🇪🇺 Vol 164: EU, Incorporated

Hi there,

At the World Economic Forum this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen floated “EU Inc.” - a single company regime that would let startups incorporate, raise, hire and scale across 27 countries under one rulebook. For anyone who’s ever tried to build a pan-European climate startup, or startup of any kind, that’s the holy grail: one market, not a legal obstacle course.

At Hack, we’ve always been unapologetically Europe-based and Europe-bullish, cheerleading the founders building world-class climate companies here long before it was fashionable.

The question is: could “EU Inc.” be the structural shift that finally lets Europe stop exporting its best startups, and start scaling them into global climate superpowers at home?

In this week’s edition: 

⚡ AI hunts for hidden geothermal energy, unlocking terawatt-scale clean power
🦪 €7 million for bicycle tyres made from oyster shells
🧪 France tightens the screws on “forever chemicals” as PFAS get banned from fashion and cosmetics

The Digest

💚 See what happened at ClimateHack Barcelona and Stockholm. Join us next in Amsterdam.

👀 Good read: Noah Geeves shared his hardware scaleup roadmap.

⚡️ Join 250+ energy startups and 250+ active investors at SOSV's VC-Founder Energy Matchup on 2-6 March.

🤝🏼 Microsoft has signed a 12-year agreement to purchase 2.85 million soil carbon removal credits from Indigo’s Carbon by Indigo program.

🌼 Meet the 4 winners of the Innovate4Nature Award 2025.

🔓 Applications are open with 50Years for their US and UK DeepTech startup cohorts.

AgriFood x Climate

​​🧫 German cultivated meat startup Innocent Meat secured €6 million from backers including GENIUS Venture Capital to develop its automated, plug-and-play production technology and build a demonstration facility as it prepares for regulatory approval and market entry in 2028.

🎨 Danish startup Octarine Bio raised €5 million in a Series A extension led by investors including The Footprint Firm, Edaphon, Unconventional Ventures, DSM-Firmenich Ventures and Oskare Capital, to commercialise its precision-fermented pigments for food, textiles and personal care.

🌻 Netherlands-based Time-Travelling Milkman has partnered with Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre on a €700,000 EU-backed EIT Food project to upcycle sunflower sidestreams into a new plant protein ingredient.

⏩️ Tufts University will use a $2.1 million state grant to launch an innovation hub, bringing together scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs and providing shared resources such as an open-access cell bank, labs and test kitchen to accelerate the commercialisation of future foods.

🆕 UPSIDE Foods has spun out Lucius Labs, a new division focused on developing and selling fast, lower-cost custom cell culture media for life sciences applications, leveraging its expertise built in cultivated meat to create a new revenue stream.

Chemicals x Climate

🇬🇧 SOLVE Chemistry, based in the UK, raised a £4 million seed funding round led by XTX Ventures with participation from Endgame Capital, SuperSeed, Creator Fund, Inovia Capital and angel investors, to use machine learning and advanced chemistry to cut the time, cost and carbon footprint of chemical process development and manufacturing.

💷 UK-based Anzen Industries raised $2.2 million, in a pre-seed funding round led by LocalGlobe and Creator Fund, to scale its cell-free, enzyme-based biomanufacturing platform for producing high-value chemicals.

🪵 Dutch biotech Mevaldi secured investment from ICOS Capital alongside High-Tech Gründerfonds and ICIG Ventures to scale and commercialise its sugar- and wood-residue-based chemical building block 3MPD for sustainable polymers and polyurethanes.

🇫🇷 France has banned the sale, production and import of clothing and cosmetics containing PFAS “forever chemicals” where safer alternatives exist, effective from 1st January, to protect health and the environment.

Energy x Climate

🥵 AI-powered geothermal startup Zanskar secured $115 million in a Series C funding round led by Spring Lane Capital to scale its technology for discovering overlooked conventional geothermal resources, which it believes could unlock terawatt-scale clean power potential

🇺🇸 US startup Sage Geosystems raised over $97 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital, with participation from new and existing investors, to commercialise its Pressure Geothermal technology for clean, firm power and energy storage, including its first next-generation geothermal plant.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based energy software startup Cloover raised $22 million Series A funding and secured a $1.2 billion debt facility, backed by a €300 million EIF guarantee, to scale its AI-powered platform that helps finance and manage residential clean energy installations across Europe.

🌬️ UK-based Ionech raised €2.3 million seed funding from Elbow Beach alongside a €807,000 Innovate UK grant to scale and pilot its Air Voltaic Cell technology, which generates electricity from the thermal energy of ambient air for applications such as HVAC, refrigeration and data centres.

⚛️ Fusion power company General Fusion plans to go public via a reverse merger with SPAC Spring Valley III in a deal that could raise up to $335 million and value the company at around $1 billion, funding completion of its inertial-confinement demonstration reactor as it targets growing power demand from data centres and electrification.

✅ AtmosZero has developed a modular, ultra-efficient electric heat pump that can replace fossil-fuel steam boilers by delivering industrial steam up to 150°C, aiming to decarbonise one of manufacturing’s biggest sources of energy use and CO₂ emissions.

Funds x Climate

🦄 German VC firm Ananda Impact Ventures secured €73 million in the first close of its fifth Core Impact Fund from backers including the European Investment Fund, NRW.BANK, Investcorp-Tages, Mercator Foundation and more than 40 European family offices. It will use the funds to invest in early-stage frontier technology startups positioned to become the next generation of European impact unicorns in areas such as climate, health, biodiversity and social inclusion.

💧 Amsterdam-based PureTerra Ventures launched its second WaterTech fund with a €10 million cornerstone investment from Dutch development bank Invest-NL, targeting €150 million to back early-stage, scalable water efficiency and reuse technologies.

Materials x Climate

🤖 Hamburg-based one.five raised €14 million Series A funding, in a round led by Dr. Hans Riegel Holding with participation from 212 NexT, Symbia VC, Btomorrow Ventures, KIMPA Impact, Zubi Capital and existing investors, to scale its AI platform that helps packaging companies develop market-ready, sustainable products faster.

🦪 Norway’s reTyre secured €7 million in a funding round led by Hatch Blue’s Blue Revolution Fund with participation from Fundracer and existing investors to scale its patented, low-carbon injection-moulding technology for fully recyclable bicycle tyres made from novel materials such as invasive sargassum and oyster shells.

🔋 Researchers at Monash University have developed a greener recycling process using a mild deep eutectic solvent and electrochemical leaching to recover over 95% of high-purity nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium from spent lithium-ion batteries.

👍🏼 Good Read: Planet A Ventures released its guide to nailing manufacturing software GTM, and it’s packed with resources.

Mobility x Climate

🚤 Fleetzero secured $43 million Series A funding in a round led by Obvious Ventures with participation from Maersk Growth, 8090 Industries and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. It will use the funds to scale production of its hybrid and electric marine propulsion systems and launch a new robotics and autonomy R&D lab in Houston.

🚙 UK-based TUAL raised £1.5 million in a funding round led by PT1 with participation from Ascension Ventures and P3A to scale production and deployment of its battery-integrated, ultra-deployable PowerUp charging systems for mission-critical commercial EV fleets across Europe.

✈️ Commodities giant Trafigura has signed a six-year offtake agreement with Syzygy Plasmonics’ subsidiary in Uruguay to purchase the full output of its first commercial biogas-to-sustainable aviation fuel plant from 2028.

🚢 Cargill launched the first of five dual-fuel dry bulk ships, Brave Pioneer, capable of running on green methanol to cut CO₂ emissions by up to 70%, marking a key step in its strategy to decarbonise its ocean freight.

 🕺 Fundraving x Climate

Interpretative dance on how VC funding works:

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Editorial and curation by Nicola