📊 ClimateHack Vol. 53: SVB's 2023 Climate Report

Hey There,

There’s never been a better time to jump into climate tech, but finding your crowd, breaking into new sectors, and meeting the right people can be a bit of a challenge.

That’s why today we’re excited to be launching our open call for ClimateHack Ambassadors in these 11 cities.

Just like our FoodHack Meetups which are held across 40+ cities, the ClimateHack Meetups will bring together local communities of entrepreneurs, investors and operators through quarterly meetups.

The ambition; become the entry point for climate enthusiasts to meet, exchange, learn, collaborate and get inspired, globally.

If you’re someone that want’s to rapidly build your climate network and start fostering your local community as an ambassador - apply here today.

In today's edition:

👀 CTVC co-founder Sophie Purdom launches a climate tech VC.
🐟 Germany’s Bluu Seafood reel in €16M for their cultivated fish.
♻️ Switzerland’s DePoly raise $13.8M to recycle complex plastics.

Digest x Climate

💡 Good Read: Silicon Valley Bank (yes, that bank) released its 2023 report on the future of climate tech which highlights that despite a global downturn, climate tech has remained resilient through it.

📈 What’s up? Data from Crunchbase shows that, so far in 2023, investment into global seed- through growth-stage sustainability-focused companies is at just over $17 billion, only a slight decline year-on-year in comparison to the rest of the market.

📉 What’s down? Vox has illustrated the alarming decline of our tropical rainforests, using four charts.

🏭 Good Read: Paul Moriou, investor at Serena, shared ten takeaways for founders building hardware-intensive climate startups.

🤔 Hmm: Elon Musk has put out a controversial tweet on climate change.

Carbon x Climate

🌎 GeologicAi, based in Canada, secured $20 million from Breakthrough Energy Ventures for its core scanning "robot geologist", which uses hardware sensors and machine vision algorithms to access key minerals needed for the low carbon economy.

👨‍🌾 Estonian agtech startup eAgronom secured $5.5 million to encourage farmers into more sustainable farming practices by incentivising them with its carbon credit program.

🛰 Airmo, based in Germany, raised €5.2 million pre-seed funding, including a €3.7 million contract with the European Space Agency, to launch its first satellite equipped with spectrometer and light detection and ranging technology to detect and measure GHGs in real time.

💰 Lowercarbon Capital is purchasing 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the Watershed Marketplace.

💨 Bayer just made its first purchase of tech-based carbon removal credits from German startup Novocarbo.

Food x Climate

🐟 German cultivated seafood startup Bluu Seafood raised €16 million Series A funding, and is gearing towards regulatory approval in several markets, including Singapore, where it says it expects to receive approval some time in 2024.

🐖 Molecular farming startup Moolec Science unveiled its soybeans that taste like pork. Its Meat Replacements Program yielded 26.6 percent of total soluble protein in soy seeds via its newly developed “Piggy Sooy”, which have a distinctly pink hue.

🔎 Synonym Bio launched Scaler, which it says is the first free online techno-economic analysis (TEA) tool exclusively for fermentation, designed to help businesses forecast their operational and production expenses at an industrial scale with the aim of accelerating biomanufacturing growth.

🍔 Czech startup Mewery unveiled what it says is the world’s first burger made from a blend of cultivated pork and microalgae cells, using its process which it claims slashes costs by up to 70% compared to traditional FBS methods of cultivated meat production.

Energy x Climate

☀️ German startup 1KOMMA5° raised €215 million and has hit unicorn status, just 23 months since its inception. It is building Germany's largest one-stop-shop for sale, installation and services related to solar, electricity storage and charging infrastructure, and has major international expansion plans.

🌊 Researchers at the CoTide Project in the UK are to receive £7 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to make renewable energy generation from ocean tides cheaper, more reliable and scalable.

💨 Turn2X, based in Germany, raised €4.3 million seed funding for its novel way to produce renewable natural gas, with which it hopes to make green energy transportable so that it can be easily integrated into existing infrastructure.

🥃 Annandale Distillery, based in Scotland, has been awarded £3.6 million by the UK government to trial a new thermal energy storage technology for its whisky distillery that could help replace fossil fuels.

🏭 Canadian sustainable energy leader CHAR Technologies Ltd. has been awarded $1.43 million by the Government of Canada to support domestic production capacity of clean fuels. It will use the funds to support a future commercial facility, designed to convert wood waste to renewable energy and biocarbon.

🏡 London-based Glowb secured £1.2 million to help “demystify” the solar installation process for homeowners with its end-to-end service built on trust and transparency, and hopes to become the UK’s most trusted and people-centric solar brand.

🧑‍⚕️ Danish startup Molecular Quantum Solutions secured €600,000 in a pre-seed round led by Scale Capital and featuring Stokbro Invest and Rockstart. It will use the funds to transform its tool stack into a scalable SaaS solution tailored specifically for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

🌡 AtmosZero emerged from stealth to unveil a first-of-its-kind modular electrified boiler designed to drop-in replace fossil-fueled industrial boiler systems, which it says will “revolutionise the way steam is made”.

Materials x Climate

🥤 Swiss startup DePoly raised $13.8 million seed funding for its recycling process which can tackle complex plastic streams and turn plastics back into raw material without affecting quality.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Compact Syngas Solutions, based in Wales, won just under £4 million from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage Innovation Programme for its advanced gasification process which generates hydrogen gas from non-recyclable waste products that would otherwise have gone to landfill.

♻️ A joint venture between UK-based Project Plan B and Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd is building the first commercial-scale, post-consumer polyester recycling plant, having achieved a “world first” breakthrough in successfully recycling polyester textiles back into raw material.

Construction x Climate

🏗 UK-based Material Evolution raised £15 million to make low carbon cement from industrial waste streams using an alkali-fusion process which it says requires only ‘ambient temperatures’, vastly reducing emissions.

👷‍♂️ New startup Sublime Systems is developing a clean cement-making process, which it describes as the “electric vehicle of cement making” thanks to its electrochemical solution.

Transport x Climate

🚗 Faraday Future raised $90 million from existing investors to get its delayed FF 91 luxury EV to production and delivery, as it struggles to stay afloat.

🚲 Estonian startup Vok Bikes secured €3.8 million seed funding to supply 1,000 more of its electric cargo bikes, designed for the last-mile delivery space, across Europe in the next year.

Funds x Climate

🇮🇳 Indian agrifoodtech investor Omnivore secured $150 million at the first close of its third fund. It will support seed and Series A startups developing breakthrough technologies for agriculture, food, climate, and the rural economy.

🇫🇷 French VC Frst reached a first closing of €72 million for its second fund, which will back seed stage startups. While it doesn’t focus on one vertical in particular, it believes there will be plenty of interesting investment opportunities due to the rise of artificial intelligence.

🇫🇷 Ring Capital, also based in France, closed its Ring Mission Impact fund with €66 million. It will use the funds to support entrepreneurs developing solutions to tackle climate and social challenges with ticket sizes between €500,000 and €5 million.

🇬🇧 The UK’s largest VC, Octopus Investments, launched a £40 million deep tech fund to back pre-seed startups in the UK and Europe working within quantum computing, robotics and AI, to support building a sustainable planet.

🇺🇸 US-based VC firm Innova Memphis secured $40 million at the first close of its Innova Ag Innovation Fund VI, which will invest in pre-seed, seed and early-stage startups working on automation and digitisation technologies for the “evolution of agriculture”.

🇺🇸 New venture capital fund Joyful Ventures raised $23 million to support pre-seed and seed stage startups that have strong B2B opportunities within alt protein technologies, including plant-based, precision fermentation, mycoproteins, molecular agriculture and cultivated foods.

🇺🇸 Planeteer announced the launch of a new pre-seed and seed-stage climate fund, Planeteer Capital, which had its first close in March this year and is continuing to raise. It will mainly support B2B businesses working in sectors such as carbon management, industrial decarbonisation, built environment, climate intelligence and insurance and sustainable agriculture.

Community x Climate

🌎 We’re looking for exceptional individuals to join our first cohort of ClimateHack Ambassadors.

Apply here if you’re;

• Passionate about building up your local ClimateTech community.

• Want direct access to some of the top Founders & Funders in Climate.

• Keen to host 3-4 Meetups per year (with our support and guidance).

Or forward this email to someone in your network who you think would make a great fit.

Memes x Climate

This week Nestlé announced that it is to stop using carbon offsets and withdraw its pledges to make certain brands ‘carbon neutral’, and instead will invest in cutting greenhouse gas emissions within its own supply chain and operations.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend ahead,

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola.