MEET Yan
Yan Yan is an Investment Associate with TDK Ventures, supporting its investment practices in cleantech, advanced material, and bio-based materials.
Prior to joining TDK Ventures, she was an engagement manager at ADL Ventures. Her roles at ADL included sourcing, evaluating, and supporting new climate tech ventures, which allowed her to look into a wide range of climate tech topics, including grid hardening/wildfire prevention, gas system decarbonization, and advanced building materials. Prior to ADL Ventures, she was a TATA Technology Design Fellow at MIT, looking into biosynthetic natural gas-production optimization for emerging markets.
Yan Yan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
She is an avid home cook and hopes to one day write a cookbook about the food that she grew up with. She is passionate about climate tech investment and building a tighter climate community to connect climate tech innovators with peers, investors, corporates, and regulators.
AWARDS
Portfolio Companies Served
Board Observer
pH7 Technologies developed a proprietary metal-extraction process utilizing non-toxic organic and inorganic chemistry, as well as electrochemistry to drive extraction of metals and key minerals from ores, concentrates, and end-of-life materials.
NovoLINC has developed a unique nanostructured materials system and proprietary manufacturing process to revolutionize thermal management for high-performance computing, data centers, automobile, aerospace and power electronics.
Current & Ongoing Deep Explorations
High Temperature Superconductor
High-temperature superconductors (HTS) are projected to grow rapidly across power transmission, medical, fusion, and quantum applications. Supply-demand imbalance may create opportunity, but scaling Western HTS production remains difficult due to rare-earth-element feedstock constraints and manufacturing throughput limits. This offers innovation opportunities for new materials and novel high-throughput and scalable manufacturing processes.
Isotope Production
Radioisotopes are foundational to medicine, fusion power, and industry. Most are produced in aging nuclear reactors, many over 50 years old and nearing retirement by the 2030s. Rising demand, limited supply, and emerging alternative production approaches may unlock scalable, high-efficiency, high-purity isotope production with venture-scale potential.
Previous Deep Explorations
Photonic Light Source for Transceivers
Green Steel
Advanced Cooling
Carbon utilization via sustainable aviation fuel
Precious Metal Recycling
