❌ ClimateHack Vol 83: Climate Tech Closures

Hi There,

Heat waves, droughts, extreme weather, and biodiversity loss are just a few of the devastating effects of climate change being felt across Latin America.

As the region looks to adaptation and mitigation technologies to minimise the impact, investors see an opportunity to invest in these scalable solutions and their founders.

This week, we spoke to investors funding the climate finance gap in Latin America to hear which technologies startups should be working on and where they’ll invest next across - from mining to MRV - discover the full list here.

In Today’s Edition;

⛴ British startup Seabound completed a successful maiden voyage for its carbon-capture machine that can be retrofitted onto ships.
🧪 Berlin-based DUDE CHEM secured €6.5M to produce greener active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates.
💰 EIF, one of Europe's most active LPs in venture funds has launched a €200 million Cleantech Co-Investment fund.

Digest x Climate

📈 What’s up? HSBC is partnering with Google to hit its $1 billion climate tech financing goal. The banking giant will provide funding to 30 companies cherry-picked by Google for its Cloud Ready-Sustainability programme, helping them to scale their cloud-based decarbonisation solutions.

📉 What’s down? Several climate company announced their business closings this week, including:

• The UK arm of electric vehicle maker Arrival entered administration, just three years after being valued at more than £9 billion, and Swedish electric motorcycle startup Cake just filed for bankruptcy in the middle of a funding round.

• Berlin based Dipala is shutting down. Its aim was to decarbonise the EU building stock through energy renovations, but in a linkedin post the founders said they were unable to reach product-market-fit.

• US-based New Wave Foods, makers of plant-based shrimps, has ceased operations and entered into an assignment for the benefit of the creditors (ABC). The company had previously raised $18M including backing from meat producers’ Tyson Ventures.

AgriFood x Climate

🍠 LA-based ProducePay secured $38 million Series D funding to help tackle fresh produce supply chain waste. Its proprietary agri-fintech platform provides fruits and vegetables growers with financing and market intelligence to support them to meet their commitments.

🍼 Californian startup Yali Bio has developed what it claims is the world’s first breast milk fat made from yeast, using precision fermentation technology, to help improve the nutritional credentials of infant formula.

🥛 Israel’s Remilk has secured Health Canada’s “Letter of No Objection”, allowing the use and commercialisation of its animal-free milk protein within the country, making it the first company to receive the green light in Canada for a precision fermentation-derived protein. 

🥚 British startup Ivy Farm Technologies has joined forces with high-end department store Fortnum & Mason to develop what it claims is the world’s first scotch egg containing cultivated sausage meat.

🇪🇺 A new, EU-funded research program, the Fostering European Cellular Agriculture for Sustainable Transition Solution (FEASTS), has launched to gather comprehensive, “unbiased” information and technological knowledge about cell-based technology to help establish a framework for sustainable production.

🇺🇸 The US Department of Defense unveiled a new funding route for food tech companies, the Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Investment Program, as part of the country’s effort to support the advancement of biotechnology and bolster its defence capabilities.

Carbon x Climate

🔎 Sydney-based CarbonHQ raised $600,000 pre-seed funding to “bring transparency and accountability to carbon credits”. It is developing a digital platform to process on-ground data, automate issuance workflows and establish a direct link between credits and their underlying data.

⛴ British startup Seabound completed a successful maiden voyage, in partnership with Lomar Shipping and lomarlabs, for its carbon-capture machine that can be retrofitted onto ships. The pilot project captured CO2 at around 80% efficiency and sulphur at around 90% efficiency in its compact carbon capture system onboard a 3200 TEU container ship.

Chemicals x Climate

🧪 Berlin-based DUDE CHEM secured €6.5 million seed funding, in a round co-led by Vorwerk Ventures and b2venture, to disrupt the €5.5 trillion global pharma-chemical industry with greener produced active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates.

👀 Cool: Check out this diagrammatic analysis of petrochemicals.

Energy x Climate

💫 US-based Thea Energy secured $20 million Series A funding, in a round led by Prelude Ventures, to build a pilot-scale fusion reactor later this decade and a larger-scale, 350-megawatt demonstration plant in the 2030s, with the eventual aim of producing power at $50 per megawatt-hour.

🌨 Swiss startup Jua raised $16 million to build what is essentially a ‘large “physics” model for the natural world’, designed to model and predict weather and climate patterns, starting with how they relate to players in the energy industry.

🏡 Sweden’s Myrspoven secured €5.4 million in a funding round led by 4impact capital, Vantaa Energy, and AMAVI Capital. It uses AI to support energy optimisation in buildings, and is currently running more than 3,500,000 square metres across eight countries and saves on average 20% of a building’s energy.

🇦🇺 Renewable energy leader Pacific Green is proposing to develop one of Australia’s largest grid-scale battery energy parks, estimated to result in a 3.8% reduction in total wholesale energy costs for households within Victoria’s Southwest Renewable Energy Zone.

🏭 Kraft Heinz is partnering with energy infrastructure developer Carlton Powers to create a renewable green hydrogen plant, with the potential to meet 50% of the manufacturer’s annual natural gas demand.

Transport x Climate

🚕 Project 3 Mobility secured €100 million Series A funding to develop its own autonomous electric robotaxi, slated for 2026 deployment in Zagreb, along with specialised infrastructure, and a mobility service.

🏍 India’s River raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Japan’s Yamaha Motor, bringing its total raised to date to $68 million, to expand the market presence of its first electric “SUV” two-wheeler in the country.

🔋 Dutch startup CarbonX raised €10 million in a funding round co-led by Innovation Industries, InnovationQuarter, and Borski Fund. Its proprietary feedstock technology allows battery cell manufacturers and EV OEMs to source critical anode materials locally in high volumes, resulting in lower costs and a reduced carbon footprint.

🔌 French startup Guided Energy raised $5.2 million from Sequoia Capital and Dynamo Ventures at the end of 2023 for its software tool that helps EV fleet operators with charge management and dispatch

🛩 Cosmic Aerospace secured $4.5 million seed funding to advance its unique technology for electric aircraft capable of flights up to 1,000km, which it claims is a world first. Its first full-scale flight demonstrator is set for its first flight in 2026, with entry into service targeted for the end of the decade. 

🤝 Sydney-based AMSL Aero, which has designed and built a hydrogen-powered Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft, has sold its first ten aircraft to a commercial client, Aviation Logistics, with a planned launch in 2027.

🔧 Toyota is planning to spend an additional $1.3 billion to prepare its Kentucky factory for production of a new three-row all-electric SUV designed for US consumers, bringing its total investment into the facility to nearly $10 billion.

Materials x Climate

UK AI startup Greyparrot secured strategic investment from Dutch recycling giant Bollegraaf Group. The startup’s tech platform ​​uses computer vision for waste analytics, to help improve the quality of the product for recyclers to sell and recover valuable materials from mixed/contaminated waste streams that might otherwise end up in landfill or be incinerated.

Funds x Climate

💰 EIF, one of the most active LPs behind many of Europe's emerging funds, has announce the launch of their €200 million Cleantech Co-Investment Facility aiming to invest alongside select fund managers and into innovative European greentech companies

🇺🇸 Wonder Ventures, based in the US, secured $102 million across two funds: a $57 million Fund 4 for pre-seed, and a $45 million later-stage opportunity fund to support the software, blockchain, consumer, fintech, healthcare, marketplace, transportation and logistics sectors.

🇺🇸 Voyager Ventures raised $100 million for Voyager Partners Select I, its second climate tech fund, to support early-stage startups working within decarbonisation of mobility, energy, materials, food, the built environment, analytics, and industrial systems, plus carbon removal.

🇫🇷 New French VC firm Varsity came out of stealth to announce its first fund, which has already raised €70 million to support early-stage startups working across the finance, health, enterprise software and climate sectors.

🇬🇧 London-based VC firm Episode 1 closed its third fund with £76 million to support pre-seed and seed-stage startups with a core focus on software companies in the AI, infrastructure, health, open source, “techbio,” and marketplace sectors.

🇳🇱 Netherlands-based The Future Food Fund II closed with its target of €40 million to support seed and Series A companies in Western Europe working within areas such as regenerative agriculture, environmentally friendly food, and circular systems. Its portfolio so far includes UK-based Extracellular, a CDMO scale-up and development partner for cultivated meat.

🌍 San Francisco-based Rally Cap VC secured $2.5 million at the first close of Rally Cap Climate, its climate tech fund, and expects a final close of $5 million. It will use the funds to support early-stage startups in Africa and globally.

🇪🇸 Spain’s theFoodTechLab launched its first fund, Climate Fund I, with a target size of €30 million. It will use the funds to support seed to Series A startups across the EU and Israel, working within Ag-tech, Health & Nutrition, Alternative Proteins, and the Circular Economy & Waste sectors.

HackSummit x Climate

We just announced the first batch of 50 speakers who will be speaking at this years HackSummit in Lausanne.

The line-up includes:

• Jim Mann, Founder and CEO at UNDO

• Yair Reem, Partner at Extantia Capital

• Ginger Dosier, Co-founder of Biomason

• Alice Brooks, Partner at Kholsa Ventures

• Adrian Ferrero, Co-Founder of Biome Makers

• Veronique Hördemann, Partner at Future Energy Ventures

Come join them, and 1,500+ other curated Climate Tech Founders, Funders and LPs at the fourth edition of our annual HackSummit - taking place this June 13th & 14th.

Memes x Climate

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola