🔦 ClimateHack Vol 100: Proteins from light

Hi There,

Today marks the 100th edition of ClimateHack Weekly! 🎉 

It’s been 712 days since we sent out the first edition back in June 2022. We’ve since covered 2.5k+ pieces of climate tech news, released 100 climate deep dives, shared 90+ memes, and hosted over 2k+ attendees at ClimateHack meetups. Phew.

The cheesy part: All of this is possible thanks to you. Thanks for sharing the newsletter with your network, giving us your feedback each week, joining us in-person at the ClimateHack meetups or just making us part of your weekly digest.

What do the next 100 editions hold? More of the same, but bigger.

More content, more lists, more events, but still just one newsletter, with the top news in climate tech distilled, every Friday, in your inbox.

In the meantime, enjoy this weeks edition, and we look forward to meeting many of you IRL at the HackSummit next week.

In Today’s Edition;

 🔦 Californian biotech Prolific Machines raises $55M to make proteins from light.
🌡 Swedish startup Aira raised €200M in debt financing to sell heat pumps to consumers in Germany.
🔋 US startup SiTration secured $11.8M in seed funding to reduce the energy needed for materials extraction.

AgriFood x Climate

🔦 Californian biotech Prolific Machines raised $55 million Series B1 funding for its photomolecular platform, which uses light to develop novel proteins for the food and medicine industries at significantly lower costs.

💰 The Bezos Earth Fund awarded North Carolina State University $30 million over the next five years to establish the first Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein, as part of its $1 billion pledge towards food system transformation.

🍄 Belgian startup Novobiom raised €2 million seed funding for its fungi-based waste treatment solution. Its process, called mycoremediation, uses fungi to clean and transform waste into useful products, and Novobiom is initially targeting soil remediation, textile recycling and cosmetic circularity.

🍫 Israeli startup Kokomodo emerged from stealth with $750,000 in funding from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub and the Israeli Innovation Authority to produce cell-based cocoa and chocolate products.

🧬 Researchers at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science have developed a way to make cultivated meat without expensive growth factors, instead relying on stem cell metabolism, enabling precise control in bioreactors.

🌾 The University of Essex has built a new facility to develop climate-resilient crops that can adapt to a hotter and drier planet, featuring AI-powered research, robotics, vertical farming and imitation suites.

🏭 Israel’s Brevel opened its first commercial-scale microalgae protein facility, a 27,000 sq ft plant capable of producing hundreds of tons of protein for use in dairy alternatives.

Construction x Climate

🏗 Sublime Systems received a grant of $87 million from the US Department of Energy to produce zero-carbon cement through a proprietary electrochemical approach, having already pre-sold more than half of its upcoming commercial facility’s 30,000-ton-per-year production capacity.

🏢 German startup ecoLocked raised €4 million for its biocarbon-based concrete admix materials, designed to reduce embodied CO2 and help turn the built environment into a carbon sink.

Energy x Climate

🌡 Swedish startup Aira raised €200 million in debt financing from BNP Paribas to sell heat pumps to consumers in Germany via monthly payment installments, and says it could help households save up to 40% on their heating costs whilst reducing their CO2 emissions by more than 75%.

📊 Insurance provider Understory raised $15 million Series A funding, in a round co-led by True Ventures and Prelude Ventures, to launch a product focused on the renewable energy sector.

☀️ Samara, based in Spain, secured €9 million Series A funding to accelerate the country’s transition to green energy. Its platform creates personalised solar panel installation proposals for households, highlighting how customers can save energy costs, and handles everything throughout the installation process.

🔎 French startup Sopht raised €3.3 million, in a funding round led by Ring Capital and Climate Club, for its software platform that aims to decarbonise IT infrastructure by analysing and optimising companies’ computer usage.

🔋 Entroview, based in France, secured $1.6 million for its patented entropy method analysis, which provides precise and accurate battery diagnostics, improving the efficiency of electric vehicles and renewable energy systems.

🏡 Netherlands-based Prȇts secured €1 million to “revolutionise financing for home energy upgrades”, using its solution that offsets investment in green energy with future savings directly on consumers’ energy bills.

🥚 Researchers from Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences and iCRAG have discovered that eggshell waste could recover rare earth elements from water, potentially improving supply for use in green energy technologies.

Materials x Climate

🔋 US startup SiTration secured $11.8 million seed funding to reduce the energy needed for materials extraction and make the process more efficient, using silicon filters to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste.

♻️ Nova Carbon raised €1.4 million to drive innovation in recycled carbon fibre. It is developing a range of high performance semi-finished products made from carbon fibre waste, and aims to halve the volume of non-recycled carbon fibre waste in France and Europe within ten years.

🪶 UK-based Aeropowder secured £150,000 from the British Design Fund to launch its sustainable thermal packaging made from surplus feathers, designed for use in the life sciences industry and cold chain logistics.

Mobility x Climate

🖥 Neural Concept, a spinout from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, raised $27 million Series B funding to use AI and machine learning to make the EV design process faster and more efficient.

🔌 French startup Gireve secured €20 million from Partech’s Impact Fund to connect mobility stakeholders with charging stations and make EV charging seamless, and so far has over 500,000 charging points connected to its platform.

🚲 Whizz, based in New York, raised $12 million to offer gig workers access to safe, high-quality e-bikes on a subscription basis, for between $139 and $149 per month. It will use the funds to build more e-bikes and further expand its operations.

🚚 Belgian startup Qargo secured £11 million in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital. Its transport management software is designed to digitise and decarbonise the trucking industry.

🔌 UK-based Fuuse secured £8.7 million to expand its EV charge point management platform across the UK and Ireland. Its users to date include the likes of SSE, Scottish Power, British Airways, Siemens, United Utilities and Arnold Clark.

🚛 Paris-based Decade Energy raised €3.6 million seed funding to create a software platform that supports truck operators’ transitions to electric fleets, including managing processes such as getting a grid connection and deploying charging infrastructure.

Funds x Climate

🇦🇺 Australian specialist venture capital firm Pollination is launching a new $150 million fund, supported by the Queensland government, for climate and nature tech startups working across sectors including energy, carbon and nature management, the circular economy, transport, and food and agriculture.

🇧🇷 Brazilian accelerator Darwin Startups announced a $20 million fund to support pre-seed and seed-stage startups working across sectors including health, agriculture, education, and logistics.

Community x Climate

🇬🇧 Here's what happened late into Tuesday evening at the over-capacity ClimateHack London meetup

Join the upcoming ClimateHack Meetups happening in :

🇮🇱 Tel Aviv - 6th June, Exploring Opportunities for Climate Solutions in the Insurance Industry. Register here.

Climate x Memes

🧥 I hope these Parisians inspire you to go shop at Loro Piana. No wait, sorry, to swap out your car for a bike.

🚲 Bonus Bike Meme: Take it from the Dutch, who needs to rent a van for moving furniture when you can just do this instead.

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola