👀 ClimateHack Vol. 65: 100+ Climate Ideas from VC's

Hey There,

What if you could peak into the minds of VC’s to know exactly what they were interested to invest in right now.

That would be great, right?

Well, good news; we asked 40+ top Climate investors what technologies they’re currently excited by - and here’s what they said. 

In Today’s Edition;

💰 US-based Lowercarbon Capital’s novel new fund announcement.
♻️ Austria’s Metaloop bring in €16M for their metal recycling software.
📊 Germany’s Plan A raise $27M funding for corporate carbon accounting.

Digest x Climate

📈 What’s up? Last month was the hottest August in 174 years of records, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

📉 What’s down? UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is planning to drop the nation’s net zero policies that impose a direct cost on consumers, potentially including delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

🛢 UN secretary-general António Guterres called for an end to the $7 trillion fossil fuel subsidies around the globe, saying “Humanity has opened the gates to hell. Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects.”

🌳 Researchers at the University of Albany are receiving $5 million from the US Department of Agriculture for a new project that will invest in the health of the city’s urban forest and educate the next generation of local climate leaders.

🇯🇵 Looking to connect your company with the Japanese market? Apply to The Climate-Tech Challenge by Hyogo Prefecture and Kobe City.

💡 Good Read: Boston Consulting Group released ‘The Energy Transition Blueprint’, an impartial analysis of what policymakers, energy producers, energy users, tech providers, and investors can do to help close the gap to a net-zero energy future..

Carbon x Climate

📊 European decarbonisation leader Plan A raised $27 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, having grown its customer base for its corporate carbon accounting, decarbonisation, and ESG reporting software to over 1,500 clients.

💡 Good Read: Green Queen shares why climate offsets are a nice fairytale that hasn’t panned out.

Food x Climate

🥑 South Korea-based Pure Space secured $4 million Series A funding to prevent supply-chain food loss. It has developed filtration technology for refrigeration trucks and food storage facilities which targets ethylene in the air, slowing the fresh produce ripening process.

🔬 Newcastle University spinout MarraBio secured £500,000 seed funding to develop technology to instruct protein cells to grow in a certain way for research or commercial use in the biomedical and cultivated meat markets.

🌭 German cultivated meat producer The Cultivated B, a subsidiary of Germany’s second-largest animal-based sausage manufacturer Infamily Foods, has entered the pre-submission phase of regulatory approval for the sale of hybrid cultivated meat products in Europe.

🏭 British cell-based startup Hoxton Farms has opened a pilot facility in London for its cultivated fat, which will have a capacity of up to ten tons per year.

👀 A new report from investor network FAIRR shows that two thirds of publicly-listed agrifood firms that have talked publicly about the potential of regenerative agriculture “have not put in place any formal quantitative company-wide targets to achieve those ambitions”, and even fewer have committed funds to incentivise farmers.

🍔 Two Shake Shack locations in New York are piloting Californian startup Zero Acre Farms’ sustainable Cultured Oil as a replacement for soybean oil.

Energy x Climate

⚡️ British startup Electron raised £4 million to support international expansion of its electricity flexibility and distribution marketplace, which reduces network congestion, allows for a faster connection, and can reduce consumer bills.

📊 Openvolt, based in Ireland, raised €1.5 million pre-seed funding in a round led by Berlin-based early-stage investor Cavalry Ventures. It will use the funds to launch its Beta API, which will grant access to meter-level energy consumption data in the UK to enable new energy solutions.

⛽️ UK-based Luxfer Gas Cylinders secured a £1 million-plus investment to establish a new production facility to support ‘virtual’ gas pipelines that can distribute hydrogen across the UK and Europe.

☀️ Solfy, based in Barcelona, secured €1 million in its second funding round in just over a year. Its solar energy marketplace is designed to revolutionise the current energy model, offering each consumer and company the possibility of producing and self-consuming their own energy.

🔥 Researchers at Rice University are using rapid flash Joule heating to convert mixed and unwashed waste plastics into clean hydrogen with a purity of up to 68% and light, durable graphene.

🔋 Singapore startup Flint says it has come up with a way to replace lithium in batteries with paper. Its batteries can be used in a temperature range of negative 15 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees Celsius and only have three components: a zinc-based anode, a manganese-based cathode and a paper separator.

⛏ Interesting: Shanu Mathew shared a visual comparison of the lithium we mine today and that we'll need to mine by 2050 alongside other major mined materials today.

Transport x Climate

🚗 Berlin-based EV marketplace startup Cardino secured €1 million pre-seed funding and launched its new online platform, which allows EV sellers to auction their cars to dealerships through a fully digitised process.

🚀 Stoke Space completed a milestone 15-second flight test which brings it one step closer to building a fully reusable rocket.

Materials x Climate

♻️ Austrian startup Metaloop raised €16 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round for its metal recycling software, which helps businesses from the metal recycling industry to boost revenue without scaling.

Fintech x Climate

📈 London-based Renew Risk raised £1.7 million to further develop its software for the management of renewable energy assets, which will provide funding, arrangement and insurance for businesses with renewable energy assets.

💡 Climate Tech Veterans, Emilie Mazzacurati and Katie MacDonald launched Tailwind, an innovation studio focused on accelerating the deployment of adaptation and resilience solutions.

Funds x Climate

💰 Galvanize Climate Solutions closed its Innovate + Expansion Fund with $1 billion to invest in startups “aiming to provide climate benefits in the next decade”.

💸 Lowercarbon Capital secured $550 million for two new funds in the best fund announcement you’ve ever read. The US-based fund has been one of the most active seed-stage investors in climate tech in 2023, having invested in 28 companies in H1'23.

🌾 Belgian agrifoodtech investor Astanor Ventures closed its second fund with €360 million. It will continue to support early-stage and mission-driven companies that are working on “nature positive solutions'' to environmental and social issues.

🇪🇺 London-based Blume Equity secured €40 million from the European Investment Fund for its climate tech investment fund, with which it will support high-growth European startups developing technology for decarbonisation and environmental sustainability.

📚 University of California, Irvine received a $1 million grant from the State of California to establish a collaborative initiative that will accelerate companies focused on climate goals.

💡 Good Read: 40+ Climate Tech VC’s including Planet A Ventures, FoodLabs, Extantia and 2150 share the 100+ technologies they’re looking at investing in next.

Memes x Startups

🎢 Pretty much sums up how 2023 is going.

p.s. thanks to everyone who voted and replied to last weeks survey on how they felt about “Apple x Mother Nature's Ad” - here’s the results 🥲

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola.