Rick Fox, former NBA player and founder of startup Partanna, aims to make a difference in climate change through his company. After the destruction wrought by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, where he grew up, and the Woolsey Fires in Malibu, where his manager was displaced, he connected with architect Sam Marshall, who had been working on a new formulation of concrete that acts like a tree. Fox and Marshall founded Partanna in 2021, which has now received $12 million in pre-seed funding from Cherubic Ventures and is valued at $190 million post-money, according to PitchBook data.
Photo Credit: Marek Piwnicki