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- 🇪🇺 ClimateHack Vol 32: The EU's Green Deal
🇪🇺 ClimateHack Vol 32: The EU's Green Deal
PLUS: The role of biology as a climate solution.
Hey There,
I'm writing this while on the way to Zurich to host our first ever ClimateHack Meetup.
The premise of these meetups is pretty straightforward: 1) They're always free to attend. 2) We invite some Climate builders on stage to present. 3) You network with founders and funders in your ecosystem.4) We close off with 30 second audience pitches.
Our next ClimateHack Meetup takes place in London on February 15th.
If you'd like us to bring a ClimateHack Meetup to your city - just reply to let us know where?
In today's edition:
🇪🇺 Europe unveils their $270 billion response to US green subsidies.🇩🇪 Germany is launching a €1B fund to support deeptech and climate tech startups.🏭 A conversation with Synonym CEO on biomanufacturing as a climate solution.
Digest x Climate
📈 What's up: The European Commission published its 21-page EU Green Deal Industrial Plan this week, calling for a new Net Zero Industry Act and a host of measures to accelerate the roll out of clean technologies.
📉 What’s down? BP says that the share of fossil fuels as a primary energy source will “drop dramatically” by 2050.
💸 A report by researchers from the World Inequality Lab proposes a tax on the ultra-rich (those with fortunes over €100 million, representing 0.001% of the world’s adult population) to finance a global climate fund and help those less fortunate adapt to global warming.
🌍 Contribute: We're looking for the top Climate VC's in Africa, MENA, APAC. If you have any suggestions - please add them to the post here and we'll share the final list next Friday.
💡 Good Read: Want to find a job in climate tech? Here’s a handy guide.
Carbon x Climate
🏢 Seoul-headquartered Energy X raised $20.3 million Series B funding at a valuation of $120 million. Its goal is to slash building sector emissions by “enabling the construction of zero-energy buildings”, from architectural design to completion of construction.
📊 Risilience, based in the UK, secured $26 million Series B funding for its SaaS-based analytics platform that helps companies assess their climate risk, “turn data into actionable insights”, and plan their transition toward net-zero carbon emissions.
🌊 New York’s Floodbase raised $12 million Series A funding, in a round led by Lowercarbon Capital, to make parametric flood insurance policies available worldwide, supporting consumers through the effects of climate change, using its platform that provides data and analysis on flooding and flood risk.
🔎 London-based Greenspark raised €1.1 million for its Impact-as-a-Service platform, designed to enable businesses to take and measure climate action, which has already facilitated the planting of over 800k trees and prevented over 1.3 million plastic bottles from reaching the ocean.
🤝 LedaFlow Technologies has formed a research consortium, called CO2Flow project, with energy companies ConocoPhillips, TotalEnergies, Equinor and ExxonMobil Technology & Engineering, to accelerate carbon capture and storage technology development.
💡 Good Read: Here are five reasons from the World Economic Forum why forest carbon credits are an important part of climate action.
Food x Climate
🐟 Portfolio co: Canadian food tech New School Foods raised $12 million seed funding and unveiled its first product: a plant-based whole-cut salmon filet that it looks, cooks, tastes, and flakes just like conventional salmon. Here's why we invested.
🎨 Portfolio co: Californian food tech Michroma raised $6.4 million seed funding in a round led by Supply Change Capital. Michroma is working to “revolutionise the way ingredients are produced”, developing natural food colourants from fungi via precision fermentation. Here's why we invested.
🌾 The US Department of Agriculture announced up to $7.5 million in grant funding for projects to “promote urban agriculture and innovative production” in urban areas, as part of its mission to transform America’s food system.
🪳 London-based Entocycle raised £4 million Series A funding for its data and tracking hardware that supports the insect farming industry. Its flagship product, the Entosight Neo, uses optical sensors to track the health and productivity of black soldier fly colonies, allowing for a much greater yield of the flies’ larvae, which is converted into a source of protein.
🛰 The US Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency announced the 11 finalists for Phase 2 of the Deep Space Food Challenge, including Mycorena, Solar Foods and Interstellar Lab.
🥛 Oatly is bringing climate footprint labelling, developed in partnership with Swedish company CarbonCloud, to some of its products in North America, to help offer transparency to consumers.
💡 Good Read: Michal Klar at Future Food Now has pulled together data from over 35 top alt protein experts, insiders and investors to predict the 2023 alternative protein trends, and it makes for a really interesting read.
Energy x Climate
🔋 Our Next Energy Inc., an energy storage technology company based in Michigan, raised $300 million Series B funding at a post-money valuation of $1.2 billion to launch its first battery cell factory.
💨 French startup HySiLabs secured €13 million Series A funding, having completed early tests indicating its liquid hydrogen carrier is viable after eight years of research and development.
📡 UK Telecoms company BT Group is trialling 5G and 4G mobile internet coverage provided by hydrogen-powered drones that carry a mobile internet antenna, have a wingspan of 60 metres and use a liquid hydrogen energy system that means they can fly for more than a week at a time.
🇮🇳 The Indian government has pledged to invest $4.3 billion in green technology, with a focus on solar power and green hydrogen production, in order to clean up the country’s economy and create jobs.
🇺🇸 The US Department of Energy announced plans to invest $131 million across 33 research and development projects to advance the wide-scale deployment of carbon management technologies, to address technical challenges of capturing CO2 from power plants and industrial facilities, or directly from the atmosphere, to reduce CO2 pollution.
📊 Good Data: Chinese battery giant CATL plans to invest up to $3.5 billion into a new project to recover 500,000 tonnes of waste battery materials and make lithium iron materials.
Materials x Climate
🏗 Plantd, based in North Carolina, raised $10 million Series A funding to make building materials from a tall form of perennial grass that can grow 20 to 30 feet in a single year and be harvested up to three times in a season, absorbing as much as 30 tons of carbon annually.
👕 Parisian startup Ever Dye secured €3.4 million seed funding to create natural dye products without harmful chemical agents, to help drastically reduce carbon emissions in the textile industry.
Transport x Climate
🚗 UK-based Hydrogen Vehicle Systems has been awarded £6.6 million by the UK government to develop the world’s first autonomous, zero-emission, hydrogen-powered HGV.
🔌 Estonian startup VOOL secured €1.7 million seed funding for its smart electric vehicle charging solution that leverages existing grids without causing overload.
☀️ Netherlands-based solar company Powerfield secured €500 million structured equity and portfolio financing for its “virtual power stations” that connect solar farms to external storage and EV charging stations.
💰 General Motors is planning to invest $650 million in lithium production company Lithium Americas to support its electric vehicle business.
Funds x Climate
🇩🇪 Germany is launching a €1 billion fund to support deeptech and climate tech startups, financed by the Zukunftsfonds and the ERP Special Fund, in order to “create the next technology-based generation of Germany’s Mittelstand”.
👏 A group of 120 venture capital firms from across Europe have formed a new initiative, called ImpactVC and founded by London-based impact investor Big Society Capital, to scale and develop climate-focused companies.
💡 Good Read: The New York Times highlighted this week how “recession resilient” climate startups are shining in the current tech downturn.
Converastions x Climate
This week I spoke to Edward Shenderovich, Co-founder and CEO of Synonym (backed by a16z, Thia Ventures and more) a financing and development platform for the bioeconomy.
In the conversation, Edward covers:
How biology and biomanufacturing will help us reach our climate goals.
The current state of the biomanufacturing supply chain.
Opportunities and bottlenecks in scaling biomanufactured products.
You can read the full piece here. It's extremely exciting what's happening right now in the TechBio space and Edward breaks it down into an easy to digest 5 minute read.
Events x Climate
🇬🇧 Meetups: We just announced the dates to our ClimateHack Meetup in London - including Max from 2150 VC, Jonathan at Materials Nexus, Shravan at Synthesis Capital, Puja at Carbon13 and Amy at Systemiq Capital. 100 of you registered already!
🎫 HackSummit: Super Early Bird Tickets sell out at 2pm CET. For those that want to join what we think will probably me the most fund ClimateTech event of the year - I highly recommend grabbing one of the few remaining tickets here.
Memes
How Generalist VC's investing in climate SAAS feels right now..
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend ahead,