view of their system.
[07:32]
B
Overall, it's more the latter, so it's more resilience broadly. Now, Wildfire is a huge piece of that and it's a big focus of ours right now and has been a big focus for the last 12 months and will continue to be. But I would say, well, just to take a step back, we started in 2019. We were part of the Techstars program, which is of course how you got to know Overstory. And early on, we were really focused on understanding vegetation broadly. And so in the very early days, we weren't yet focused on electric utilities. We were like many early stage startups. We were trying to get to product market fit. And we worked with some forestry companies, some railroad companies, NGOs. It wasn't until 2020 that we really narrowed that focus onto electric utilities and we've been laser focused on them ever since. So that's our only focus is really helping utilities prevent power outages and wildfires. So it started with that very specific trees along power lines. And now our goal is to be the one stop shop resilience platform where we are allowing utilities to have a network wide view of all the different risks and how they intersect. Because that's a big problem right now is there's a real siloed understanding of all the risks. And of course that's not life, that's not how it actually works in the real world. It's a combination of the health of the asset and the potential fuels around that asset that lead to what could potentially happen. So it's a broader focus now.
[09:11]
A
How have they historically managed that problem?
[09:15]
B
Well, I think very much in silos. So you have the vegetation management department which is doing their thing and trimming the trees, and then you have the departments that are focused on assets. Sometimes you have a separate wildfire department. So it is very siloed. And they're investing a lot in these areas. They're doing a lot. There's a lot of innovation, they're working with a lot of outside technologies. But I think if you talk to just about every utility that I talk to right now, they want a more holistic picture because they want to have a truer sense of where they can actually invest, to have a real impact on being more brilliant and how much
[09:58]
A
of the need is better data and how much of it is they don't even have the staffing capability to do the type of analysis that needs to happen today. I assume these utilities are dealing with the same workforce issues that every other industry is dealing with right now in terms of adequately staffing these types of functions.
[10:19]
B
Absolutely. I think that there's huge staffing pressures right now. Of course, every utility is different. So I'm going to make some generalizations here. In some cases, of course, they do need better data and more data. But broadly, I would say it's pretty rare for a utility to say to us, please just give us more data and give us more problems. They generally feel like they can't even address everything they already know about. So it's really about helping them prioritize and make sure that they are spending the time and money. And there's also a huge safety component to this as well, because every time they send someone out into the field, there are safety risks. So if we can help them be even smarter about when they need to send people and when they don't, and where and what equipment to send that helps on all of those fronts.
[11:15]
A
Is the regulatory space changing around them with respect to vegetation management today?
[11:22]
B
Yeah, I think the regulatory space is always changing and that's a very big aspect of what they have to deal with and what we really hope to help them deal with. To help them show in a very data driven and specific way what they're doing and why. To be able to address all of these different risks. It's a big component of what they're dealing with.
[11:48]
A
Maybe just before we go super deep into how the business is evolving, just describe the product. Walk us through what a utility sees when they're using overstory and what ultimately they're getting from the system.
[12:03]
B
At a high level, they see a bird's eye view of their network. So the only thing that a utility has to give to us in order to get to be onboarded onto overstory is we have to know the location of their poles and lines. So it's a very seamless process. Often that data is not correct because in the past they probably only needed to know where the location of a pole was to the fidelity of someone going out and finding that pole. But for us, and we're getting down into feet or in some cases inch level measurements, we need to really be certain that the pole is where we think it is. So we've actually built a lot of technology to help correct that data, to be more certain about where the poles and lines are so they get a sense of, okay, they can look a bird's eye view of where the highest risks on their network. And that takes into account a bunch of different things. It's proximity of the vegetation to the line. It is also where there are a bunch of unhealthy trees. It can also take into account historically where there have been outages. For customers that are really concerned about wildfire. We're also looking at the intersection of asset health and the potential fuels around those assets and how they could ignite. So it really depends on what is the problem that the utility is trying to solve. That depends on what their view in the product is going to be. And then we spend a lot of time listening to our customers and understanding what their sense of risk is. And so they really define the risk matrix and what's going to be high priority, what's going to be low priority. And then we run a series of models that determine where the risks are. Of course, the height, location, the health, and in some case the species of every tree on their network. And from that we recommend actions within the product that they could do to go out and reduce those risks.
[14:09]
A
And where do you get the data? Where does that data come from?
[14:13]
B
So the data that we acquire is the remote sensing data. So we have a bunch of partners who are, we're getting satellite data from and we also use aerial data. And so in the early days we basically had one or two sources. Now we have many, many sources of those data, which allows us to get that data quickly, to get to process it fast, and also in a more cost effective way. So that's the remote sensing data that we acquire. And then of course, we are getting more and more data from our customers as well about where the outages have occurred and other types of data that helped to make our recommendations even more useful to them.
[14:55]
A
How have technology changes in the last few years, particularly around computer vision and AI, changed what you've been able to offer?
[15:07]
B
So I think like every tech company in the world, we are remaking how we build the product and how we do everything we do every day. And so I think that LLMs broadly are helping us build our models more efficiently, build our product troubleshoot qa. That's a story that's probably not unique to us. On the computer vision front. Almost all of our models are home built. That's very much a part of our intellectual property. So we are constantly staying on top of all the advancements on that front and getting more and more accurate so that utilities really feel like they can absolutely rely on all the recommendations that we're giving them.
[15:52]
A
I saw a video I don't know if you guys posted on LinkedIn or where it was, but it was. You show a blurry bird's eye view picture of a bunch of trees with power lines. And then you ran a swiper over and it went down to, I mean, it looked like the highest resolution photo I've ever seen. And I was curious if you could describe what that is that you're overlaying on top of it. Is it you guys providing an intelligence layer on top of the imagery you're able to ascertain?
[16:20]
B
Yeah, I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I think the LinkedIn post you're talking about is probably relating to our fuel detection model, which is very high fidelity and the first on the market at that degree of resolution, which really, when you're talking about fuels and the likelihood of a spark turning into a wildfire ignition, you really need to have A high degree of fidelity and high resolution imagery in order to be able to make the recommendations that you need to make. And so I think in that case, that's what that was about, is sort of showing we can really get down to the level of understanding the different fuels that might be under the line
[17:02]
A
in this case and on the wildfire side in that regard. How much of your customer use is long term preventative maintenance? And as we saw here, where I live in Los Angeles, with the Palisades fire last year, there was quite a bit of oh my gosh, within the next week, we know there's going to be this major wind event. And is there some last minute work we need to do to navigate specific impacts of what we expect from this specific event?
[17:32]
B
It's really both, I would say in the near term, we do have some customers who are using overstory to determine whether and when they should do a, what's known as a psps, a public safety power shutoff. So that's one near term way. I would say in most cases it's not absolutely right now. Once there's a red flag warning, it's more about what to do in the future. But utilities are using it in both cases.
[18:00]
A
I guess the PSPS as you refer to it, I hadn't heard that term before, would be, oh, shoot, we didn't get these lines trimmed, even though we probably knew we should have. And so we probably need to shut things down for now. Is that how that would work?
[18:14]
B
Well, I don't want to make it sound like a PSPS public safety power shutoff is a failure in any sense because that's not necessarily sometimes. It's just that the conditions are so bad in terms of wind and the dryness that it's simply the most responsible thing to do. And listen, utilities, their entire way of operating is to keep the power on. So you can imagine if they are considering turning the power off that things are pretty bad. And that's a big area of focus, is putting together these programs of really understanding when they need to turn the power off and not. So that's just one area that we've seen our customers using overstory.
[18:56]
A
How did they use overstory in the broader suite of solutions they use in this space, whether it's drones, whether it's truck rolls, whether it's dynamic line rating technologies. If I'm a utility executive today and I'm building my portfolio of grid intelligence, how am I thinking about constructing it so broadly?
[19:17]
B
We are in the realm of prevention. So there's A bunch of technology, really interesting technology that happens either after the spark in the wildfire realm, after the spark, or after the wildfire has actually started. But we are all in the prevention space and lane. And so I think where they're thinking about us, and as I said a little while ago, I think there's clearly signals that they want to bring more together so things feel too segmented. But where they're looking to overstory is they're thinking about, okay, how do I make sure that where I'm spending all this money to try to prevent power outages and wildfires, how do I make sure that it's actually having an impact and that I'm not spinning my wheels on things that are not actually where the biggest risks are, are so broadly, that's where we come in, is how do they make sure that the work that they're prescribing is the right work at the right time and that it's done in the most efficient way. Largely that has been in the vegetation realm. It's starting to be more broadly into asset health and other areas as well, just broadly in the whole realm of resilience and also of course, anything in the realm of wildfire mitigation.
[20:43]
A
What have you learned now, multiple years in, about selling into utilities? Take this as a moment to be the wise sage who can share both with other startup CEOs about what you've learned and what maybe they might want to take as advice. But also hopefully quite a few utility executives are listening to this episode as well, and maybe what advice you could give them about the sales process and how you have navigated it. Use this as your bully pulpit to share a little bit about your learnings.
[21:14]
B
And also investors as well, many investors
[21:18]
A
who think, oh, utilities, that sounds hard. I don't want to do that.
[21:21]
B
At least a few years ago when I would be talking to investors and say that we sell exclusively into utilities and sometimes see the blood come out of it. But that has changed a lot. And I think that AI and the fact that the tech industry and utility industry, their futures are more entangled than they were a few years ago. And the tech industry has come to have a lot more, at least I hope they have a lot more respect and understanding of just what it takes to generate all this power. But sort of getting back to your original question, we are all in on utilities for a reason. We are here to help communities adapt to to climate change and to be more resilient. And we see utilities at being right at the heart of that. And you cannot solve climate change without having a resilient and reliable electrical grid. It just can't happen. That's why we think that there's just huge impact here. And that's why we've decided to stay focused on this one industry. Sure, utilities, and they will own up to the fact that they are often not the fastest moving group of people, but they've got a huge amount of risk that they're dealing with. And the risks are just getting worse each year. The storms, I talk a lot to utilities in the south, and the storms that they're dealing with, the utilities now that are having to deal with wildfire risk in the south and in the East. PGE runs this incredible wildfire conference every year. And there are east coast and southern utilities there, which would have been unheard of even a year or two ago. But now the risks that they're dealing with are real and ripe, and in many cases, they're existential. Listen, I understand why they want to ask a lot of questions, why they have serious cybersecurity requirements. All of this makes a lot of sense. You have to go in eyes wide open that this is not going to be a quick process. And that's why, you know, we've focused a lot on the partnership side and why building that trust, really understanding their pain and what they're trying to accomplish is key. If you go in and just with a bit of a cowboy attitude and say, okay, we can get this done in a month or two without actually like really building those relationships, then it's not going to work. So that's the approach we've taken.
[23:54]
A
Anything you've learned about how to structure an initial engagement, how to navigate pilots contracts that you think works broadly, you don't need to unveil any overstory secret sauce, but things that you think are the right shape for this industry and this customer segment?
[24:10]
B
Well, I would say especially in the US And Canada, where utilities are not competing with each other, that word of mouth recommendation matters a ton. So that's why your reputation matters a ton. And so we often when we're talking to a new prospect, we will try to connect them with one of our existing customers as quickly as possible. And in some cases, they'll get on a call. And that, of course, is the best for us to have our customers speaking on our behalf is the best. And so I would say that's one thing that we focus on a lot of. And we care deeply about that trust and reputation. And we're not perfect. We make some mistakes. Occasionally and our approach is to own up and fix as quickly as possible. Because that's how you build those reputations
[25:00]
A
and you sell to everybody from giant utilities like PG and E to small rural co ops. Have you found that it's the same product you're selling to each of these customers or do you need to build different products depending on the customer type that you're going after?
[25:19]
B
Our initial focus was on the co op so on the smaller utilities. And then we actually found that that product that we built for the co ops had a lot of traction with the larger utilities, what are known as the investor owned utilities. The bulk of our focus now is with the investor owned utilities. So we serve six of the 10 largest utilities in North America. At a very basic level, they're trying to accomplish the same thing. They're trying to avoid power outages and wildfires. Of course there's a different degree of resources. The budgets are bigger, often a different degree of technical depth. And some of them have in house data science departments, whereas the smaller utilities don't. And so I would say it's a very different engagement process. But ultimately what we are giving them, we want it to be working for them and working in their systems. And that is the case whether it's a very small utility or the largest. We have taken a very open approach. And one of our key results is how many programs have been permanently changed at the utility because of overstory. That's how we measure success is are they actually changing their workflows? Because if you're just dumping a bunch of data on them and trying to tell yourself you're doing a great job because of all the data, you're not. So that's why we have to meet them wherever they are, in whatever system they're using, because that's how you're going to actually have an impact.
[26:54]
A
And you talked about how many of these utilities are relatively siloed. They might have vegetation management in one department, they might have wildfire in a different department, they might have asset management in a different department. Do you have to go get all of them lined up to make your initial sale or can you sell into one department and then expand the business into others?
[27:15]
B
In the early days it was quite a bit more siloed. We are now lucky enough because of the reputation that we build and because of the traction that we have that most of our contacts are at the C level. And so therefore we'll go in in one department, but we have those broad contacts across the other departments as well. So we're able to pull it all in.
[27:39]
A
That's part of, I guess, landing bigger deals as you've become a bigger company.
[27:43]
B
Exactly.
[27:44]
A
How has the geographic interest shifted you talked about in the U.S. now you're talking to utilities on the east coast and in the southern states. But outside of the US as well, where are you seeing lots of interest in wildfire management, in vegetation management, in uptime management? Obviously the company itself is based in Europe and Amsterdam. But I'm curious what that overall, if I were to take a step back and look at what are the heat spots on the map around the globe that are really, truly deeply worried about wildfires today, what does that look like and how has that changed even in the time you've been in the role?
[28:22]
B
So one technicality is we were founded in the Netherlands and we have a very global team, so represent about just north of a hundred people, 16 nationalities, 16 languages spoken. We work from 12 different countries. So we are fully remote and for a company of a hundred people, I think one of the most truly global companies, at least that I know. But we actually flip. We are now a US Company. We have a Dutch subsidiary now. So that's the technicality. But to answer your question, I mean one of our superpowers has been our focus. So we have really stayed focused on the US And Canada because honestly we've just had so much momentum and would sort of be irresponsible to shift that focus. But that is changing and you're going to see us be looking into other areas more seriously. I think what has happened in Europe this summer with the heat wave, it is a very, very big deal, especially what France has gone through. The wildfires right now in France, what the horrible tragedy that happened in Spain a few weeks ago with many lives lost. If you're asking, unfortunately, Wildfire is a global problem. There's even wildfires in Britain and the Netherlands where there are known to be very wet countries. But I think the southern European countries and including France is an area that are really feeling the pain a lot. The European Union is putting a lot of emphasis on firefighting. So that's an area that we're looking up.
[29:55]
A
What's next for overstory? And I'll ask the question in a very open ended way, what's next on product? But also you've navigated a lot of change in the organization over the last two years or so. Some of it very hard, I'm sure, for the company to manage, maybe reflect a little on that and then talk about what's next for the business you laid out this incredible global company that's got a fully remote workforce. How has the company evolved and where do you feel like you're going?
[30:26]
B
We started with in 2020, I moved across the ocean to join a 10 person startup that was based in Amsterdam and like every company in the world in March of 2020 suddenly had to go remote. But at that time we thought we were going to be going back into the office. We work in Amsterdam. And so that's why I picked up and moved my whole life after 20 years in New York to join these two amazing co founders, Indra Denbacher and Anik Skelton. Because I was just super excited about who they were as people and I wanted to build a business with them. And tragically, Indra was diagnosed with cancer in late November of 2023. So he and Anique, who was his co founder but also his life partner and Anique was the coo, Indra was the CEO. And so they had to step away from the business overnight, literally. So I stepped in as CEO. Then tragically, we lost Indra in October of 2024 at the age of 35, which is just unimaginable. And they are and were very close friends of mine. I feel close to their families. It has been a tremendous thing for the company to navigate. I know Indra would be so proud of how we have done that and resilience so to transition into what's next for overstory. So we really want to be the one stop shop resilience platform for utilities. And I think resilience is a word it's sometimes you could say maybe it's overused, but is absolutely a word that applies to our team. I mean the way that we have dealt with what was truly a personal tragedy and really done Indra proud in everything that we've been able to build and how we've been serving our customers. I'm super proud of that. So yeah, what's coming next is. Stay tuned, there are going to be some exciting product announcements coming. But we started in the vegetation space. Being the satellite vegetation people, we are already much broader than that in terms of the impact that we're having in the wildfire space and more broadly and how util are making decisions about how to create a resilient grid. And we're going to be building a lot that is right for the AI world that we are living in. And that's what we're excited about.
[32:56]
A
First of all, thank you for framing the founding story the way you did and obviously I didn't know Indra super well, but knew him when he was in Techstars and McJ. We made our very first investment in the company when Indra was leading the business.
[33:09]
B
He's been on this podcast, too.
[33:11]
A
He's been on the show. An amazing visionary founder that we all lost way too early. And I think the way you described the resilience of the company and what you've built and what you've continued to build and your ability to step in and drive as a leader, Fiona, through that is unbelievable and incredible. And I can't even imagine the strength it took to do that over the last few years.
[33:37]
B
Well, thank you. I keep a picture of him next to the shelf where I work back in my office in Amsterdam and think about him a lot. And all the amazing decisions that he made with Anique in the early days, and so much of that focus, that positivity, that really caring deeply about customers, caring deeply about the mission, all of that is very, very much a part of what Overstory is. And so I've been proud to carry that forward. Also, Indra had an incredibly wonderful sense of humor, a biting sense of humor, and I think it's very important to laugh. Building companies is hard, and this work is hard, and so I try to remember to laugh a lot. I think that's really important.
[34:24]
A
That is a good lesson. And, you know, and you're working in a space that is very serious as well. So I think being able to help a large, now global company also maintain its sense of culture, I'm sure, has been interesting. What do you guys do? Do you do team off sites or how do you navigate that? Largely distributed team.
[34:45]
B
So we believe fully in remote work and think that our ability to tap specialized people in all corners of the globe comes from the fact that we. We let people work where they're working. I also am really proud of the fact that we're about 50% female, and I think that that is not all that common in deep tech companies like ours. And I think that flexibility. We work really hard. We care deeply about our work, but we also prioritize life too, and that's a good thing. So we believe deeply in remote, but we also care deeply about our time together in real life. Before I worked at Overstar, I worked at meetup, which is all about bringing people together, the power of bringing people together in real life. I care deeply about that as well. So the things that we do, the whole company comes together once a year, usually in Europe, in different fun places. And so we spend three or four days together really just connecting. Connecting with the importance of our work. So that happens once a year. We also have mini team gatherings. So the different teams will get together in different spaces. And then we also give everyone at Overstory a budget to go meet up with other overstorians. And the only requirement is there's at least three people there. Just so you can't go visit your friend Sam in Stockholm, but at least you need to bring some people together and that has been awesome. So it's all self organized, obviously and it brings together people from different departments, different disciplines. They've rented a house in San Sebastian and they just come together and cowork and go hiking. We've gone to Athens, to Stockholm, to Edinburgh, Montreal. Lots of great connections. I'm not going to tell you we've 100% cracked the code. But we are very intentional about this. We're constantly evolving, trying to keep that connection and I think it's working.
[36:49]
A
We're a remote culture at MCJ as well. Much smaller team than you. But I'm curious, there's a bit of a movement right now of people wanting to go back to the office. In particular, I would say a lot of young people I talk to in their 20s are looking for that personal connection. How have you navigated that portion as the leader of the company here?
[37:09]
B
So the great news is that with the size and scale that we're at now, there are natural hubs that have formed. So we have mini hubs in New York City, in Philly, in San Francisco, in Philadelphia, certainly in Amsterdam, in London. Even a mini mini hub in Porto, in Portugal.
[37:30]
A
That's not terrible, not a terrible place.
[37:33]
B
Very, very nice place. We have a few within an hour or two of Paris and so we give everyone a budget for coworking every week. And so it's not required by any sense of the word. But a lot of folks, they genuinely like to get together and they do that ad hoc. So that's really great. It all depends on people's personal circumstances. But we really try to lean in on both, do all the remote best practices, but yet also really make time for that in person connection. Because of course there's nothing like it.
[38:07]
A
We at MCJ are proud to be three time investors in Overstory. Maybe trace a bit about the financing history of the business and how you have envisioned continuing to grow the company beyond that.
[38:21]
B
Yeah, we are thrilled to have MCJ as a multi time investor and we started by talking about I am at overstory because of McJ. 100%. That is how I connected with them. And we've had multiple people who have also come because of delonguo larger MCJ community. And so we really continue to thank you for that and the high caliber connections and just the high caliber of people that come into and out of the MCJ world. So that's a very, very much a part of the Overstory story. So one of our earliest investors were techstars. Hugo August, who was with techstars led that early investment and then he is now a partner at Samapa Next which has also been an early investor in Overstory. Pale Blue Dot, a very significant early investor for Overstory out of Malmo in Sweden. So a lot of our earlier investors were European. We brought on quite a few more American investors.
[39:25]
A
By the way, just a plug for Pale Blue Dot. Anyone who wants to really dig in on the European climate space, they host an amazing event which I was planning to be at this fall and then I've had to cancel unfortunately. But an amazing event in Malmo every fall called the Drop.
[39:42]
B
Totally agree.
[39:43]
A
Which is really the place to be I think for European climate tech.
[39:48]
B
It is wonderful. Yeah, I was there two years ago, so also totally agree with that plug. They've built a really, really good community. So that's awesome. So yeah, we are lucky to have some wonderful, wonderful investors and we talked about this company has been through a lot and those investors have a hundred percent been through that with us and have been really, really supportive. Closed our Series B late summer last year led by Bloom, which was a wonderful fund based in London. Also have an office in Amsterdam. Also brought on EIP Energy Impact Partners which has strong ties in the utility world. And then all of our other investors have participated in all the follow on rounds and so I feel really, really lucky to have the investors that we have and we're not fundraising now, not looking to fundraise in the near term. But the quality of the people is really, really important to me. And so whatever new investors that we bring on, it's a partner in building this business. That relationship is really, really important. We're lucky that I think that we can get money from a lot of people. But to me it's about who are the people who are going to join the journey with us.
[41:04]
A
Where do you need help right now?
[41:06]
B
Well, we are hiring for a bunch of critical roles, so go to overstory.com and check out the Careers page. And I would say MCJ World is a great source of great talent. So especially in the engineering and product realm, we've got a bunch of key open positions. So I think that's the main area where I would ask the listeners of this podcast to send great people our way. I'm a little bit biased, but I think it's a fabulous place to work.
[41:36]
A
Fiona, you're building a company that when you are wildly successful, the world doesn't know what you did saved lives. Your customers should know. I assume you're helping them maybe understand a little bit about like, oh, this work that we helped you do a year ago, if you hadn't have done it. Here's the counterfactual how do you think about your impact in that regard? It becomes, it's this sort of, I don't know the right way to phrase it, but this unseen hero role that
[42:08]
B
you fill for us talking about the number of catastrophic wildfires that we've prevented, that would be ridiculous at least to actually put forth a number would at this stage in the journey of utilities tracking their ignitions. Now, there's a growing degree of sophistication on that front. PG&E, for example, their ignitions data is incredible. But many other utilities do not have that data. And even if you can track your ignitions, of course there's a lot of other factors that go into what becomes a catastrophic wildfires. So I'm not going to lie, it's hard for the business that we're in to come up with the exact impact measurement. In the early days, we looked as a very broad measurement just in terms of the miles that we were analyzing as a proxy for impact. Now we're much more focused on, and I mentioned it earlier, is how many utilities are actually permanently changing operational programs because of Overstory. And that right now is the closest proxy that we feel like we have to saying, okay, what kind of an impact are we having? Of course, we have one customer in Canada who can attribute a 45% drop in vegetation related outages to using overstri. That is incredible. In many cases, the data, the fidelity of being able to track that. And the last thing we want to do is put out phony numbers. But I certainly hope in the future to be able to have more reliable data points like that to be able to share. But we know just based on the customer feedback, the size of the contracts, et cetera, we know that the impact is there. But exactly how you talk about things that you've helped them avoid is tricky.
[44:05]
A
Well, it's an amazing challenge that you all are taking on. And I assume each of the employees at Overstory hopefully recognize there probably are many sliding door moments in the world that Overstory has flipped the narrative on because of the work you've done, that if your platform hadn't been there, things in the real world would be very different than they are today for many, many lives out there.
[44:31]
B
Yeah, I still interview every candidate before they join Overstory, and I talk a lot to those people about why they want to join Overstory. And so I know that having a real impact on this front and helping to make communities safer in the face of climate change is why people want to work at Overstory. I certainly hope that the team feels that and we try to talk about it a lot as a team. It's why I'm working at Overstory. It's what I want my life's work to be. And so I'm not going to fake it. I'm not interested in working on something that doesn't have a real impact.
[45:06]
A
Diona, thank you so much. This has been awesome. It's great to catch up. Congrats on all that you've built and all that you're doing to lead this company.
[45:14]
B
Well, thank you, Cody. It's great to chat with you. Thank you for everything that MCJ has done for Overstory over the years. And yeah, look forward to many more chats and connections in the future.
[45:27]
A
Inevitable is an MCJ podcast. At mcj, we back founders driving the transition of energy and industry and solving the inevitable impacts of climate change. If you'd like to learn more about mcj, visit us at MCJ VC and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Newsletter MCJ vc. Thanks and see you next episode.