🧯 Vol 153: Extinguishing Wildfires with Sound Waves

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Cement is both indispensable and unsustainable.

Indispensable: It’s the backbone of modern infrastructure, used to make concrete the most-used man-made material in the world.

Unsustainable: If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world (behind China and the US), responsible for roughly 8% of global CO₂ emissions

Challenge: Unlike in energy generation or transportation, decarbonizing cement isn’t as simple as electrification.

Opportunity: Addressing this challenge requires rethinking the material from the ground up with new feedstocks, alternative chemistries, process electrification, and carbon capture integration.

Now these 70+ startups are working on the solution and we caught up with 12 Founders and Investors to get their take on alternative cement’s potential.

In this week’s edition:

🌞 Reflect Orbital plans to launch a constellation of up to 250,000 mirror satellites to beam “sunlight on demand” to Earth for nighttime solar power.
🧪 Liquid Wind received €3.6 million to advance pre-engineering for one of Europe’s largest eMethanol plants
🧯 Sonic Fire Tech raised $3.5 million to advance and commercialise its water-free, sensor-activated acoustic fire suppression systems.

Digest x Climate

📉 What’s down? A new report by UK sustainability network Leafr reveals that 9 in 10 corporate sustainability teams doubt they can meet their goals, with only 11% on track.

​​👋 Our ClimateHack Ambassador teams in New York City, Sao Paulo and Zürich are looking for new members. If you're passionate about building the ClimateTech ecosystem in your city, apply here.

🌎 The SOSV Climate Tech Summit (Nov 3–7 | free | virtual) returns for its fifth year, uniting the world’s leading investors, founders, and innovators tackling our planet’s biggest challenges. Register now to join the conversation.

🪭 1000 years ago, people were cooling entire cities… with zero electricity. With nature and smart design, here’s how.

🇿🇦 Join us this Tuesday at the ClimateHack Meetup in Cape Town to share ideas on Africa’s blue economy future.

AgriFood x Climate

🤖 Swiss agtech scale-up Ecorobotix, a pioneer in AI-powered Ultra-High Precision spraying for sustainable agriculture, secured €90 million in a Series D round led by Highland Europe with The European Circular Bioeconomy Fund and McWin Capital Partners, bringing its total funding to €128 million.

🧬 Wild Bioscience, a University of Oxford spinout, raised $60 million in a Series A funding round led by the Ellison Institute of Technology to advance its AI-driven crop breeding platform, which identifies genetic improvements to create higher-yield, climate-resilient, and more sustainable crop varieties.

🍫 Israel’s Celleste Bio unveiled the first chocolate-grade cocoa butter made via plant cell culture technology.

🤝 French cultivated food tech company Gourmey has acquired Vital Meat to form a new entity, PARIMA, which will produce scalable, next-generation cell-based animal products across multiple species, starting with cultivated duck and chicken.

Biodiversity x Climate

🪸 Scientists say: we crossed first climate tipping point - and coral reefs are the victims. Here’s what happens to them with climate change.

🧯 Sonic Fire Tech, a US startup developing acoustic fire suppression systems that use infrasound to extinguish flames and protect buildings from wildfires, raised $3.5 million seed funding from investors including Khosla Ventures and Third Sphere to advance and commercialise its water-free, sensor-activated technology. Watch how it works

🔍️ Up close: Moss and lichen under a macro lens.

Carbon x Climate

💡 New in Forbes: Can Direct Air Capture survive this moment? - What happens when a climate technology loses its tailwinds.

🪨 Leading carbon removal financier Altitude expanded its investment in West Africa by securing an additional 120,000 tonnes of biochar-based carbon removal credits (CORCs), building on a previous 25,000-tonne commitment.

Chemicals x Climate

🧪 Gothenburg-based Liquid Wind received €3.6 million from the Swedish Energy Agency’s Industriklivet programme to advance pre-engineering for one of Europe’s largest eMethanol plants in the country, aiming to produce 100,000 tons of carbon-neutral fuel annually and significantly cut emissions in sectors like shipping and aviation.

Construction x Climate

🏢 Barcelona-based construction technology company 011h raised €20 million in a funding round led by Ship2B Ventures and CDTI, with participation from Seaya Ventures, Breega, Sicar, and several industry entrepreneurs, to scale its digital, modular, and sustainable building platform.

Energy x Climate

🔋 Austrian startup enspired, which provides AI-driven optimisation for battery energy storage systems, secured over €40 million in a Series B funding round led by Future Energy Ventures with continued backing from Zouk Capital, EnBW New Ventures, Banpu NEXT, PUSH VC, and 360 Capital, to expand globally and enhance its automated trading platform for short-term power markets.

🔌 Tel Aviv–based Prisma Photonics closed an oversubscribed $30 million growth round, led by Protego Ventures with participation from Adara Ventures and others, to scale its AI-powered Hyper-Scan Fiber-Sensing™ platform that transforms existing optical fibres into real-time infrastructure monitoring networks across power grids, pipelines, and security systems.

🍃 Italy’s GEVI raised €2.7 million seed funding, in a round led by 360 Capital and CDP Venture Capital, to industrialise its AI-powered micro wind turbines that optimise performance in real time and complement solar power in urban, rural, and industrial settings.

🏘️ Czech startup Delta Green secured €2 million from Credo Ventures, Tilia Impact Ventures, and Purple Ventures to accelerate its pan-European expansion of a platform that turns ordinary homes into a virtual power plant, enabling households to optimise energy use, support grid stability, and reduce fossil fuel reliance through smart, flexible consumption.

☀️ Californian startup Reflect Orbital plans to launch a constellation of up to 250,000 mirror satellites to beam “sunlight on demand” to Earth for nighttime solar power, but astronomers warn the project could cause severe light pollution and pose serious risks to astronomy and wildlife.

🫗 Scotland-based VASO by Eco has developed a recycled glass composite material to replace concrete in heat pump installations, partnering with the University of Edinburgh’s CeNZ-HighDB to advance the technology and accelerate low-carbon, high-efficiency heat pump deployment

🌞 London-based Sunsave, the UK’s first FCA-authorised solar subscription provider, has expanded into Scotland through a partnership with Edinburgh’s Snugg,to make solar energy accessible without upfront costs and help households save up to £700 a year on energy bills.

💥 Radiant announced plans to build the world’s first factory for mass-producing portable nuclear generators at Oak Ridge, Tennessee - the birthplace of the US nuclear industry - with construction beginning in 2026 and first units expected by 2028, eventually scaling to 50 reactors per year at the new R-50 facility.

📲 Apple has signed contracts for 650 megawatts of wind and solar power across Europe to help offset the energy used by its products, while also investing $150 million in China to help suppliers transition to renewables as part of its global decarbonisation strategy.

FinTech x Climate

🐝 European climate fintech Bees & Bears raised new investment from Extantia and Contrarian Ventures to scale its clean energy financing platform, triple its team, and expand into commercial and industrial segments.

Funds x Climate

🪙 Italy’s Maia Ventures launched its first €55 million AgriFoodTech fund, backed by the European Investment Fund, CDP Venture Capital, and major Italian food corporates like Cereal Docks and Andriani, to invest €500,000–1.5 million in 20–25 early-stage startups focused on innovations at the intersection of food, health, and sustainability.

💰 Dutch venture capital firm FORWARD.one launched its third fund, targeting €200 million (hard cap €250 million) to invest €1–3 million in 25–30 early-stage industrial technology startups across Benelux, DACH, and the Nordics, with most capital already secured from returning and new investors.

Materials x Climate

🇪🇺 The EU has awarded €3.5 million to FABULOSE, a new 11-partner European project led by the German Institutes for Textile and Fibre Research to develop animal-free leather alternatives from biotechnologically produced cellulose using industrial CO₂ and food waste streams.

♻️ Plastic recycling startup Novoloop signed a commercial-scale production deal with Huide Science & Technology to supply upcycled thermoplastic polyurethane made from post-consumer polyethylene waste.

👀 Good read via Forbes on fashion’s only logical path to sustainability.

🚀 MassChallenge Switzerland is launching the Sustainable Materials Challenge 2026, connecting startups with industry leaders to co-develop and scale next-gen solutions.

Mobility x Climate

✈️ Vermont-based Beta Technologies, an electric aviation startup,has filed for an IPO priced between $27 and $33 per share to raise up to $825 million at a $7.2 billion valuation, following over $1.15 billion in prior funding and a recent $300 million investment from GE Aerospace for hybrid-electric aircraft development.

Budget x Climate

🪜 When budgets meet sustainability targets

Fall x Climate

🍂 Leave the leaves alone

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Editorial by Laura, Curation by Nicola