🐜 Vol 172: The ants turning CO2 into rock

Plus: Mining critical metals from waste, and plenty of cash for electric boats

March 20, 2026

Hi there,

For years, climate tech rode on urgency. Now, LPs are backing something far more pragmatic.

Insights from General Partners at Atlantic, Climentum Capital, FoodLabs, Nucleus Capital, Oyster Bay Ventures and World Fund show a clear shift: climate hard tech is no longer framed as impact-first; it’s about energy security, industrial resilience, and economic advantage.

The narrative is changing fast. 2026 is all about reindustrialisation as an opportunity. Here’s where LP capital is really heading.

In this week’s edition: 

🧬 Rubi Laboratories is spinning waste carbon into textiles
🚤 Arc secures $50M to scale electric boats
🔌 GridBeyond taps Samsung for AI-powered grid scaling

The Digest

Credit: Earth Blox

⚖️ Edinburgh-based climate analytics startup Earth Blox raised €6.9 million in a funding round led by PXN Ventures, with support from Scottish Enterprise, Archangels and the European Space Agency, to scale its AI-powered platform that helps businesses assess nature and climate risks.

💻 GridBeyond attracted backing from Samsung Ventures to scale its AI-driven platform that manages electricity grids by coordinating distributed energy sources like batteries, renewables, and demand, aiming to improve grid stability and efficiency as power systems become more complex.

📉 Maersk is winding down its corporate venture capital arm Maersk Growth as it refocuses on its core business, halting new startup investments and scaling back the unit to manage its existing portfolio. 

🚀 Applications are open for Carbon13's European Venture Accelerator: 12 months one on one support with €150-250k funding opportunity. Designed for startups looking to raise €1-3 million in the next 12-18 months.

🎙️ Podcast Opportunity: Hugo Rauch of New Wave joins the HackSummit to sit down with investors and startups. Attending HackSummit? Book a slot by signing up here.

👀 Next Impact Europe has opened nominations for a new initiative spotlighting the next generation of diverse-led impact startups emerging across Europe. The initiative will publish a curated list of 50 companies to watch, nominate a startup here. 

AgriFood x Climate

Credit: Built in Montreal

💩 Solugen, based in Canada, secured a $50 million equity round led by Idealist Capital with participation from Canada Growth Fund. It will use the funds to scale production of its circular, manure-derived nitrogen fertiliser Azogen to meet rising demand for low-carbon farming solutions.

🚜 US-based AgZen raised a $10 million Series B led by DCVC Bio with participation from Material Impact and Astanor, plus a strategic investment from Syngenta Group Ventures. It will use the funds to scale its AI-powered smart spraying system that enables farmers to reduce chemical use by up to 50% without impacting yields.

🥃 Supercritical has successfully produced the world’s first direct-fired hydrogen-distilled whisky through the WhiskHy project, in collaboration with Suntory Global Spirits and the Manufacturing Technology Centre and backed by the UK government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, while also scaling its membrane-free electrolyser to an industrial-ready TRL 5 system.

🏭 Danish sustainable protein company Unibio is partnering with Saudi Industrial Investment Group to build the world’s largest single-cell protein plant in Saudi Arabia, using gas fermentation technology to produce alternative protein for animal feed.

Carbon x Climate

Credit: LinkedIn

🐜 Researchers have discovered that the ant species Sericomyrmex amabilis, found in Central and South America, can capture carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into mineralised dolomite within its exoskeleton.

😎 How it started vs how it’s going: Check out Parallel Carbon’s Malachite facility. 

Get Found, Get Funded at HackSummit

Snapshot of investors confirmed to join HackSummit

A powerhouse lineup of renowned investors take the stage at HackSummit on April 22-23.

Together with the Founders they’ve backed, they’ll reveal why they invested in breakout startups, where they’re deploying capital next, and what it really takes for founders to get on their radar.

Listen out for actionable insights, real investment frameworks, and the signals they look for before writing a cheque. Plus, schedule 1-1 meetings with them at the Summit.

With: Contrarian Ventures, FORWARD.one, Unruly Capital, Visionaries Tomorrow, Flora Ventures, Kost Capital, Slate VC, Eurazeo, Decalia, Planet A Ventures, Nucleus Capital, Synthesis Capital, Solvable Syndicate and Ordway Selections.

Construction x Climate

Credit: Cocoon

🧱 UK-based Cocoon raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by 2150, with participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures and The Venture Collective alongside existing investors, to scale its low-cost, low-carbon cementitious materials.

🏗️ Austria’s Sequestra secured €3 million in a seed funding round led by VSE Beteiligungs-GmbH with support from Dr. Rudolf Fries Familien-Privatstiftung to scale its CO₂ mineralisation technology, designed to turn emissions and waste into stable, reusable materials. 

Funds x Climate

Credit: Partech

🇫🇷 Paris-based Partech closed a €300 million impact fund backed by global institutional investors to support European industrial and climate tech scaleups, targeting revenue-generating B2B companies. 

🇳🇱 Rabobank launched the €102 million Rabo Impact Foundation to invest in high-impact, early-stage projects in the Netherlands, aiming to drive systemic change in key societal areas while targeting growth to €1 billion.

🇪🇸 Spanish investment firm GVC Gaesco Alternative Investments launched a €70 million Resilient Infratech Ventures fund to back startups building energy, industrial, and digital infrastructure technologies.

How Hades Reinvents Access to the Deep Underground

Hades Mining

Energy and critical minerals are access problems.

A huge share of what we need already exists, geothermal energy, high-value mineral deposits, but sits kilometres below ground, beyond what current drilling systems can reach economically.

That’s where Hades Mining comes in

They’re building for a future where access to the subsurface becomes a core capability to reshape energy, industrial capacity, and geopolitical resilience.

At the center of this is IPL Cerberus:
→ a laser-based drilling system
→ designed to operate at extreme depths
→ with the ambition of becoming the fastest drill on the planet

If it works, it could change the equation entirely.

And they have recently raised €15 million to get there faster. The round was co-led by HV Capital and Headline, with participation from Project A and Visionaries Tomorrow, Founders Factory, Viessmann Generations Group, Interface Capital, and FounderLake.

Next up, Co-Founder and CEO Max Werner joins Thong Le Hoang at Visionaries Tomorrow for a fireside chat at the HackSummit to discuss Hades' and Europe's role in sustainable mining.

We caught up with Max before he joins us at the summit to get the inside track on what they're building and how they're scaling from prototype to industrial scale.

Materials x Climate

Credit: WeSort.AI

🇩🇪 Germany’s WeSort.AI secured €10 million from investors including Infinity Recycling, Green Generation Fund, Vent.io and SPRIND to scale its AI-powered sorting technology that recovers critical raw materials like lithium and cobalt from waste.

👗 Rubi Laboratories, based in the US, secured $7.5 million in new funding alongside $60 million in offtake agreements from investors including AP Ventures, FH One, Talis Capital and H&M Group, to scale its cell-free biocatalysis platform that uses engineered enzymes to convert waste carbon into materials, with the goal of creating more sustainable fibres that can be spun into materials like viscose and lyocell.

🧪 German startup Level Nine raised €4 million in a seed round led by Visionaries Tomorrow to develop next-generation catalysts that convert biomass and waste into sustainable chemical feedstocks.

🇫🇮 Finland’s Elea & Lili raised €2.5 million in a seed funding round led by Lifeline Ventures to scale its cellulose-based, fossil-free absorbent materials that replace plastic-based superabsorbents, with the funds aimed at pilot production, industrial validation, and early commercial launches in Europe and the US. 

🔋 US-based critical metals refining company Nth Cycle has signed a landmark $1.1 billion long-term offtake agreement with Trafigura to supply nickel and lithium from recycled battery materials. 

💡 A growing list of Europe’s manufacturers of tomorrow. Who get’s your vote?

Mobility x Climate

Credit: Arc

🚤 LA-based Arc secured $50 million from Eclipse, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Necessary Ventures, and Offline Ventures to expand beyond consumer boats into commercial and defense markets, aiming to scale its electric propulsion technology across the broader marine industry.

⛴️ Candela, a Stockholm-based electric ferry startup, raised €30 million from the World Bank’s IFC alongside existing investors including EQT Ventures, SEB Private Equity, KanDela and Ocean Zero, to scale production of its energy-efficient hydrofoil vessels and build a new factory to support its global expansion.

🫣 Packaging Fails x Climate

A painfully relatable mashup of packaging fails, where great design meets real-world chaos.

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Editorial and curation by Nicola