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- 🇩🇪 ClimateHack Vol. 40: Germany's Climate Tech Startups
🇩🇪 ClimateHack Vol. 40: Germany's Climate Tech Startups
PLUS: big oil is behind 20% of climate tech funding.
Hey There,
It's the end of the quarter.
Taking a look back at the last 3 months, we've been through a banking crisis, a boom in AI, tech layoffs, green deals, greenwashing, snowstorms, natural disasters, scientific breakthroughs, company closures, and everything in-between. Phew.
I have no idea what's in store for the rest of the year, but what I do know is know is that our climate issues aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
It is though extremely encouraging to see just how big the discussion around climate has gotten in 2023 (we even made it to Apple TV) and the shift towards more builders, operators and investors coming into the sector to tackle hard climate problems.
Whatever the next 9 months throws at us, we'll be here, each week, to keep you updated along the way on the top climate news you need to know.
In today's edition:
🇩🇪 Our list of the 100+ German climate tech startups and their CEO's. 🚜 Agreena secures €46 million Series B funding for healthier soil carbon. 🎢 Cultivated meats rollercoaster week, from closures to 10kg prototypes.
Digest x Climate
📈 What’s up? Data from PitchBook shows that more than 20% of of climate tech funding in 2022 was in deals with participation from “big oil”.
🛩 A new Greenpeace report shows that pollution from private jets has soared in Europe, as the number of flights climbed from nearly 119,000 in 2020 to 573,000 in 2022, responsible for more emissions than the whole of Uganda, home to 46 million people.
📉 What’s down? London-based sustainable investing platform Clim8, founded in 2019, is shutting down operations, citing a difficult venture capital environment.
🇬🇧 The UK government’s new net zero plan has been met with intense criticism from experts and environmental groups, who claim the measures are “enough to downgrade the UK's role as a leader in tackling climate change."
Carbon x Climate
🔎 London-based Connect Earth secured $5.6 million to grow its sustainability tools for financial firms, designed to help them track their carbon footprint and monitor the environmental impact in their decision-making.
📊 Berlin-based Atlas Metrics secured €5.2 million seed funding, in a round led by b2venture and Cherry Ventures, to expand its “all-in-one” logic model-based ESG data management platform for businesses.
Food x Climate
🚜 Agreena, based in Denmark, secured €46 million Series B funding in a round led by HV Capital, with new capital from AENU and Anthemis, for its soil carbon platform that financially incentivises farmers to shift to regenerative agriculture practices.
🧪 Australian female-founded startup Cauldron raised $10.5 million seed funding in a round led by Main Sequence and Horizon Ventures. It will use the funds to expand its existing precision fermentation pilot plant, and eventually wants to build Asia-Pacific’s largest network of precision fermentation facilities.
🧫 UK-based biotech BSF Enterprise raised £2.9 million via an oversubscribed placing to support its subsidiary, 3D Bio Tissues, to produce cultivated meat and leather using its serum-free media platform.
🏭 US-based cultivated meat startup New Age Eats which previously raised $25M in funding, has this week announced they'd be shutting down after failing to secure new funding to complete work on its pilot facility.
🇮🇹 The Italian government introduced a draft law that, if approved, will ban the production and sale of cultivated meat, in order to “protect the country’s heritage”.
🥩 TissenBioFarm, based in South Korea, unveiled a 10kg cultivated meat prototype at the country’s first cellular agriculture hub, the North Gyeongsang Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center. But not everyone is so convinced.
Energy x Climate
🏡 Effy, based in France, secured €20 million in a round led by Felix Capital. It offers turnkey home energy renovation projects through its network of more than 3,600 local partner craftsmen.
🌡 UK-based Mixergy raised £9.2 million, in a round featuring EDP Ventures and Nesta, to leverage the principle of thermal stratification. It is developing sensing and control capabilities that convert hot water tanks effectively into smart heat batteries, enabling energy sources to only create heat when needed.
🔋 Elektros ELEK announced the launch of its new clean energy technology brand, Elektros Energy, committed to responsibly sourcing Lithium and focused on the growing EV charging industry.
🪟 Canadian startup 3E Nano raised $4 million seed funding and secured CAD $5 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada for its patented thermal energy control window nano-coating, that is transparent, flexible, and low-cost, designed to increase a window’s insulation effectiveness.
Materials x Climate
♻️ German packaging recycling startup Recyda raised €1.75 million to support its international expansion plans. Its SaaS platform is designed to help businesses and brands assess the recyclability of packaging based on international regulations.
👟 Canadian plant-based materials producer EVOCO raised CAD $12 million Series B funding, in a round led by Circular Innovation Fund, to further develop its portfolio. Its flagship product is a patented foam called FATES, which is 80% plant-based and designed for use in footwear.
🧪 London-based biomaterials company Modern Synthesis unveiled a “breakthrough class” of microbial materials made with nanocellulose produced using a first-of-its-kind biotechnology platform at its pilot facility.
👕 Japanese sports apparel manufacturer GOLDWIN INC. launched its Fall/Winter 2023 collection, featuring five brands using a structural protein material called Brewed Protein fiber, developed in partnership with Spiber Corporation.
Transport x Climate
⛴ Norwegian firm Norsepower Oy Ltd. secured €28 million Series C funding to scale production of its mechanical sails for large ships, to help bring wind power back to the 30,000-strong large vessel industry.
🚀 A team of University of Queensland engineers has won two awards for its 3D-printed rocket engines, which are powered by renewable energy and emit only water vapour.
Construction x Climate
🏗 Finnish startup Carbonaide secured €1.8 million seed funding to develop carbon-negative concrete. Its process binds CO2 into precast concrete using an automated system at atmospheric pressure, and it plans to introduce industrial waste products into the mix to produce concrete with a negative carbon footprint.
💡 VueReal secured CAD $8.5 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, plus CAD $2 million from Invest Ontario, to boost manufacturing capacity for its high-brightness microLED displays, which it says are 3.5 times more energy-efficient and produce five times more light than same-sized liquid crystal displays and organic light-emitting diode displays.
Funds x Climate
🍎 Dutch impact investor Future Food Fund announced the first closing of its second fund at €20 million, which it will invest in agrifood tech startups working in smart farming, regenerative agriculture, bio-based ingredients and alternative proteins.
💰 UK-based pension and insurance company Scottish Widows launched four new green investment funds totalling £1.4 billion to support companies developing solutions for clean energy, clean mobility, sustainable transport, biodiversity preservation, and pollution.
🇬🇧 The UK’s Cranfield University received a donation from Green Future Investments Ltd and announced the first six successful applicants to its Green Future Investments Ltd Technology Accelerator Fund, designed to support technical and prototype developments within climate technology. They include Lambda Energy, whose goal is to increase crop yields utilising greenhouses coated with sunlight changing films, and Bluemethane, a project focused on capturing methane from water to create a new source of bioenergy.
Resources x Climate
🇩🇪 We just released our list of 100 German Climate Tech startups to know.
A few observations:
Berlin is clearly Germany’s climate hotspot, with over half of the listed companies being based out of the country’s capital city.
Hard Tech representation is strong, with Energy, Food, Materials and Transport making up the bulk of Germany’s climate scene.
There’s plenty of capital to go around, with many of the top European climate funds being headquartered in Germany.
There’s deep experience at play, with several of the founders of these companies having previously started or worked at German unicorns.
Events x Climate
🙌 New Speakers: We just announced another 30+ new speakers for this years HackSummit including:
Patrick Torbey, Co-founder at Neoplants ($20M+ raised)
Jan Wilmking, Co-founder at Project Eaden ($12M+ raised)
Auréline Grange, Co-founder at Open Forest Protocol ($4M+ raised)
Francesco Volpe, Co-founder at Renaissance Fusion ($16M+ raised)
With 42 days left until doors open, it's time you lock in your ticket before we sell out.
Memes x Climate
📣 PSA: I'd like to pay someone to make climate memes for this newsletter each week.
If that sounds like you, please just reply to this email with an original meme you made and we'll talk.
Thanks for reading. I hope you had a great quarter, and excited to see what the next has in store for us all.