🌏 ClimateHack Vol 89: The leading climate investors in APAC

Hi There,

APAC has been quietly been emerging as a climate tech hotspot over the last few years with a crop of new companies and funds coming up with big ambitions, and the capital behind them to make it happen.

Though it should come as no surprise, the region is home to 60% of the world's population and according to the UNDP, is set to face ‘profound existential threat’ from the affects of climate change.

So this week, we spotlight the 50+ APAC Climate VC’s and Funds who have been busy fuelling the growth of climate tech both locally, and globally.

In Today’s Edition;

🌎 Germany’s World Fund made its final close of €300M to back climate tech solutions in Europe.
🏗 Sweden’s CemVision raised €10M for its sustainable cement made from recycled industrial waste.
🌡 Californian company AirMyne raised $6.9M to use geothermal energy to scale direct air carbon capture.

Digest x Climate

📕 Good Read: Leading European VCs Speedinvest, Planet A and Norrsken VC have produced their Climate Hardware Playbook, a guide designed to address common issues founding teams face with fundraising, management, and product development.

🌳 Good Read: The team at Serena have put together a must-read on NatureTech Funding Trends following the Nature4Climate flagship study. TL;DR: Despite the overall slowdown in venture capital in 2023, the nature tech market has seen strong momentum throughout 2023.

🌷 Good News: There are several cities across the world stripping out unnecessary concrete and asphalt to allow nature to take hold, which should help absorb rainfall and reduce flooding, as well as boosting biodiversity and potentially helping to cool urban areas.

🧂 Interesting: Scientists are pumping saltwater over the frozen ocean off Canada’s northern coast, in a bid to help save the Arctic’s sea ice and slow global warming.

📊 Interesting: Cameron Underwood shared a video visualising the scale of GHG emissions, and it’s well worth a watch.

AgriFood x Climate

🧪 Australian startup Cauldron raised AU$9.5 million ($6.25 million) in a Series A funding round led by Horizon Ventures. Its continuous fermentation technology helps to improve the economics of large scale fermentation production, and it will use the funds to support plans for a 500,000 litre production facility.

🍫 UK-based Nukoko raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round led by Oyster Bay Venture Capital to scale its technology to produce cocoa-free chocolate from fava beans, a nitrogen-fixing crop that can be grown in the UK.

🌿 Female-led Spanish startup Poseidona secured €1.1 million pre-seed funding to further develop its sustainable and cost-effective algal protein ingredients, made from algal sidestreams and invasive seaweeds, contributing to managing marine ecosystems.

🤝 Formo and Those Vegan Cowboys announced an R&D partnership to advance the production of their precision fermentation casein proteins, with the aim of “breaking through regulatory barriers in the EU” to bring their animal-free cheeses to market.

🏭 French startup Umiami has opened the country’s first commercial-scale manufacturing facility for plant-based whole cuts, which is 14,000 m2 and has an annual production capacity of 7,500 tons.

The UK Food Standards Agency is planning to reform its regulation system for novel foods, including precision fermentation-derived ingredients and cultivated meat.

🥔 UK Research & Innovation unveiled a new project to investigate gene editing in potatoes, funded as part of its ‘National Engineering Biology’ programme to address challenges such as drought and secure a sustainable future for the industry.

Nature x Climate

🧯 Dryad Networks secured €5.6 million for its “internet of the forest” ultra-early wildfire detection technology, which combines solar-powered infrastructure with AI-enabled gas sensors strategically placed in forest areas.

🐠 Swiss startup rrreefs, a spinout of ETH Zurich, raised CHF 420,000 pre-seed funding to regenerate coral reefs and restore marine biodiversity using modular, 3D-printed clay bricks that create complex marine habitats.

Carbon x Climate

🔎 Paris-based Greenly secured $52 million Series B funding, having recorded $10 million in revenue last year, to help smaller companies track their CO2 emissions with its carbon accounting software.

🏭 Novocarbo, based in Germany, raised €25 million for its Carbon Removal Parks, which combine CO2 removal and green heat generation. It will use the funds to establish a pan-European infrastructure network for its net-zero solution, and is aiming to enable the removal of up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2030.

💨 British startup Mission Zero Technologies closed its Series A funding round with £21.8 million. Its direct air capture technology uses electricity and a liquid solution to capture atmospheric CO2 in its organic form, and is built for rapid scaling and deployment.

🌎 Californian company AirMyne raised $6.9 million seed funding to use geothermal energy to scale direct air carbon capture. Its proprietary liquid requires low-temperature heat to release gas, so could be used at a wide range of sites, from geothermal installations to chemical refineries, breweries and more.

📊 Berlin-based Daato secured €5 million seed funding, in a round led by kopa ventures, for its holistic ESG management platform, which supports businesses with their ESG requirements across supply chain sustainability, sustainability reporting, and carbon management. 

🏭 Airhive, based in the UK, announced the close of its pre-seed investment round, co-led by AP Ventures and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners. It will use the funds to deliver one of the largest DAC pilots in the world, using “fluidised bed” technology to capture carbon from the air.

Construction x Climate

🏗 Sweden’s CemVision raised €10 million seed funding. It uses recycled industrial waste from the steel and mining industries to create a more sustainable cement, and signed its first customer, large Swedish industrial company LKAB, in December last year.

Energy x Climate

⚡️ German renewable energy company Enpal secured €1.1 billion in debt financing from Barclays Europe, Bank of America and Credit Agricole CIB to service its next 35,000 customers with solar panels, batteries and heat pumps.

🚢 Lhyfe, based in France, received a grant of up to €149 million from the French government to build a green hydrogen production plant to produce up to 34 tonnes of green hydrogen per day near Le Havre, one of Europe's largest industrial port areas.

🏢 Berlin-based Fuchs & Eule, which acts as an independent energy renovation advisor in the residential building sector, closed its Series A funding round, led by Amsterdam’s SET Ventures, to further expand its operations.

🌡 Germany’s Green Fusion raised “several million Euros”, in a funding round led by BitStone Capital, for its AI-powered, cloud-based energy manager for the intelligent control of heat and energy systems.

💨 Swiss startup Crosstown H2R came out of stealth, having raised over €2 million in subsidies and grants, to announce its Crosstown Burner (H2R®), which makes it possible to decarbonise gas turbines while ensuring international emissions compliance with ultra-low nitrogen oxide capability. 

🌿 Researchers at the Hydrogen Research Department of the Korea Institute of Energy Research have developed the country’s first clean hydrogen production technology, using ammonia, which emits no carbon when the hydrogen is separated.

🪐 Scientists at Penn State University are studying ways to harness renewable energy from the sun and outer space, to help generate power and passively cool buildings using a dual cooling and power technique that captures solar energy in a solar cell while directing heat away from Earth via radiative cooling.

Transport x Climate

🚗 Pelikan Mobility, based in France, raised €4 million in a seed funding round led by Pale Blue Dot, Frst, and Seedcamp. It has developed a software solution to optimise fleet operations with electric vehicles, and will use the funds to further expand its operations.

🔌 Berlin-based Enapi raised €2.5 million pre-seed funding to enable affordable connectivity in the EV charging industry with its connectivity platform for collaboration, designed to broker EV charging transactions.

🏍 German electric motorbike startup NOVUS secured funding in a round led by 468 Capital. Its e-bike is a hybrid of a bicycle and a motorbike, designed to attract non-motorbike riders 

🚲 Belgian startup Cowboy launched an all-road electric bike, Cowboy Cross, designed for comfort and long-distance trips to help attract riders beyond European city centres.

🛩 The UK Department of Transport published its Future of Flight Action Plan this week, outlining a roadmap to get closer to flying in electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.

🇮🇳 New data shows that the number of startups in India’s electric two-wheeler market has surged by over 200% since 2021, driven by government incentives to promote clean vehicles and cut oil imports.

Water x Climate

💧 Netherlands-based Hydraloop raised €10.5 million Series B funding for its decentralised grey water recycling systems, which allow households to cut water consumption and wastewater emissions by up to 45%.

Funds x Climate

🇩🇪 World Fund closed its first €300 million climate tech fund, after a three-year fund raise. It will use the funds to make 25-30 investments into European startups working on decarbonisation, with hardware an important component of its strategy.

🇮🇪 Frontline Ventures raised $200 million to support globally ambitious B2B companies on both sides of the Atlantic. It invests in a number of sectors, including the internet of things, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

🇳🇱 OTB Ventures secured $185 million, including backing from the European Investment Fund and NATO Investment Fund, to back Series A-stage deeptech startups across Europe working within energy, quantum computing, autonomy, climate, industrials, space and biotechnology.

🇺🇸 Californian VC Acre Venture Partners closed its Fund III with $140 million to invest in pre-seed to Series B agrifoodtech companies. To date, it has supported six startups, including agricultural robotics companies Bonsai Robotics and farm-ng.

🇺🇸 New, angel-style VC firm Silence has raised $35 million to support early-stage climate tech companies, and has so far invested in 22 companies, including used EV marketplace Cardino, and Electryone, which is building a virtual power plant software.

🇺🇸 Montauk Climate launched with $8.5 million to support and build companies that complement hardware-heavy climate tech efforts while also “playing to their strengths around energy, software and infrastructure”, with a particular focus on energy use in data centres, electrification incentives, weather data aggregation and insurance. 

🇺🇸 US-based Mad Capital launched its Perennial Fund II, targeting $50 million to support farmers with loans to help them transition to regenerative and/or organic agricultural practices.

Quality Tweets x Climate

⛏ 🔋

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola