🧱 ClimateHack Vol 111: 3D printed glass bricks

Hi There,

It’s finally here. The biggest annual climate event of its kind takes place this week. So chances are you’re reading this on your way to/while in New York.

With over 600 events and activities planned day and night, it’s set to be a pivotal week to accelerate climate action and the transition to a sustainable future. If you’re looking for a few more events to fill your schedule, then here’s a handy guide on where to go.

Before you head off to a film festival, demo night, Meetup, tech day or even some Climate Karaoke, here’s a quick rundown on the latest headlines to get you up to speed.

In Today’s Edition;

🛩️ Air Company raised $69 million to advance its CO₂-derived sustainable aviation fuel technology.
🏭 Phlair, a developer of hydrolyzer-based Direct Air Capture, raised €14.5 million to launch its first DAC plants by 2025.
🌊 Tidal Metals secured $8.5 million to extract sustainable magnesium from seawater, offering a potential solution to critical mineral shortages.

Digest x Climate

💨 Carbon Capture and Removal is booming. To better understand the landscape, here at Hack we mapped 100 leading pioneers and put together this growing list of 150+ startups scaling groundbreaking pathways to reduce emissions. 

📈 What’s up? A new report from The Guardian reveals that tech carbon emissions may be significantly higher than disclosed, thanks to ‘creative accounting’.

⚡️ Good read: Ben James argues that, actually, we can deploy energy infrastructure very quickly. 

💡 Opinion: Holly Alpine shares her thoughts on Microsoft’s approach to AI for the oil and gas industry.

✍️ Useful: Check out CB Insights’ VC glossary, featuring 180 terms related to venture capital and finance.

💥 Interesting: TechCrunch shared a list of every fusion startup that has raised over $300 million.

AgriFood x Climate

🥬 Plant gene editing pioneer Pairwise raised $40 million Series C funding and entered a five-year joint venture with agtech giant Corteva to advance its technology, with the aim of boosting climate resilience in corn and soy crops.

🧬 Arzeda, based in Seattle, secured $38 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by Sofinnova Partners. It uses AI to design proteins and enzymes for use in the likes of natural sweeteners, laundry detergent and biodegradable materials.

🥓 New York-based startup Ecovative raised $28 million in a growth equity round to scale its mycelium-based MyBacon product and launch new sustainable leather alternatives.

🥔 Denmark’s MATR Foods secured a €20 million loan from the European Investment Bank to build its first large-scale production facility. It produces meat alternatives via fungi fermentation, using local crops such as beetroot, potatoes, lupin, and peas.

🧀 French biotech Standing Ovation secured €3.75 million Series A+ funding for its precision-fermented, animal-free protein ingredient, Advanced Casein, with the aim of launching in the US by 2025.

🇬🇧 The UK's Food Standards Agency is set to introduce changes next year to accelerate and ‘modernise’ the approval process for novel foods like cultivated meat, including a new public register that replaces the existing system of requiring a statutory instrument, which adds up to six months to a process that already takes over two-and-a-half years.

🇳🇿 New Zealand's government is investing NZ$9.6 million ($5.95 million) in a five-year initiative to develop cultivated fish products, with research focusing on creating new cell production systems for sustainable seafood.

🤝 General Mills and Ahold Delhaize are partnering to transition 70,000 acres within their shared supply chain to regenerative agriculture practices.

Biodiversity x Climate

🔥 Google is working with Muon Space, the Earth Fire Alliance, and others to launch new sensors that will be able to detect wildfires across the Earth’s surface much faster than existing technologies. 

Carbon x Climate

💨 Munich-based Phlair, a developer of hydrolyzer-based Direct Air Capture tech, raised €14.5 million in a seed funding round led by Extantia Capital to launch its first DAC plants by 2025, with early customers including Shopify, Stripe, and Klarna. Get the backstory.

☁️ Kairos Carbon secured pre-seed investment from Zero Carbon Capital to create the first and largest cross-border carbon capture and storage value chain to capture, liquefy, ship and permanently store CO2.

🤝 UNDO collaborated with Standard Chartered, British Airways, CUR8, CFC and WTW to “complete a global first transaction to unlock finance for carbon removal at scale”.

💰 Microsoft announced an agreement with Arbor to purchase 25,000 tons of carbon removal through the latter’s innovative bioenergy carbon capture and storage platform.

9️⃣ Frontier has enabled $4.5 million in carbon removal pre purchases from nine companies—Alithic, Alt Carbon, Anvil, Capture6, Exterra Carbon Solutions, Flux, NULIFE, Planeteers, and Silica—on behalf of buyers including Stripe, Shopify, Alphabet, H&M Group, and Match (via Watershed).

Energy x Climate

🔋 UK-based renewable energy storage specialist Apatura secured planning permission for Scotland’s largest standalone battery energy storage system, with a capacity of 700 megawatts.

🏡 Antwerp-based Beebop.ai secured $5.5 million seed funding for its ‘virtual power plant’ tech, which integrates residential devices into power systems, helping to save end consumers up to 50% on their energy bill while reducing emissions. 

⚡️ US startup Hgen raised $5 million in a funding round led by Seven Seven Six. Its higher-efficiency alkaline electrolyser, which comes in a 40-foot shipping container, converts water and electricity into clean hydrogen.

☀️ French “renewable energy producer aggregator” Bohr Energie raised €4 million to be an intermediary between small renewable energy producers and the electricity market.

🔥 Karman Industries, based in California, secured $4 million pre-seed funding. It will use the funds to develop a heat pump capable of generating industrial-grade heat, using turbomachinery, with the aim of replacing unsustainable industrial boilers.

ESG x Climate

🧮 UK and Singapore-based Zevero raised $7 million seed funding to expand its global footprint, enabling more companies to use its carbon data platform to measure, report and reduce their carbon emissions.

Funds x Climate

💸 Climate investor Blume Equity secured investment from British Patient Capital and Queensland Investment Corporation for its first fund, with which it will support startups addressing climate and environmental challenges across Europe.

Materials x Climate

⛏️ US-based Tidal Metals secured $8.5 million in a seed funding round led by DCVC. It has developed a technology to extract sustainable magnesium from seawater, offering a potential solution to critical mineral shortages. 

🧱 Scientists at MIT have developed recyclable 3D-printed glass blocks that “snap together like Legos” for use in construction. Watch how it’s made.

📣 Laura at Hack is putting together a list of startups working on the future of new materials. Add your suggestion to the growing list.

🧱 The latest HackTrend Report covers how innovators are using plastic for bricks and cement. Featuring insights from Founders, Kidus Asfaw of Kubik and Amr Shalan of TileGreen and a list of 10+ startups in the space.

Methane x Climate

💨 Lucidome Bio, based in New Zealand, secured $13.5 million from AgriZero^NZ and the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre to help Kiwi farmers reduce their emissions with its methane vaccine.

💉 ArkeaBio, based in the US, claims that vaccination is the most cost-effective and scalable method to reduce livestock methane emissions, using a vaccine that disrupts methane-producing microbes in cattle.

Mobility x Climate

🛩️ Air Company raised $69 million in a Series B funding round led by Avfuel to advance its CO₂-derived sustainable aviation fuel technology, designed to seamlessly integrate into existing aircraft and infrastructure.

🚘 Munich-based DeepDrive raised €30 million Series B funding to industrialise its patented Dual Rotor motor technology, enabling high-volume EV production with, it says, 20% increased efficiency, cost savings, and over 800 km range.

🚕 Zena came out of stealth with $9.5 million seed funding to explore how batteries might transform life in emerging markets, starting with adding its units to motorbike taxis in East Africa. It also plans to release its home battery dock with an available solar panel, to open up further markets.

🔋 Paris-based Bib Batteries raised €2.2 million in a funding round led by Family Ventures to focus on extending the life cycle of EV batteries through to their second life (repair, reuse, or recycling). 

🔌 The Canadian government announced federal investments of $14.9 million for 20 projects that will install more than 3,000 EV chargers across the country, alongside raising awareness of the benefits of EVs.

Climate x Memes

How did you like today's email?

Love it😁 Meh 😐 Hate it🙁

Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola