☀️ ClimateHack Vol. 61: The summer for ClimateTech

Hey There,

It’s been a big news week to close off the summer as another series of record breaking temperatures hits the headlines and a somewhat shielded industry continues to attract significant capital despite a global venture slowdown.

I know we say this here every six months, but it truly feels like the amount of attention and capital towards climate is at an all time high and there’s never been a better time to start working on solutions in this space.

If you’re just getting started in climate tech, here’s a link of resources to kick you off - from accelerators to newsletters, communities to job boards.

In today's edition:

🍗 Scottish-Dutch alt protein startup ENOUGH secured €40M in Series C funding.
🌊 Ebb Carbon emerges with an electrochemical process to remove acid from seawater.
🌎 Rotterdam based Icos Capital announced the launch of their fourth climate tech fund.

Digest x Climate

💦 Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that collects water from fog and simultaneously purifies it, using a close-​mesh lattice of metal wire coated with a mixture of specially selected polymers and titanium dioxide, which could benefit people living in dry but foggy areas.

🇺🇸 Good Read: The Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Biden last year, has allocated $400 billion in federal dollars for clean energy projects across the US, and now startups are starting to benefit.

💰 Three researchers from University of California, Irvine are set to receive more than $8 million in climate action grants to support projects which work towards achieving California’s climate objectives.

🛠 Entrepreneur First have launch a 2-day bootcamp coming up in Paris on the 21st to 23rd September for any budding climate enthusiasts looking to learn how to build a climate startup - applications now open.

Carbon x Climate

📊 UK-based proptech Kamma secured £3.6 million, in a round led by the Clean Growth Fund, for its property analysis software which provides assurance to prospective tenants that buildings are safe and “exceed the highest environmental standards”.

🛩 Goodwings, a climate-focused SaaS travel management platform based in Denmark, raised $1.5 million to expand its global footprint. The subscription-based platform is a cashback model which subsidises the decarbonisation of travel by allowing businesses to book and manage their travel and get the full emissions data of business trips for ESG reporting.

🔎 German impact reporting platform leonardo. impact raised €555,000 pre-seed funding, in a round led by bmh, to grow its suite of tools as it seeks to offer “additional impact measurement to create positive change for its clients”.

🌾 Researchers from Iowa State University and Wichita State University are developing a new system to capture waste nitrogen and carbon dioxide and turn them into a green fertiliser that reduces emissions of nitrous oxide.

🌊 New startup Ebb Carbon uses an electrochemical process to remove acid from seawater, making it better able to absorb CO2 and store it as a bicarbonate.

Food x Climate

🍗 Scottish-Dutch alt protein startup ENOUGH raised €40 million Series C funding to scale production of its mycoprotein product, Abunda, with the aim of producing enough protein to replace five million cows or one billion chickens by 2032.

🐙 Jellatech, based in North Carolina, raised $3.5 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Nordic VC firm byFounders. It will use the capital to commercialise its cell-based proteins, including collagen, for use in healthcare, personal care, biomedical research, and food and beverage.

🍷 Imperfect Foods and its parent owner Misfits Market have started selling a range of wines made with low intervention winemaking practices, and selling wine that was not given prime real estate in stores due to a scuffed or lightly marked label through its “Rescued Wine” program.

Construction x Climate

☕️ Engineers from Australia’s RMIT University have developed a process to turn spent coffee grounds into biochar, which in turn can be used to create concrete that is nearly 30% stronger than conventional options, whilst reducing the amount of coffee waste that goes to landfill.

📈 Germany’s Schüttflix raised €45 million, having doubled its turnover in 2022 to almost €90 million. It will use the funds to further expand its site bulk materials marketplace, designed to improve efficiency and reduce waste and emissions in the construction industry.

Energy x Climate

🏭 Advanced Ionics raised $12.5 million Series A funding to bring green hydrogen to heavy industry. It has developed electrolysers which work at the same temperature as a range of industrial processes, offering more efficient hydrogen production.

🌡 Swedish startup DREM raised €2 million to fuel European expansion plans for its heat pump platform. It provides digital pricing algorithms, virtual home visits, and a marketplace for installers to supply affordable home heating.

☀️ Solar AI Technologies secured $1.5 million seed funding to make solar energy more accessible in Southeast Asia with its rent-to-own model that helps customers save on their energy bills from the get-go.

🌡 London-based Futraheat secured £689,000 from InnovateUK for Greensteam 360, its 300kW industrial heat pump which it says can cut energy use by more than 80%. The pump boosts low-grade waste heat up by up to 60 degrees, upcycling the heat back to the customer to help them save on their energy bills and carbon footprint.

📱 Equiwatt, based in the UK, received a £300,000 investment from the North East Venture Fund for its energy-saving app. At peak times of the day, the app tells consumers to switch off or not use certain electrical items, and pause charging electric vehicles, in exchange for vouchers or donations to charity.

Transport x Climate

🔋 Swedish producer of lithium-ion batteries, Northvolt, raised $1.2 billion from BlackRock and various Canadian pension plans to build new factories in North America and Europe, marking the first time it has shared concrete plans to build in North America.

🚗 US-based Electric Era, founded by former SpaceX engineers, raised $11.5 million Series A funding and says it has “cracked the code” for fast and reliable public electric-vehicle charging stations that can go wherever they’re needed.

🤝 Tiny electric vehicle maker Arcimoto, based in the US, is partnering with Department of Defense contractor Matbock to “assist the military’s efforts to improve tactical capabilities and operational efficiencies through the adoption of American-made green energy technology”.

🌎 Automaker Stellantis NV is investing over $100 million into a geothermal lithium project in California to support the ramp-up of EV production.

Chemicals x Climate

🧪 Cascade Biocatalysts, based in the US, secured $2.6 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by Ten VC. It will use the funds to scale its groundbreaking Body Armor for Enzymes™ technology, with which it seeks to drive greener and more cost-effective chemical reactions, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainability across multiple industries.

Biodiversity x Climate

📊 UK-based NatureMetrics - the world’s first nature performance monitoring subscription service, powered by eDNA technology - raised £9.8 million to fight biodiversity loss by collecting water or soil samples and measuring the number of species at a given site.

🌳 Sumthing, based in the Netherlands, successfully closed its pre-seed funding round and announced the launch of its brand new platform, designed to “set a new standard for businesses and individuals to interact with nature restoration projects”.

🌊 Engineers from the University of Miami have installed SEAHIVE units - honeycomb-shaped concrete tubes designed to dissipate strong waves - across a small section of Florida coastline to help prevent coastal erosion and restore marine life.

🐧 A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment highlights that due to rising temperatures and melting ice caps, huge colonies of emperor penguins saw no chicks survive last year due to the changing conditions.

Funds x Climate

🌎 Rotterdam based Icos Capital announced the launch of their fourth climate tech fund with a targeted size of €100M with several new corporate, financial and public sector investors including Nouryon, Bühler Group and Oost NL.

🇦🇺 New Australian angel sidecar fund The Hugh Victor McKay Fund, named after the inventor who patented the combine harvester in the 1880s, is launching with $1 million to support early-stage agtech startups “building the future of on-farm productivity and sustainability”.

🔬 UK-based early-stage investment fund, The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, received additional support from UK Research and Innovation and the Ministry of Defence and has surpassed £100 million in value. The fund has previously backed firms such as Tokamak Energy, which is developing fusion power, and Solasta Bio, which is working on cleaner pesticides.

💡 Good Read: This article from PitchBook explains why PE limited partners are pushing GPs to tie fund fees to sustainability outcomes.

Polls x Climate

Here’s the results of last week’s poll on what ClimateHack readers think about Occidental Petroleum's move to purchase carbon-capture company Carbon Engineering:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 a beautiful PR move

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ somewhere in-between

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ a big win for climate

Memes x Climate

📉 The Guardian put out a piece this week highlighting that carbon credit speculators could lose billions due to ”many purchased offsets having no environmental worth”.

- Meme credits: Edward van der Hout 

Thanks for reading and for those who got back to work this week - I hope you had a great start.

How did you like today's email?

Love it 😁 Meh 😐 Hate it 🙁

Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola.