💰 ClimateHack Vol. 44: Is the funding gap real?

Hey There,

Last night I was in Paris co-hosting the first edition of our ClimateHack meetups together with deeptech venture studio Marble and French VC Serena.

We deep dived into the state of the European climate funding with a panel of 5 experts including founders, policy makers and VC, and joined by 120+ attendees from the local ecosystem. 

Key takeaway: Seed stage climate funding in Europe is on the rise, and there is plenty of capital (in and out of venture) for great startups, but still a huge gap in funding for later stage (Series B+ companies).

In today's edition:

📦 Sustainable parcel delivery network Hived secures £10 million.🪵 French biomaterials startup Woodoo raises $31 million.🇳🇱 Our list of 70+ Dutch climate tech CEO's to know.

Digest x Climate 

📉 What’s down? Despite $40bn being raised across ≈1000 ventures and growth deals in climate last year, research from BNEF say's its not enough - an increase of 590% by 2030 is needed to meet climate objectives. ❓ This comes at at a time when almost half of climate tech leaders surveyed by London Tech Week said they “could not raise enough funding in the last 12 months” - which is slightly contrary to what was discussed at last nights Paris meetup. 

📈 What’s up? Global electric car sales surged by 55% in 2022, jumping to more than ten million, according to data from the International Energy Agency.

💡 Good Read: The New York Times’ wrote a piece on the ‘decarb bros’ - a group of Bros who care about decarbonizing the global economy as fast, cheap and reliable as possible.

Carbon x Climate 

📊 London-based CarbonChain secured $10 million Series A funding, in a round co-led by Union Square Ventures and Voyager Ventures, for its AI-based carbon accounting software platform, which helps users to precisely measure and report carbon emissions at all levels of their operational supply chain.

🔬 Swiss startup UniSieve raised €4.9 million to scale its solution that helps heavy industry to decarbonise. Its tech uses a high-precision membrane with special crystals that can filter specific molecules and ions, to help with sustainable separation and purification of chemicals and gases.

💡 Good Read: The Guardian has written an interesting article on the “polarising climate science” of carbon dioxide removal technology.

Food x Climate

🌾 CropX Technologies raised $30 million in a Series C funding round led by Aliaxis SA. It will use the funds to further develop its agronomic farm management system, especially within the field of data-driven precision irrigation.

🛰 Hydrosat raised $20 million Series A funding to launch two thermal infrared satellites into orbit. These will provide customers from agribusinesses to the government with real-time climate data, which can be used for solutions from drought prediction to ecosystem monitoring.

🐄 Grass-fed organic dairy company Maple Hill Creamery secured $20 million from the US Department of Agriculture to educate its dairy farmers on how to improve pastures with climate-smart practices to upgrade soil health.

🍎 British biotech It’s Fresh! secured £6.7 million Series B funding, in a round led by BGF, to help extend the shelf life of fresh foods. Its ethylene control filters remove and absorb ethylene from the environment, delaying food decay.

Energy x Climate

☀️ SPAN, based in San Francisco, raised $96 million Series B2 funding to expand its operations. It develops electrical panels and products that enable electrification and simplify the adoption of clean energy including solar, batteries, and electric vehicles.

💰 Saudi clean technology developer and operator ACWA Power has signed a $123 million financing package to develop a utility-scale solar power plant in Egypt.

🔋 Italian startup Energy Dome secured €40 million Series B funding for its “CO2 Battery”, designed to store renewable energy. It works by changing CO2 from gas to liquid and back again in order to generate heat, which is then stored or used to drive a generator.

🏭 German startup Reverion raised €8.5 million to accelerate production of its 100 kW and 500 kW modular biogas power plants, which it claims can double the efficiency of electricity generation when compared to conventional technology.

🌳 Another German startup, ecoplanet, closed a €2.6 million seed round led by HV Capital. Its platform identifies and implements profitable investments in green infrastructure to help SMBs to significantly save on cost while reducing carbon emissions.

⚡️ Seattle-based Avalanche Energy secured investment from MCJ Collective to develop a fusion reactor “that you can hold in your hands”, which it claims will “solve a host of modular and mobile energy needs”.

🔋 Infyos, based in London, raised a funding round that featured European climate tech fund Pale blue dot. Its digital platform guides battery and automotive companies to manage, measure and improve all their key company and supply chain sustainability impacts.

🏭 Divert has broken ground on its integrated diversion and energy facility in California, where it will capture and turn wasted food into carbon-negative renewable energy via anaerobic digestion.

💡 Interesting: David Snydacker, CEO at lithium extraction company Lilac Solutions, asks: can sodium-ion batteries work for mainstream electric vehicles? 

Materials x Climate

🪵 French biomaterials startup Woodoo secured $31 million, in a round led by Lowercarbon Capital, to transform low-grade wood into high-performance, low-environmental impact materials that can replace everything from glass and steel to leather and concrete.

🧪 UK-based HydRegen raised £2.6 million, in a round led by Clean Growth Fund, to produce bio-based catalysts that enable cleaner, safer and more energy-efficient manufacturing processes for the global pharmaceutical and chemicals industries.

👕 Resortecs, based in Belgium, secured €2.2 million seed funding. It is on a mission to drive full circularity within the fashion industry, thanks to its high-quality, automated garment disassembly technology that enables industrial-scale recycling.

👟 Sustainable footwear company Trash Planet debuted its new collection of vegan and eco-friendly sneakers and boots, made from natural materials, such as apple leather and corn, plus recycled rubber and polyester canvas.

Transport x Climate

🛴 Luup, based in Japan, raised $30 million Series D funding to further grow its fleet of shared e-scooters and e-bikes and transform underutilised open spaces into delegated parking stations, with the goal of operating more than 10,000 of these by 2025.

🚲 London-based micromobility startup HumanForest secured £12 million to expand its e-bike service further across the city. It differentiates from its competitors by offering users ten free minutes of cycling per day.

📦 British sustainable parcel delivery network Hived secured £10 million Series A funding to scale its all-electric fleet delivery solution, designed to give customers the option of green delivery as standard.

🔋 Berlin-based Swobbee raised €2 million in an extended Series A round to expand the presence of its rental batteries and battery swapping stations for urban mobility into more cities worldwide.

Funds x Climate

🌎 Around two-dozen leading venture capital firms, including the likes of Tiger Global and Union Square Ventures, say they are teaming up to form a group called the Venture Climate Alliance, that will “build a robust movement” in the VC business to combat the climate crisis.

📕 Good Read: Enduring Planet has put together a comprehensive guide to grants for climate tech projects.

Resources x Climate

🇳🇱 Meet the 70+ CEO's working in Netherlands climate tech scene in our latest climate mapping deep dive.

The Netherlands has always been ahead of the game in sustainability; Its government set a target to make 16% of all energy used in the Netherlands sustainable by 2023, and a renewable energy target of 97% by the end of the decade.

So this week we took to Linkedin to crowdsource the top CEO's you need to know behind some of the most exciting climate companies of Netherlands - from energy production to cultivated meats, and everything in-between.

Events x Climate

👀 Meet the 12 stealth to seed startups selected out of 300+ applications, that will be pitching at this years HackSummit in May. Coming from 7 different countries and working on everything from bio-based chemicals to green hydrogen, sustainable ingredients to bioreactor bottlenecks.

⏰ Only two weeks to go before the HackSummit opens its doors to 800 leaders, innovators and investors from across the climate tech scene. If you're considering taking part, grab one of the last <80 available tickets with code THEFINAL80.

Memes x Climate

How our brain feels when someone asks what we think about offsets. Credit to Edward van der Hout

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend ahead. 

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola.