🇺🇸 ClimateHack Vol 31: American Climate VC's

Hey There,

Tickets to our HackSummit (May 11-12) dropped this week.

We'll cover hot topics from alternative climate financing to overcoming scale up bottlenecks, quantum computing to nuclear fusion, and everything in-between.

More than anything - it's a time to meet fellow founders, funders and industry insiders in what we think will probably be the most fun ClimateTech event of the year.

80+ of you already registered in the last 48 hours. Grab one of few remaining super early bird tickets here.

In today's edition:

🇺🇸 A list of 50+ American Climate VC's you should know. 🏭 France’s Renaissance Fusion raises €15M for reactor parts.💨 Scientists discover a "record-cheap" technique to pull carbon dioxide.

Digest x Climate

📊 2022 marked the first year when investment in clean energy was equal to the global investment in fossil fuels - $1.1 trillion - according to data from BloombergNEF.

📈 What’s up? Data from AgFunder shows that the top ten agrifood deals in climate tech last year collectively raised $3 billion.

📉 What’s down? And Climate Tech VC says that funding for transportation, historically the single largest climate tech startup segment, slowed down last year, seeing a 31% decrease from 2021, in favour of emerging technologies.

Carbon x Climate

💨 Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Lab have developed a record-cheap technique to pull carbon dioxide from a power plant or factory’s exhaust flue. The method costs $39 per metric ton; for comparison, it costs $57 per metric ton to capture CO2 from a coal-fired power plant using current state-of-the-art technology.

🥤 PepsiCo Portugal is planning to invest €7.5 million to construct a new biodigester that will turn organic waste into biogas, both reducing its carbon emissions at its Carregado facility by 30% and reducing its gas consumption.

🌳 The world’s largest finance trading platform of on-chain carbon credits, Senken, raised $7.5 million and announced the launch of the world's first public sale of tokenised Carbon Forwards, which enables transparent investments in verified climate projects.

🪨 German startup Carbonauten is working on “minus CO2 factories” that combine waste carbon activation and biorefinery processes at the same site to create a value chain.

Food x Climate

🍄 Meati Foods announced $22 million in new funding and the opening of its new 100,000 square foot production facility capable of producing over 45 million pounds of mycelium, dubbed “Mega Ranch,” in Colorado.

🐄 Australian agtech Rumin8 raised $12 million in the second phase of its seed round, including backing from Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The startup is aiming to reduce methane emissions in agriculture using naturally occurring compounds added to livestock feed.

🦠 Brooklyn-based “evolution startup” Melonfrost secured $7 million seed funding to grow microbes with desired traits in order to protect crops against weather and yield pressures of the future.

🏭 Liberation Labs is set to build the first “purpose-built” commercial-scale precision fermentation plant in the US, and expects to invest $115 million in the project.

🐟 Plant-based seafood startup NewFish and the Cawthron Institute, a world leader in seaweed and microalgae, both based in New Zealand, are joining forces to commercialise “blue” ocean algae for use in specialised protein.

Energy x Climate

🏭 France’s Renaissance Fusion raised €15 million in a seed funding round led by US climate tech VC Lowercarbon Capital. The startup is currently focused on developing parts which can be used in nuclear fusion reactors, including liquid metal and high-temperature superconducting coils.

🌡 Tado, a smart home energy startup based in Germany, secured €43 million in a round led by Trill Impact Ventures. It’s planning to scale its business by appealing to customers looking to counter rising energy costs through combining so-called “time-of-use” energy tariffs with its smart thermostat products.

⚡️ Indian startup Ecozen raised $25 million Series C funding for its deep tech platform, having already helped generate over 1 billion units of clean energy, saved over 20,000 metric tonnes of food loss and reduced over 1 million tonnes of GHG emissions since its inception.

🔋 Fuergy, based in Slovakia, secured €16 million from Bratislava real estate investor Pro Partners Holding. Its brAIn energy storage and management product is designed to gauge energy supply and demand and adjust battery storage accordingly.

📊 UK-based Perceptual Robotics announced new funding to support international expansion of its drone fleet, designed to undertake data gathering from renewable power plants, reducing operating cost and downtime.

Materials x Climate

🔨 US-based clean steel technology company Boston Metal raised $120 million, in a round led by international steel giant ArcelorMittal and with participation from Microsoft, to disrupt the $1.6 trillion steel industry with its carbon-free tech.

📦 British startup Unwasted secured £1.5 million seed funding from Elbow Beach Capital, ahead of an anticipated £72 million Series A, for its continuous pressing and drying process that alters the fibres inside waste cardboard to produce a panel board that can be used across construction, flooring and furniture.

Transport x Climate

🚗 London-based Onto secured £100 million for its all-inclusive monthly electric car subscription platform, and will use the funds to expand its UK fleet with the latest electric car models.

⚡️ Bulgarian startup Ampeco raised $13 million in a Series A funding round, led by BMW iVentures, to expand its electric vehicle charging management platform further into North America.

🔌 Orange, based in the US, raised $2.5 million late last year to support EV charging infrastructure within multifamily dwellings with its affordable, specially-designed sockets for overnight charging.

Funds x Climate

🦅 US Climate VC's - from the industry veterans that have spun up climate dedicated funds, to the ex-climate founders now championing climate tech inside of generalist VC's - these are the 50+ Climate VC's in the US that you should know of.

🌱 London-based Milltrust Ventures and Ireland’s Earth First Food Ventures have launched The Smart Protein Fund, a new £242 million investment fund targeting sustainable alternatives to meat proteins.

💸 Silicon Valley-headquartered VC Pegasus Tech Ventures has joined forces with Japanese chemical giant Denka to launch a $100 million fund to support startups addressing pressing global issues, including sustainability and population growth, particularly those working within renewable energy and EV batteries.

Events x Climate

🎫 HackSummit: Last year Sifted ranked our Summit as one of "Europe's top tech events". This year we'll try to top that as we bring 900 participants from across the globe to the sleepy town of Lausanne, Switzerland for an unforgettable 2-day Summit.

👋 Free Meetup: We announced the line up of speakers at our first-ever ClimateHack Meetup in Zurich - including exited founder turned Climate VC Übermorgen Ventures, and Swiss Climate Tech startups Biosimo Chemicals and Oxara.

Memes x Climate

Please help save a friend from joining another AI writing app this year..

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend ahead,

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Curated by Nicola, Editorial by Arman