💨 ClimateHack Vol 82: $100M to put Watershed ahead in carbon accounting

Hi There,

2024 has started off with a banner of new climate fundraising announcements flooding the headlines including several mega rounds (see Inari’s $103M raise, Watershed's $100M Series C, Heart Aerospaces $107M Series B).

But it’s not just companies closing new capital, the VC’s behind them have similarly been busy fundraising. We tracked a total of 20 fund announcements in January for VC’s that have earmarked climate as part of their strategy.

Interestingly, it’s not just the typical hotspots of North America and Western Europe where funds are being raised - but emerging markets like Poland, South Korea and Turkey that are closing ≈100M funds.

Who are these funds and what are they investing in? We pulled together a list of all the 20 newly announced funds towards climate from January to make it easy for your outreach.

In Today’s Edition;

🍫 Two separate sustainable alternative chocolate companies, Voyage Foods and Planet A Foods, brought in a total of $35M in new funding.
📊 In an ever crowding space, US-based Watershed stands out with $100M in fresh funding for their carbon accounting platform.
🖥 Sustainable fintech startup Crux secures $18 million in Series A funding for its clean energy transferable tax credit platform.

AgriFood x Climate

🌾 Seed gene-editing startup Inari raised $103 million at a post-money valuation of $1.65 billion as it prepares for commercialisation. Its platform produces soybean, corn and wheat seeds that produce the same or greater yield as conventional while using fewer resources.

🍫 Californian CPG startup Voyage Foods secured $22 million to scale its portfolio of ethical pantry staples, including cocoa-free chocolates which it claims are the “most sustainable ever” after an independent life-cycle assessment.

🍫 Germany’s Planet A Foods, parent company of cocoa-free chocolate brand Choviva, raised $15.4 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round led by World Fund to introduce its products to the UK this year.

🤖 Saga Robotics closed $11.5 million to support the US and UK expansion of its AI-powered Thorvald 3 robots, which reduce plant diseases and promote sustainable food production with lower CO2 emissions and a 60-90% reduction in pesticides.

🚚 Australian food distribution platform Yume, which helps to cut food waste by connecting food manufacturers with surplus stock with businesses and charities that can use it, raised $2 million seed funding to improve its tech capabilities ahead of its international expansion plans.

💧 Agrow Analytics, based in Spain, raised €650,000 in a seed funding round led by GoHub Ventures, Demium Capital and First Drop. It will use the funds to consolidate its precision technology to optimise water use and reduce water footprint in agriculture.

🐖 Czech biotech Mewery, which is developing cultivated pork using microalgae, was awarded a non-dilutive grant of almost €200,000 from the Czech government through its CzechInvest Technological Incubator to improve its operational efficiency as it scales up.

☕️ Israeli startup Pluri launched a cell-based coffee business, which it will spin out into a new subsidiary focused on industrial-scale production to “revolutionise” the $132 billion industry.

Biodiversity x Climate

🌳 Cultivo raised $14 million from MassMutual Ventures and Octopus Energy Generation for its nature-based investment platform, which helps unlock investment to restore biodiversity and generate ecosystem services.

Carbon x Climate

📊 Watershed raised $100 million Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1.8 billion. It offers a carbon accounting platform for customers to track and measure their carbon footprint, alongside a carbon offset marketplace.

📈 Berlin-based BlueLayer secured $5.6 million in a seed funding round led by Point Nine. Its all-in-one platform builds software stacks to support developers producing carbon credits throughout the entire project lifecycle, from the pre-feasibility stage to the issuance of credits, the tracking of inventory, and management of orders.

Chemicals x Climate

💨 Izote Biosciences raised $2.6M to develop a proprietary fermentation process that enables bacteria to “breathe without oxygen” inside a bioreactor and eyes fragrance and flavor industries as the first areas of application.

🛢 COLIPI, based in Hamburg, secured €1.8 million seed funding for its patented carbon capture and biotransformation technology that converts CO2 into ‘Climate Oil’, a sustainable alternative to crude oil and palm oil for use in multiple applications.

👩🏻‍🔬 Biosimo Chemicals secured investment from S2 Ventures. It is developing a cost-effective and scalable process that uses bioethanol as the primary feedstock for bio-based acetic acid and its derivatives.

Construction x Climate

⛏ Magrathea, which is developing carbon-neutral light metal from seawater and brines, has formed a $28 million public-private partnership with the US Department of Defense, to scale its technology to a commercial production plant.

Energy x Climate

🔋 Australia’s Amber Electric raised $29 million Series C funding, in a round led by Gentrack, to take its battery and EV automation software into new markets. The software gives customers access to real time energy prices, and automates their home batteries and EVs to cut energy costs.

🏭 Switzerland-based Transmutex SA secured CHF 20 million (around $23 million) in a Series A2 funding round to further develop its solution to a safer, lower-cost, proliferation-resistant nuclear energy technology.

📊 RABOT Charge, based in Hamburg, closed its Series A funding round with €17.5 million. Its AI-based platform uses fluctuating energy prices to calculate the best time of day to consume electricity, particularly for charging EVs or using heat pumps and home battery storage systems.

🏡 Californian startup Haven Energy raised $7 million Series A funding just nine months after its $4.2 million seed round. Its B2B2C platform connects homeowners with solar energy installers, and handles the installation process from beginning to end, from battery system selection, design, permitting, installation, maintenance, and even financing.

⚡️ UK-based Mobile Power Ltd. raised €3 million to accelerate the roll out of its solar charged hub-based battery rental business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to support customers who have limited access to power and provide clean energy to households and small businesses.

🤝 Clevergy, based in Madrid, secured €1.5 million in a funding round led by Zubi. Its software connects homes with retailer services and smart devices on a centralised platform, to help address the lack of interoperability between homes, the grid, and equipment manufacturers.

🏭 Controlled Thermal Resources Holdings Inc. broke ground on the world's first fully integrated lithium and renewable power production facility, as part of its 1.85-billion-dollar clean energy development, the Lithium Valley Campus. 

☀️ Orbital Composites is partnering with Virtus Solis Technologies to conduct a space-based solar power demonstration in the next few years, claiming it could mark “a new chapter in renewable energy”.

🕶 Cool: At ETH Zurich, there is an artificial sun room where researchers can simulate different climatic conditions to test new building systems, components and materials.

Fintech x Climate

🖥 Sustainable fintech startup Crux secured $18 million Series A funding for its clean energy transferable tax credit platform. It will use the funds to expand its team, increase annual transaction volumes and to launch new products.

🌪 The world’s first carbon credit insurance company, CarbonPool, raised €12 million. It provides in-kind insurance for failure to achieve net zero commitments due to shortfalls, reversals, business interruptions and natural catastrophes.

Transport x Climate

🛩 Sweden’s Heart Aerospace raised $107 million Series B funding, bringing its total funding raised to date to $145 million, to progress toward type certification for its first hybrid-electric aeroplane, the ES-30, which offers reduced emissions, noise pollution, and operating costs on short-haul routes when compared to conventional planes.

🚕 Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart, which has an all-electric fleet, secured $25 million from Switzerland-headquartered impact fund ResponsAbility to expand the EV charging infrastructure from its current 35 stations to around 95-100 stations in the next few months.

🚆 CitySwift, based in Ireland, raised €7 million to further develop its AI-powered platform which helps to predict public transportation journey times and passenger demand, optimising routing for transportation authorities and operators.

🔌 UK supermarket Morrisons has partnered with Motor Fuel Group in a £2.5 billion acquisition agreement to adapt 337 of its petrol forecourts and more than 400 associated sites across the UK for Ultra-Rapid electric vehicle charging development.

Materials x Climate

📦 Paques Biomaterials, based in the Netherlands, raised €14 million in a funding round led by Invest-NL and NOM. It produces polyhydroxyalkanoates, called Caleyda, using organic waste streams as feedstock, and will use the funds to build a Caleyda Extraction Facility in the northeastern Netherlands.

🌱 UK-based Xampla secured $7 million from new and existing investors to advance the production of its biodegradable, plant-based packaging materials and expand its consumer packaging brand, Morro, into new markets.

👜 Australian plant-based leather substitute startup Alt. Leather raised $1.1 million in an angel round for its plastic-free, bio-based leather alternative, made from agricultural waste and regeneratively grown plants.

Funds x Climate

🇪🇺 Pan-European VC fund Speedinvest closed its fourth early-stage fund with €350 million, €50 million above target. It has built the largest seed stage investment team in Europe across its six vertical teams: Deep Tech, Fintech, Health & TechBio, Marketplaces & Consumer, Climate & Industrial Tech, and SaaS & Infrastructure.

🇬🇧 The UK’s Giant Ventures is launching two new funds, totalling $250 million, to invest across climate, health and what it calls “purpose-driven” early-stage and Series B startups.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Future Energy Ventures announced the first €110 million close of its second climate tech fund, with a targeted total size of €250 million to support startups and scaleups developing and implementing digital solutions to drive the energy transition.

🇱🇹 Practica Capital raised €80 million for its third fund, dedicated to supporting seed-stage startups in the Baltics. The fund is the biggest of its kind in the region to date and will focus on technology investments, particularly SaaS, Marketplaces, and Deep/Industrial tech.

🇬🇧 Healthy fast-food chain Leon’s co-founder, Henry Dimbleby, launched Bramble Partners, a new VC firm on a mission to discover “better ways to feed the world”. Its £50 million fund will support startups making the food system more sustainable, healthier and more secure.

🇰🇷 Envisioning Partners closed its latest fund, Envisioning Impact Solutions Fund, with 44 billion Korean won (approximately $33 million) to support climate tech startups at Series A and beyond across Korea, the US, and Singapore. 

🇵🇱 Poland’s SMOK Ventures closed its second fund with $25 million. Its first $10 million fund was deployed into 24 startups, including Sweden’s SunRoof, which develops integrated solar roofs that generate electricity to help cover the energy demand of entire buildings.

👀 Here’s all the 20 funds announced in January that have climate tech earmarked as part of their investment strategies.

Community x Climate

Coming up, ClimateHack meetups are headed to:

• Berlin - 8th February, Details here.

• Zürich - 21st February. Details here.

Memes x Climate

Mine are 👀🙏🔌☀️🔋🌾📈 , what’s yours?

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola

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