🛰️ Vol 171: Detecting methane from space

Hi there,

The energy transition runs on metals.

Lithium, copper, rare earths… these are the building blocks of batteries, EVs and wind turbines. Yet Europe still imports most of the critical minerals it depends on.

We talked to 10 founders, investors and operators across the ecosystem, and mapped 60 ways Europe could rebuild its mineral and metals supply chain.

From AI-driven exploration to circular metals systems, the climate deep tech opportunity is bigger than most people realise. 

In this week’s edition: 

💧 €100M fund launches to tackle water scarcity and pollution
🌋 Telura raises €4M to drill for geothermal energy
⚡ Renewables are getting AI “virtual engineers” 

The Digest

🗺️ Interesting: Extantia has mapped part of the European robotics ecosystem to get a sense of the landscape.

🛰️ AIRMO, a Berlin- and Luxembourg-based space-tech startup developing airborne and satellite systems to monitor greenhouse-gas emissions, raised €5 million in a seed funding round led by Ananda Impact Ventures to launch its first methane-detecting satellite in 2027

♻️ UK-based COOloop raised £150,000 seed funding from Carbon13 Ventures to commercialise its catalytic process that converts captured CO₂ and renewable hydrogen into carbon-negative acetic acid.

🏅 The BEAM Circular Accelerator announced its second cohort of startups working to scale technologies that convert agricultural and organic waste into valuable products.

🇫🇷 Join us in Paris on 19th March for the next ClimateHack Meetup. Free to attend.

👩🏻‍🔬 SPRIND and Builders Vision are partnering with Deep Science Ventures to fully fund 5 PhDs for researchers developing novel solutions to critical climate and health issues.

🧪 Anima is launching the 2nd edition of the Out of the Lab Challenge: €50,000 to accelerate your transition from lab to market. Apply today.

AgriFood x Climate

🍌 UK agri-biotech Tropic raised $105 million Series C funding in a round co-led by Forbion’s Bioeconomy Fund and Corteva, with backing from Just Climate, IQ Capital, ABN Amro, Invest International and existing investors including Temasek and Five Seasons Ventures, to scale commercial production of its gene-edited bananas and rice and expand its pipeline of climate-resilient crops.

🤠 Dutch startup Those Vegan Cowboys raised €12.25 million from crowd investors via Invesdor, a privately owned impact fund, and earlier investors including dairy farmers and cheesemakers, to prepare for industrial-scale manufacturing of its precision-fermented casein proteins.

🌾 UK-based Cytotrait raised £3 million seed funding in a round led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and the Northern Universities Ventures Fund, to advance its MOSS gene-editing platform and expand crop research programmes in wheat, maize, potato and canola aimed at improving yield, resilience and sustainability.

🍼 Australian precision-fermentation startup All G received a A$1.1 million grant from the New South Wales government’s Biosciences Fund to scale up production of its human beta-casein protein and advance proof-of-concept manufacturing and regulatory preparation for use in infant formula.

Biodiversity x Climate

🤖 City Detect, a US startup using computer vision to help municipalities monitor urban issues like graffiti, illegal dumping and building decay, secured $13 million in a Series A funding round led by Prudence Venture Capital to expand its AI system that analyses images captured from cameras mounted on public vehicles such as garbage trucks and street sweepers.

🌎 Austrian AI startup Another Earth raised €3.5 million to scale its data and simulation platform that generates synthetic Earth-observation data, designed for applications such as climate analysis, energy planning, urban development and disaster management.

📈 New research published in the journal Communications Biology shows that microbial necromass (the remains of dead soil microbes) plays a major role in boosting stored carbon and nitrogen in restored soils, particularly in semi-arid regions undergoing afforestation.

🐞 Good Read: Trump may have killed the first-ever National Nature Assessment, but it’s now been released independently

👀 Good watch: Elena Doms shares what’s new in Natural Capital in one minute. 

🌧️ Interesting: Google is using old news reports and AI to predict flash floods.

Energy x Climate

🇦🇺 MGA Thermal raised $17 million in a funding round led by IP Group Australia with support from Main Sequence to scale its long-duration thermal energy storage technology that converts renewable electricity into industrial heat

⚡️ Zurich-based energy hardware startup Hyperscale Power, which is developing solid-state transformers for AI data centres, EV charging and renewable infrastructure, raised €5 million in a seed funding round co-led by World Fund and Vsquared Ventures to expand its operations.

🌋 Telura, a Munich-based startup developing electric impulse drilling technology for geothermal energy, came out of stealth with €4 million pre-seed funding from Nucleus Capital, Possible Ventures and First Momentum to accelerate development and prepare for market entry in 2026.

👷‍♀️ Barcelona-based Delfos Energy raised a €3 million seed extension from investors including Vox Capital/COPEL, Headline, Contrarian Ventures, DOMO VC and EDP Ventures to further develop its AI “virtual engineer” platform for renewable energy operations.

🇫🇷 French startup Mantle8 secured a €2.06 million grant from the EU’s Just Transition Fund to advance its geoscience-driven platform for identifying underground natural hydrogen resources.

☁️ Pure Data Centres has partnered with AVK to deploy Europe’s first large-scale 110MW on-site microgrid at its Dublin data centre campus, providing independent power generation and battery storage to support AI and cloud infrastructure while easing pressure on the national electricity grid. 

⚛️ TerraPower has received approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a next-generation 345-MW sodium-cooled Natrium nuclear reactor in Wyoming, marking the first US permit for a commercial reactor in nearly a decade.

🔋 Google and Tesla have joined companies including Carrier and Span to launch the Utilize coalition, arguing the power grid is often underused and pushing for policies that better deploy tools like batteries, demand response and virtual power plants to tap unused capacity.

🤝🏼 Studsvik has acquired Swedish nuclear project developer Kärnfull Next, marking the first exit for climate tech investor Climentum Capital’s Fund I.

Funds x Climate

💧 Emerald Technology Ventures raised €100 million for its Global Water Fund II, backing startups developing technologies for water treatment, reuse, monitoring and infrastructure resilience as demand grows for solutions addressing water scarcity and contamination. 

💰 Breakout Ventures launched a $114 million Fund III backed by investors including Cortes Capital, S-Cubed Capital, The Kraft Group, Pinegrove Venture Partners, JIMCO and Korea Omega Investment Corporation to support early-stage startups commercialising scientific breakthroughs across areas like AI-driven biology, chemistry and advanced materials.

🦸‍♀️ Companies including Amazon, Google, Salesforce and JPMorgan Chase have launched the Superpollutant Action Initiative, committing $100 million by 2030 to cut high-impact warming gases such as methane, refrigerants, black carbon and nitrous oxide.

🌍 Persistent launched the Persistent Africa Climate Venture Builder Fund, targeting $70 million to back early-stage climate startups across Africa in energy, agriculture and resource transitions, with anchor investors including African Development Bank Group, Nordic Development Fund and FSD Africa Investments.

Materials x Climate

🇨🇭 Swiss biomaterials startup Seprify raised €13.4 million in a Series A funding round backed by Inter IKEA Group alongside Una Terra Early Growth Fund, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures and Kickfund. It will use the funds to scale its cellulose-based materials platform that replaces titanium dioxide in applications such as food, cosmetics and coatings.

🧱 CURA, which is developing an electrochemical process to produce low-carbon cement, has partnered with Grand Forks Concrete Ltd. to build a 100-tonne-per-year pilot plant and a 30,000-tonne-per-year commercial facility in Taber, Alberta, converting agricultural spent lime waste into decarbonized cement and captured CO₂.

🪸 noriware launched norifresh™, a seaweed-based, 100% plastic-free packaging film that can run on standard top-seal lines and heat-seal directly to cardboard trays without coatings or adhesives, enabling fresh produce packs that can be recycled entirely in the paper stream.

👀 Interesting: According to International Union for Conservation of Nature research, synthetic textiles (35%) and tyre wear (28%) are the largest sources of microplastics, while plastic packaging and personal care products account for only about 6%.

Mobility x Climate

🏭 Group14 Technologies has opened a new BAM-3 factory in South Korea to produce silicon anode battery materials that enable flash-charging electric vehicles, with the facility capable of producing 2,000 metric tons annually, enough for about 100,000 long-range EVs.

🚕 Electric air taxis developed by companies such as Archer Aviation, Joby Aviation, Beta Technologies and Wisk Aero are set to begin large-scale testing across 26 US states this summer under a new three-year FAA pilot program.

👏🏼 10 and 11 Year Olds x Climate

A 10-year-old designer just debuted his collection made from recycled materials at Paris Fashion Week!

And 11-year old Wynter tells Donald Trump her fears and hopes with conviction

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Editorial and curation by Nicola