🙋‍♀️ ClimateHack Vol 87: List of 650+ women in climate tech

Hi There,

Today is International Women’s Day. To celebrate the occasion, we’ve updated our list of 650+ women in climate that you should know.

From the GPs at some of the most active investment firms, to the female CEO’s behind the fastest growing climate tech startups.

The full list includes names like :

• Sonja Stuchtey, Founder at The Landbanking Group

• Elena Cavellero, Associate at The Grantham Foundation

• Keely Anson, Head of Shared Future Fund at Collaborative Fund

All of whom also happen to be speaking at the upcoming HackSummit in June 👀

In Today’s Edition;

💨 Germany’s Greenlyte Carbon Technologies raised €10.5M for their liquid-sorbent solution for direct air capture.
🤝 H&M Group and Vargas Holding have partnered to launch Syre, a new venture to scale textile-to-textile recycled polyester.
🪨 Scientists from the The University of Texas secured $1.7M in grant money to further their research in hydrogen gas production from rocks.

Digest x Climate

💨 A new report shows that a methane well in Kazakhstan leaked 140,000 tonnes of methane in six months, equal to a year’s worth of emissions for nearly 800,000 cars.

📈 Nuclear power industry could be set to take off, driven in part thanks to the AI industry.

📉 The US SEC has charged bankrupt EV producer Lordstown Motors with misleading investors about the sales prospects of its Endurance electric pickup truck.

💡 Useful: David Carlin’s infographic illustrates key sustainability frameworks, standards, and milestones as ESG disclosure goes mainstream.

👮‍♀️ A California man became the first person to be prosecuted for smuggling greenhouse gases into the US, having bought refrigerants in Mexico then allegedly smuggled them across the border in his car and sold them on sites like Facebook Marketplace.

AgriFood x Climate

🏭 German startup ProteinDistillery secured €15 million seed funding. It uses biomass fermentation to create new protein ingredients, and will use the funds to support the launch of Europe's first protein-competence centre in the South of Germany. 

🥕 Bene Bono, based in Paris, raised €10 million in a funding round led by AXA Venture Partners and 2050. Its food waste-fighting platform saves organic fruits and vegetables rejected by major supermarkets for aesthetic reasons and offers them for sale directly to consumers, and it will use the funding to further expand its operations.

🌾 Australia’s Jupiter Ionics raised $9 million to develop carbon-neutral “green” ammonia for the agriculture sector, using its own electrochemical technologies to combine nitrogen from the air with hydrogen produced via water electrolysis.

🥛 Swiss startup Cultivated Biosciences raised $5 million seed funding to scale production of its yeast-derived fermented cream, designed to deliver a better flavour and textural experience to alt dairy products, as it works towards a 2025 launch in the US.

🥓 Umaro Foods, based in California, secured $3.8 million to scale production of its seaweed-based bacon, which it claims to be able to produce at ‘half the cost’ of animal-based bacon, as it gears up for a retail launch.

🧬 Opalia, based in Canada, raised CAD $2 million in a funding round led by Netherlands-based Hoogwegt Group to scale its cell-based milk towards commercialisation. 

🧫 US-based biotech Van Heron Labs secured $1.1 million seed funding, in a round led by FoodLabs, to develop precision nutrition strategies for maximising cell growth using genetics, bioinformatics, and AI.

🌾 Danish startup NitroVolt secured €750,000 pre-seed funding from Swedish VC Backing Minds. It is developing the “Nitrolyzer” unit, which uses air, water and electricity to produce green ammonia.

💰 The US state of Illinois is investing $680 million to create the Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub. The new hub will aim to leverage the state’s agricultural strengths to drive innovation and economic growth within the sustainable biomanufacturing sector, including precision fermentation.

Carbon x Climate

💨 Greenlyte Carbon Technologies raised €10.5 million pre-Series A funding from Earlybird, Green Generation Fund, Carbon Removal Partners and Partech. It specialises in direct air capture machines to remove CO2 directly from the air using a liquid-sorbent solution, producing hydrogen as a byproduct.

🧑‍⚖️ The US Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to require public companies to report their Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and their exposure to risks from climate change, creating opportunity for startups focused on the carbon tracking, accounting and management space.

💡 Good Read: Are all tonnes of CO2 removed from the atmosphere created equal? Sebastian Manhart at Carbonfuture summarised his thoughts from a recent report on carbon by CO₂RE - The Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub.

Energy x Climate

🏭 German electrolyser manufacturer Sunfire raised €215 million Series E funding and secured a term loan of up to €100 million from the European Investment Bank which, alongside the €200 million from previously approved, undrawn grant funding, makes it one of the best-capitalised electrolyser manufacturers in the industry. It is aiming to install several gigawatts of electrolysis equipment in large-scale green hydrogen projects by 2030.

⚡️ Stockholm-based Plexigrid raised €6.5 million in a round led by the European Innovation Council Accelerator Programme. It develops software that supplies grid operators with real-time insights, to ‘reinvent electric grids for the energy transition’.

🔌 German startup phelas raised €4.1 million seed funding, in a round led by E44 Ventures, to scale its long-duration Liquid Air Energy Storage technology and deploy its systems in the EU.

🌡 UK-based Heat Geek secured £3.7 million seed funding for its new digital platform that provides heating engineers with a “business-in-a-box” to drive the electric heat pumps revolution. It will use the funds to expand its network of installers.

📊 London-based Gridcog, raised £3.3 million in funding for its software platform for modelling and simulating renewable energy projects, designed to enable companies investing in clean energy projects to determine which solution is best for their commercial and market needs.

🇿🇲 MPower Ventures, based in Zambia, secured $2 million from the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank Group. The startup is aiming to expand access to reliable and sustainable energy in emerging markets by providing SMEs and households with medium and small-scale solar solutions.

🪨 Researchers at The University of Texas secured a $1.7 million grant from the Department of Energy to investigate a range of natural catalysts to produce hydrogen gas from rocks rich in iron.

Materials x Climate

🤝 H&M Group and Vargas Holding have partnered to launch Syre, a new venture to scale textile-to-textile recycled polyester. It is aiming to manufacture recycled polyester yarn that has the same quality as virgin polyester but with a lower environmental impact.

👕 German startup eeden is turning cotton-PET blends into new textile fibres, having developed a chemical process that recovers cellulose from cotton and transforms polyester into its basic building blocks for a sustainable closed loop approach.

⚱️ Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method to recover gold from electronic waste, based on a protein fibril sponge derived from whey, a byproduct of the cheesemaking process.

🍃 UK-based Biophilica has partnered with Sappi North America to create a new leather alternative made from leaves, with a 100% plastic-free coating.

Transport x Climate

🗑 Glacier, an AI and robotics company focused on the recycling industry raised $7.7M in new funding led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and . Its AI-powered technology automates the sorting of recyclables and collects real-time data on recycling streams to help reduce landfill waste.

🛴 French companies Felyx and Cooltra are joining forces to become the European market leader for shared mobility, with a total fleet of 28,000 vehicles, including 16,000 electric shared vehicles, across over 30 cities in 9 European countries.

🇬🇧 The UK Treasury announced a £360 million public and private sector funding package to expand R&D and manufacturing capabilities in the nation’s life science, automotive and aerospace sectors, including zero-carbon aircraft technology and electric vehicles.

☀️ UK-based 3ti® is set to open the first large-scale solar car park in Europe to be constructed from sustainable Glulam timber beams and Glass-Glass solar panels.

Funds x Climate

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Carbon Equity raised €100 million through its Climate Tech Portfolio Fund II, more than doubling the size of its first fund, to support climate solutions such as green hydrogen, battery technology, carbon-free cement, industrial heat pumps, bioplastics, smart thermostats, and next generation proteins.

🇬🇧 Cibus Capital secured $645 million across two funds to support mid-market and late-stage agrifood companies contributing to more efficient, less resource-intensive food production. Its portfolio to date includes pollination tech startup BeeHero and clean-label ramen company Borealis Foods.

🇺🇸 Sustainable aquaculture investor Hatch Blue raised €75 million at the second close of its latest fund, with which it will support up to 15 European companies focused on ocean technology, aquaculture, and blue carbon.

🇶🇦 The Qatar Development Bank is managing a $100 million fund to support startups in the country working within sectors including fintech, clean tech, agritech, B2B SaaS, health tech, marketplaces, proptech, AI & ML and robotics.

Community x Climate

🇺🇸 FOAK Yeah! We hosted our first ever ClimateHack SF meetup together with Prelude Ventures, with a full room of founders, investors and ecosystem enablers who came to discuss all things related to first of a kind projects.

🎤 The HackSummit just announced 10 new climate tech speakers who are confirmed speaking at Europe’s largest climate tech event, including:

• Konrad Bergström founder of Swedish electric boat manufacturer X Shore ($100M raised to date).

• Alexis Houssou, Founder and Managing Partner, HCVC, $75M Paris based pure deep tech and hardware VC.

• Elisabeth Schrey, Managing Director, DTCF, the €1Bn climate and deep tech fund backed by the German government.

💚 ClimateHack and FoodHack were featured in Sifted’s list of 13 deeptech communities to know (the full list is worth checking out).

📧 Alya Annabi highlighted 12 resourceful climate newsletters to follow where your very own ClimateHack made an appearance.

Memes x Consulting

🥲 For the ex-Mckinsey, BCG, KPMG’s out there - please reply to let us know exactly what it is that you did there.

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola