🫨 Vol 170: Shaking up earthquake protection tech

Hi there,

With International Women’s Day this Sunday, we’re zooming in on some of the women reshaping Europe’s industrial landscape.

Across climate tech, energy, advanced materials and manufacturing, founders, scientists and investors are rebuilding the systems that power our economy, accelerating what many are calling Europe’s industrial renaissance.

Here are 101 women driving the shift.

If you’re a woman Founder working in Climate, we’d love to see (and celebrate you) at HackSummit, April 22-23, you can save 40% with code WOMENINCLIMATE

Happy International Women’s Day 💜 

In this week’s edition: 

🔥 RIFT fires up €113M to scale iron fuel for industrial heat
🧬 CO₂-based chemicals land at L’Oréal
🪨 Litherm is electrifying lime and cement production

AgriFood x Climate

👶🏻 China’s Guoke Xinglian Technology Co, a precision-fermentation biotech developing human-identical milk proteins, raised ¥100 million ($14.6 million) in a Series A+ funding round led by Shanghai Zhuiguang Julian, Lenovo Capital, and a fund under Changjin Holdings to scale industrial production, starting with lactoferrin.

🌾 Belgian agtech startup Rainbow Crops has been awarded a $7 million grant from the Gates Foundation to advance its AI- and genome-editing-powered platform for developing climate-resilient crops, initially focusing on improving heat- and drought-tolerant varieties of corn, sorghum and rice for smallholder farmers.

🍇 Amatera, based in France, raised €6 million seed funding in a round co-led by Demea Sustainable Investment and Oyster Bay Venture Capital with participation from PINC, Mudcake and Exceptional Ventures. It will use the funds to scale its AI-driven plant cell biology platform to accelerate breeding of climate-resilient crops, starting with coffee and wine grapes.

⏩️ The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is urging governments to streamline and clarify regulatory frameworks for cultivated meat and precision-fermented foods, recommending clearer authority oversight, updated food safety and labelling rules, and coordinated international standards to support safe market entry and global trade.

Carbon x Climate

✅ US aerospace company Boeing has signed a multi-year agreement with Carbonfuture to purchase at least 40,000 tonnes of durable carbon dioxide removal credits from biochar projects.

🏖️ A new study has identified several US coastal hubs as the most promising locations for scaling electrochemical marine carbon dioxide removal, highlighting how existing seawater-intake infrastructure, energy availability and industrial emissions could support large-scale ocean-based carbon removal.

Chemicals x Climate

🇦🇺 Australia’s PlasmaLeap Technologies, a University of Sydney spinout developing zero-emissions modular reactors to produce green ammonia and nitrate for fertiliser and fuels, secured $20 million Series A funding in a round co-led by the Gates Foundation, Investible and Yara Growth Ventures with support from Twynam, GrainCorp Ventures, Uniseed/UniSuper, Artesian, SVG Ventures and Agnition Ventures.

🚜 UK-based agtech startup Bindbridge secured $3.8 million from Speedinvest and Nucleus Capital. Its AI-driven BRIDGE platform designs molecular glues for next-generation herbicides and crop protection, and it will use the funds to advance crop-resilience solutions and accelerate discovery of new agricultural molecules.

🥔 DTU spin-out Mycoverse raised €2.4 million in a pre-seed funding round co-led by Future Food Fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds with participation from PINC. It is developing AI-driven fungal biological crop protection to replace chemical pesticides, and will use the funds to advance its first solution targeting potato late blight.

🧪 French startup Dioxycle has partnered with L'Oréal Groupe to deploy its sustainable “drop-in” chemicals produced from captured CO₂, electricity and water.

Construction x Climate

🫨 Italy’s ISAAC antisismica raised €14 million from CDP Venture Capital, 360 Capital Partners, Axon Partners Group, Gruppo Azimut, Ring Capital and NovaCapital. It develops non-invasive active mass damper systems to protect existing buildings from earthquakes, and will use the funds to expand its seismic resilience technology and accelerate deployment across the construction sector.

🏗️ German startup Litherm Technologies GmbH secured €6.5 million seed funding from investors including bmp Ventures, Graymont, SkreenHouse Ventures, Kalkfabrik Netstal AG, Zeitinger Invest, the Breakthrough Energy Foundation and UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators to industrialise its fully electric calcination technology for CO₂-free lime and cement production.

Energy x Climate

🔥 Netherlands-based RIFT, which is developing iron fuel technology to decarbonise industrial heat, secured €113.8 million in combined Series B and EU Innovation Fund financing led by PGGM with participation from Invest-NL, Oost NL, Rubio Impact Ventures, BOM and Energietransitiefonds Rotterdam to move toward commercial deployment and build its first production facility capable of delivering 340 GWh of CO₂-free industrial heat annually.

🇸🇰 GA Drilling, based in Slovakia, raised $44.1 million in a round led by TomEnterprise AB with participation from Underground Ventures and strategic investor Nabors Industries to accelerate commercial deployment of its NexTitan drilling technology for deep geothermal energy projects. 

🔋Germany-based battery manufacturer UniverCell secured €30 million in a Series B funding round co-led by the DeepTech & Climate Fonds, IKA and WIKA with support from the European Innovation Council Fund to scale production capacity and advance its dry-coating lithium-ion battery technology.

☀️ Norwegian energy storage scaleup Photoncycle raised €15 million Series A funding in a round led by NordicNinja and Voima Ventures, with participation from Lifeline Ventures, Eviny Ventures, Luminar Ventures and Momentum, to commercialise its solid-state hydrogen systems that allow households to store surplus summer solar energy for winter heating and electricity.

🌬️ Offshore wind developer Aikido plans to deploy a submerged 100-kW demonstration data center inside the pods of a floating offshore wind turbine off the Norwegian coast, aiming to test ocean-based, wind-powered computing infrastructure that could scale to multi-megawatt AI data centers by 2028. 

💡 Researchers at the University of Queensland have developed ultra-thin, high-strength ion-transport membranes using a nanoconfinement polymerisation technique to improve the durability and performance of fuel cells, batteries and electrolysers, with next steps focused on scaling the fabrication method for commercial clean-energy applications.

🔥 60+ startups on the Geothermal Market Map by Mountauk Climate

Materials x Climate

🛢️ UK-based biomaterials startup Shellworks raised $15 million, in a Series A funding round led by alter equity with participation from JamJar, Founder Collective, LocalGlobe, Third Sphere and Nat Friedman, to scale production of its microbially fermented plastic alternative Vivomer, made from waste feedstocks like used cooking oil. 

🪸 Waiākea Hawaiian Volcanic Beverages launched the world’s first commercial product labels printed with algae-based ink, developed in partnership with Living Ink Technologies, Actega and NextGen Label Group.

🔝 H&M Foundation reveals the 20 top finalists for this year’s Global Challenge Award. 

Mobility x Climate

🏍️ Electric mobility startup Zeno raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Congruent Ventures, with participation from Active Impact and Lowercarbon Ventures plus debt from Camber Road and Trifecta Capital, to scale production of its Emara electric motorcycles and expand its battery-swap network across East Africa.

🔋 China’s BYD unveiled its Blade Battery 2.0 system, capable of charging an EV from 10% to 70% in about five minutes when paired with the company’s new 1.5-MW Flash Charging stations. 

Water x Climate

🚰 US-based Atoco, founded by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Omar Yaghi, is developing off-grid devices that use metal-organic frameworks to capture water from air and produce up to 1,000 litres of drinking water per day using solar heat, targeting deployment in drought-prone regions, disaster zones and remote communities.

💧 France’s Ilion Water Technologies raised €3.8 million pre-seed funding from Demea Sustainable Investment and Critical Path Ventures to scale its patented low-voltage, pressure-free membrane technology for energy-efficient water purification.

 😫 Reality x Climate

True. Story.

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Editorial and curation by Nicola