🦜 Vol 163: $25.9M for Biodiversity Builders

Hi there

We hope your 2026 has got off to a strong start.

Before the year picks up speed, here’s a quick recap of how you can dive deeper into the ClimateHack community this year - whether that’s building, connecting or shaping what comes next:

• Join our team: 2 part-time roles

• Become an Ambassador in Zurich

• Attend a Meetup: Next stops Barcelona and Stockholm

• Share your next milestones and get featured in ClimateHack

• Meet Europe’s industrial builders and funders at HackSummit

• Team up with us on Meetups, Summits and editorial partnerships

In this week’s edition:

🌳 Verna raised $4 million to scale its AI-powered software that helps organisations plan, manage and measure nature restoration projects.
💨 Ammobia raised $7.5 million to scale a lower-temperature, lower-pressure version of the Haber-Bosch process that could cut ammonia production costs by up to 40%.
💫 Type One Energy raised a further $87 million in a convertible note, taking its total funding past $160 million, as it advances its stellarator-based reactor technology.

The Digest

📉 What’s down? The Trump administration is considering stopping the EPA from counting the health and life-saving benefits of cleaner air when setting pollution rules, despite strong evidence that ozone and fine particle pollution cause serious and often fatal diseases.

🎬 70 seconds of good stories in Climate you might have missed.

👀 Good Read: 12 investors shared with TechCrunch what 2026 will bring for climate tech.

🚀 Meet the first 13 change makers joining L'Oréal’s EUR 100 million sustainable innovation "L'AcceleratOR" program.

 📈 Are you building circular or regenerative solutions? Apply to Tech4Regen, EPFL Innovation Park’s 8-month, equity-free acceleration program. Deadline: Jan 31, 2026.

📆 21 European Tech events in Q1, mapped. + Join us April 22-23 at HackSummit.

AgriFood x Climate

​​🧫 Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat secured €15 million from existing investors including Invest-NL, LIOF, PHW Group and Jitse Groen to extend its runway to 2028, advance regulatory approvals and prepare for market entry, as it brings its hybrid cultivated–plant-based beef burgers to near-commercial pricing after cutting production costs by around 100,000-fold since 2013.

🐟 California’s BlueNalu raised around $11 million in convertible notes and preferred stock led by Agronomics, Siddhi Capital and Lewis & Clark AgriFood, with participation from strategic partners including Griffith Foods, Pulmuone and Rich Products, to scale production and support the commercialisation of its cultivated bluefin tuna toro for premium US sushi and fine-dining markets pending regulatory approval.

🇩🇰 Danish industrial biotech EvodiaBio secured €6 million in a funding round led by RA Capital Management’s Planetary Health Fund with participation from Wild Radicals, Francis Family Funds and existing investors including EIFO, Ananke Ventures, Newtree Impact and PINC. It will use the funds to scale its yeast-based fermentation platform for producing sustainable natural aroma compounds.

🥕 A new peer-reviewed study shows that feeding carrot production side streams to selected fungi can produce high-quality mycelium protein with nutritional value comparable to animal and plant proteins.

Biodiversity x Climate

🐝 Stingless bees of the Amazon have become the first insect granted legal rights after municipalities in Peru recognised their right to exist, enabling stronger protections against pesticides, deforestation and climate impacts for a pollinator essential to rainforest ecosystems, indigenous cultures, and crops like coffee and cacao.

🌳 UK startup Verna raised $4 million from investors led by NAP and Übermorgen, with participation from UK investors including Vanneck, Love Ventures, Concrete Ventures, and Climate VC, to scale its AI-powered software that helps organisations plan, manage and measure nature restoration projects, designed to turn biodiversity commitments into trackable, real-world outcomes.

🌧️ Good watch: Two months into the largest cloud seeding mission in modern American history.

Carbon x Climate

💶 Berlin-based carbon accounting startup Plan A has been acquired by London-based ESG software firm Diginex in a deal valuing Plan A at €55 million, as part of ongoing consolidation in the carbon accounting sector.

🌳 Paris-based Equitable Earth raised a €12.6 million Series A funding round led by a US family office with backing from AENU, noa and Localglobe to scale its digital platform which certifies high-integrity nature-based carbon projects and ensures climate finance reaches ecosystems and local communities.

🧱 UK waste-heat specialist Heatcatcher has delivered an industry-first decarbonisation project at wienerberger’s Warnham brickworks, using a high-temperature heat pump to recover waste heat and water from brick drying and significantly cut natural gas use and CO₂ emissions.

🇮🇳 Indian carbon removal startup Varaha has signed a three-year deal with Microsoft to deliver over 100,000 tonnes of durable biochar-based CO₂ removal in India.

Chemicals x Climate

🇩🇪 German biomaterials startup BIOWEG secured €1.5 million from SPRIND in partnership with Technische Universität Berlin to accelerate development of its low-energy, water-based waste-to-value platform that uses fermentation and green chemistry to recover rare earth elements from complex waste streams.

💨 Ammobia raised $7.5 million seed funding, in a round including the likes of Air Liquide, Chevron and Shell, to scale a lower-temperature, lower-pressure version of the Haber-Bosch process that could cut ammonia production costs by up to 40% and significantly reduce emissions.

🧪 Dutch biotech Mevaldi secured funding from High-Tech Gründerfonds and ICIG Ventures to scale and commercialise its patented bio-based 3MPD and Pentonext polymer building blocks, produced from renewable raw materials as sustainable, cost-competitive alternatives to fossil-based chemicals.

🚜 Early-stage agtech startup Naware has developed a chemical-free weed control system that uses computer vision and AI-powered real-time detection to kill weeds with targeted steam, aiming to cut herbicide use and costs for lawn care, golf courses and agriculture.

Energy x Climate

💸 Octopus Energy Group raised €850 million in a first standalone funding round for its AI-powered utility platform Kraken, led by D1 Capital Partners, valuing Kraken at €7.3 billion and formally spinning it out as an independent company to accelerate global growth as a neutral operating system for utilities.

💫 Fusion startup Type One Energy raised a further $87 million in a convertible note, taking its total funding past $160 million, as it advances its stellarator-based reactor technology works to build its first 350MW commercial fusion plant in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

♻️ German battery recycling company cylib GmbH secured €63.4 million in non-dilutive funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy via the STARK programme to build Europe’s first industrial-scale LFP battery recycling line in Dormagen.

🌬️ UK-based renewable energy firm Venterra Group secured a £40 million equity investment from General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero venture, First Reserve and existing shareholders to scale its offshore wind services platform.

🥵 Smart home startup Quilt launched a highly efficient three-zone heat pump that uses real-world performance data from its connected units to deliver strong low-temperature and low-demand efficiency, simplifying larger installations and supporting the company’s expansion following its recent $20 million Series B round.

🤝🏼 Alphabet has agreed to acquire clean energy and data-center developer Intersect Power for $4.75 billion in cash plus assumed debt to secure dedicated power generation for its AI-driven data center expansion, bypass grid constraints, and accelerate co-located wind, solar and battery-powered data parks primarily used by Google, with the deal expected to close in the first half of next year.

☀️ Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have demonstrated an efficient, low-cost method to produce hydrogen from sunlight and water using nanoparticles of electrically conductive plastic instead of scarce platinum, marking a major step toward scalable and sustainable solar hydrogen production.

⛔️ The US Department of the Interior has paused leases for five major offshore wind projects totalling nearly 6 GW along the US East Coast, citing national security concerns over radar interference. So three offshore wind developers - Ørsted, Equinor, and Dominion Energy - are suing.

🤷🏻 Good Read: Heatmap explains why 2025 was the year of energy policy confusion.

⚛️ The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has achieved a UK-first nuclear safety milestone by safely processing a can of plutonium residue into a stable waste form at Sellafield, marking the start of a programme to immobilise legacy plutonium for permanent disposal and significantly advance long-term national nuclear safety.

ESG x Climate

🦄 German ESG software company osapiens has become a unicorn after raising $100 million in a Series C funding round led by BlackRock-Temasek’s Decarbonization Partners, valuing it at over $1.1 billion and funding further product development and international expansion.

Funds x Climate

🌲 Biodiversity-focused venture firm Superorganism closed its first fund with $25.9 million, backed by investors including the Cisco Foundation, Builders Vision and a16z partner Jeff Jordan, to support pre-seed and seed startups working to protect nature, reverse species loss and build conservation-enabling technologies.

💶 The Novo Nordisk Foundation has committed up to €736 million to the Copenhagen-based BioInnovation Institute through 2035 to expand its support for life science and deep tech startups across Europe addressing health, climate and societal challenges.

🍿 ‘10 things I hate about your pitch’ by Andrew Lee of a16z speedrun.

💰 Save this: A list of the top Deep Tech Grants in Europe.

Materials x Climate

☕️ UK startup Notpla and 14 partners secured a €4 million grant from Horizon Europe to develop plastic-free, home-compostable coffee cups using seaweed-based materials to replace the plastic linings in conventional paper cups.

🪫 Miami-based Material Hybrid Manufacturing secured $7.1 million seed funding in a round led by Outlander VC and Harpoon Ventures, alongside securing a $1.25 million US Air Force contract, to commercialise its HYBRID3D technology that 3D-prints conformal, shape-free batteries directly into devices for applications ranging from wearables to drones.

🪸 Switzerland’s noriware raised a €4.3 million seed round to commercialise norifresh™, a plastic-free seaweed-based film for fresh produce that runs on existing packaging lines and aims to replace PET ahead of the EU’s 2030 ban on single-use plastic fruit and vegetable packaging.

🧫 Singaporean cultivated seafood company UMAMI Bioworks has signed an MoU with Japan’s Nippon Barrier Free to commercialise cultivated marine ingredients for cosmetics and supplements.

🔋 Climate materials startup Homeostasis has entered a strategic partnership with LAB7, the venture arm of Aramco, to scale technology that converts industrial CO₂ emissions into battery-grade graphite for lithium-ion batteries.

Mobility x Climate

🚚 Electric trucks may be one of the most under-appreciated levers in Europe’s decarbonisation story. Future Energy Ventures map the players in the space.

❄️ Why Sneckdowns are the cheapest traffic consultants in the world.

🚲 UK electric bike startup GIN e-bikes secured a €215,000 secured loan investment from Ukrainian syndicate Toloka.vcto buy 160 new bikes and expand its PLUTO subscription-based e-bike rental service across London, targeting couriers, gig workers and urban commuters.

⚓️ Reinventing and flat-packing shipping containers in 80 seconds. Here’s how.

🐊 VCs x Climate

We’d love to hear from you, how did you like today's email?

Love it😁 Meh 😐 Hate it🙁

Editorial by Laura, Curation by Nicola