💸 Vol 154: The Economy of Disaster Spending

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Natural disasters reshape entire economies, as cities rebuild and new technologies for recovery and resilience emerge. The money and effort going into recovery have become a major, if often overlooked, engine of economic activity.

This week, Bloomberg reports that disaster recovery now represents $8 trillion of economic activity, in the US alone.

Recovery from or preparation for disasters is sparking resilience, adaptation and new opportunities. With Founders designing technologies for resilience, adaptation and abundance.

This December, at the HackSummit, we’ll explore exactly that: how resilience fuels Abundance in energy, supply chains and climate adaptation. Joined by bold Founders, including Brimstone, Crux, Durin, Earth AI, Endolith, Framework, Hertha Metals, Meala, Navier, Lumina, Radical AI, Rainmaker and Ulysses.

In this week’s edition:

⚡️ Brookfield raised a record $20 billion for its second energy transition fund.
🌍 Spiro raised $100 million marking Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility investment.
♻️ Redwood Materials raised $350 million as it expands its battery recycling, cathode production, and energy storage business.

AgriFood x Climate

🇩🇰 Matr Foods secured €20 million Series A funding, in a round co-led by Novo Holdings and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, bringing its total funding to €40 million including EU-backed debt, to build a large-scale mycelium protein factory and scale production from 30 to 4,000 tonnes annually by 2027.

🧀 French precision fermentation startup Nutropy secured €7 million in a funding round led by Big Pi Ventures and Zero Carbon Capital, with support from Bpifrance and other investors, to scale production of its casein-based “cheeseable milk” powder ahead of a planned 2027 launch.

🥦 British startup Upcycled Plant Power raised £1.5 million from Elbow Beach, bringing its total funding to £3.5 million to scale its AI-powered robotic harvesting and upcycling technology that converts broccoli waste into sustainable plant-protein and fibre ingredients.

🌾 PepsiCo has partnered with Soil Capital to advance regenerative agriculture across 35,000 acres of rapeseed farmland in the UK, France, and Belgium, providing farmers with digital tools, financial incentives, and tailored support to improve soil health, reduce emissions, and build a more resilient European supply chain for brands like Lay’s and Walkers.

Biodiversity x Climate

🛰️ Coolant, which is focused on spatial intelligence and 3D ecosystem mapping, raised $4.3 million seed funding from General Catalyst and Floodgate to advance its AI-powered models for understanding and protecting the planet’s ecosystems.

Carbon x Climate

🏭 Google announced plans to invest in a 400-megawatt natural gas power plant in Illinois, developed by Low Carbon Infrastructure and co-located with Archer Daniels Midland, aiming to capture about 90% of its CO₂ emissions to power nearby data centers while storing the captured carbon in ADM’s existing geological storage site.

💨 Interesting: Direct Air Capture (DAC) Market Snapshot report, offering a snapshot of where the DAC market stands today and how far it has come in such a short time.

Energy x Climate

♻️ Redwood Materials raised $350 million in a Series E funding round led by Eclipse with participation from Nvidia’s NVentures, valuing the company at around $6 billion as it expands its battery recycling, cathode production, and energy storage business to power the growing AI data center market.

🔋 Amsterdam-based energy scale-up Return secured a €300 million growth equity investment from APG to expand its grid-scale battery storage and flexibility platform across Europe, marking one of the largest energy storage financings of 2025.

🔌 Arbor Energy raised $55 million Series A funding. The round was co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Voyager Ventures, with participation from Gigascale Capital, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, and others, and it will use the funds to develop its zero-emission, fuel-flexible power systems that combine oxy-combustion and supercritical CO₂ turbine technology, advancing clean, scalable solutions for the global energy transition.

⚡️ Cambridge-based Fourth Power secured $20 million in a Series A+ round led by Munich Re Ventures with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and DCVC to build its first molten-tin thermal battery, aiming to deliver low-cost, long-duration energy storage that could make renewable power available around the clock by 2028.

🪫 Italian startup Sizable Energy raised $8 million in a funding round led by Playground Global with participation from EDEN/IAG, Exa Ventures, Satgana, Unruly Capital, and Verve Ventures. It will use the funds to develop offshore pumped-hydro energy storage using flexible underwater reservoirs that store renewable power at a fraction of the cost of traditional batteries.

⚡️ Germany’s etalytics secured an additional €8 million Series A funding, in a round led by M12 with continued backing from Alstin Capital, ebm-papst, and BMH, to expand its AI-powered industrial energy optimisation platform globally.

🚙 London-based Allye Energy raised $2.5 million seed funding in a round led by Elbow Beach and Alpha Future Funds to scale its smart battery systems that repurpose EV batteries for flexible energy storage.

🔥 Australian startup Good Heat raised over $2 million in a funding round backed by Understorey Ventures, Investible, and 2100VC, to deploy large-scale thermal energy storage systems that replace gas with renewable-powered heat for industry, with plans already underway for Australia’s largest heat battery project in Victoria.

🌡️ UK-based HotGreen Solutions secured £1.2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Empirical Ventures with backing from Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and others to scale its ultra-efficient industrial heat pumps, which deliver up to four times the efficiency of boilers and can cut energy costs and CO₂ emissions significantly for manufacturers.

🏡 Estonia’s MarkeDroid raised €300,000 in bridge funding, including €175,000 from EstBAN, to scale its AI-powered distributed energy orchestration platform across Europe, designed to optimise how homes, businesses, and grids manage and trade electricity for greater efficiency and stability.

🚘 Swiss energy software company exnaton raised a Series A funding round co-led by 4impact Capital and Elevator Ventures, with participation from True Ventures and Übermorgen Ventures, to expand its AI-powered intelligence platform for utilities across Europe, enabling smart, data-driven energy solutions like dynamic tariffs, energy sharing, and intelligent EV charging.

❌ German energy unicorn 1KOMMA5° has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission regarding Germany’s plan to subsidise 20 GW of new gas power plants, arguing the strategy distorts competition, violates EU state aid rules, and unfairly disadvantages decentralised, renewable-based virtual power plants that could provide the same grid stability more cheaply and sustainably.

ESG x Climate

🔢 UK climate tech company Mondra raised €11.8 million in a Series A funding round led by AlbionVC and Planet A Ventures, with participation from Swisscom, PeakBridge, Ponderosa Ventures, and Green Circle Foodtech Ventures. It will use the funds to expand its AI-powered supply chain intelligence platform for the food industry across Europe and enhance tools for emissions management, climate risk, and supply chain resilience.

🎧 Good listen: In this episode of The Builder Circle™ Gabrielle Griffith, Director at BPE Global, talks about navigating the complex world of tariffs and global trade compliance for hardware startups.

Funds x Climate

💸 BigCircle Ventures raised €2 million to expand its venture-building capacity to 10 new cleantech startups per year and source innovations from research hubs across Europe, with backing from over 10 investors including Oost NL and Alphatron Group, to accelerate deeptech solutions in clean energy, circular materials, and critical resource recycling.

⚡️ Brookfield raised a record $20 billion for its second energy transition fund, a 33% increase from 2021, reflecting continued institutional investment in renewable infrastructure, energy storage, and critical minerals despite a broader climate tech downturn.

Materials x Climate

🎏 Take a look: The world’s first plastic-free and home compostable replacement for plastic soy sauce fish.

🧱 Lithuanian startup Sort A Brick unveiled the world’s first automated industrial system for recognising and sorting pre-owned LEGO® bricks with over 99% accuracy, using AI to enable large-scale reuse and upcycling.

⚖️ Comparing the Burj Khalifa to the amount of global plastic waste in just 1 year.

Methane x Climate

❄️ Methane was found escaping from beneath Antarctic ice this week. Here’s the devastating impact.

🌫️ Amsterdam-based Hydryx raised €2.5 million seed funding, in a round led by Marcel Smits and Graduate Entrepreneur, to scale its AI-driven landfill methane management system across Europe, capturing emissions and converting them into green energy.

Mobility x Climate

🚢 Swedish startup Zparq secured €5.5 million in EU funding through the EIC Accelerator to complete and scale its Z10 electric marine drivetrain platform, designed to be a more sustainable and reliable alternative to traditional marine engines.

🌍 Dubai-based Spiro raised $100 million in a funding round led by Afreximbank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa, marking Africa’s largest-ever EV mobility investment. It will use the funds to expand its battery-swapping electric motorbike network to over 100,000 bikes by 2025.

🚙 Rightcharge, based in the UK, raised £1.6 million in seed funding led by Soulmates Ventures, with participation from Blackwood Ventures, UnrulyCapital, and Purple Ventures. It will use the funds to expand its EV fleet charging platform that automates home-charging reimbursements, integrates public charging access, and helps fleets cut costs, emissions, and admin.

🚲 Controversial opinion: Why premium e-bikes can’t scale, and the model that works.

Water x Climate

💦 Netherlands-based Hulo raised €2.3 million in a seed funding round led by VP Capital and Lumo Labs to expand its AI-driven leak detection platform, which offers utilities a hardware-free, data-based solution to reduce water loss and improve network efficiency.

💀 Listen in: Podcaster Antoine Walter’s investigative journalism exposes the whole story of SOURCE Global’s rise and fall.

Parody x Climate

💡 Pitch deck of the world’s first DAC startup powered entirely on vibes and surplus optimism.

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Editorial by Laura, Curation by Nicola