🔥 Vol 178: Is this nuclear waste solution a slow burn?

Hi there,

Nuclear is back in the climate conversation, but its waste problem has never gone away.

Now, University of Nottingham researchers are exploring whether “applied smouldering” could help shrink the UK’s nuclear graphite waste challenge. The process uses flameless combustion to turn contaminated graphite bricks into ash, reducing volume while tapping the energy stored in the material.

With around 100,000 tonnes of irradiated graphite to manage in the UK (and plenty more elsewhere), it is a reminder that climate tech is not always about building what comes next. Sometimes it is about cleaning up what came before…without getting burned.

In this week’s edition: 

🧬 Former Perfect Day execs raise $2M for ultra-pure melanin
🌾 Resurrect Bio is giving crops AI powers
💰 Mantle8 scored $31M to drill for hydrogen

The Digest

💰 S2G Investments raised $1 billion for its S2G Solutions Fund I, with the capital targeting “missing middle” growth-stage businesses that improve supply-chain resilience and energy and food security, including investments such as XOcean, Echandia, Exacto and Urbint.

💵 Arãya Ventures and Sie Ventures launched the Arãya Sie Fund with a £7.5 million first close to back up to 40 female-founded pre-seed and seed-stage startups across AI, deeptech, fintech, healthcare and sustainability in the UK and Europe.

🇬🇧 A new Cleantech for UK report found that the UK led Europe in clean tech investment in 2025 with £7.2 billion raised, although the research warned that early-stage funding for hardware-heavy climate startups has fallen to a five-year low.

🪫 PJM Interconnection, the largest US power-grid operator, is under mounting pressure as AI and cloud data-centre demand strains capacity, renewables and batteries disrupt its old planning model, project interconnection backlogs slow new supply, and its proposed reforms risk angering utilities, politicians, businesses and households already frustrated by rising power prices. Nobody’s happy, basically.

AgriFood x Climate

🍓 US vertical farming company Oishii closed the first tranche of a $150 million Series C round led by Sparx Asset Management, with participation from Nomura Real Estate Development, Misumi, Mizuho Bank and others, to scale its Smart Farm model which grows pesticide-free, non-GMO strawberries year-round.

🌾 Resurrect Bio, a University of Norwich spinout developing AI-powered technology designed to restore crops’ natural genetic defences against diseases and pests, expanded its Series A to $10.3 million in a round led by Corteva Catalyst with participation from Calculus Capital, Pymwymic, Future Planet Capital, SynBioVen and AgFunder.

🧫 Israel’s SuperMeat secured $6 million in the first close of a targeted $10 million Series A4 round led by Agronomics and New Agrarian Company, with participation from Milk & Honey Ventures and other existing backers, to support its planned Switzerland launch for its cultivated chicken.

🌿 Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a greener water-based nanotechnology pesticide formulation using modified cellulose nanocrystals that helps droplets stick to hydrophobic plant leaves rather than bouncing, drifting or washing off, reducing pesticide waste and runoff while achieving better pest control.

Energy x Climate

🇫🇷 French startup Mantle8 secured €31 million in a Series A funding round led by Sandwater, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecotechnologies 2, IP Group, Wind Capital and Calderion, to fund a two-year global exploration and drilling campaign to identify, rank and drill its most promising natural hydrogen sites using its proprietary subsurface modelling technology.

🧊 Iceotope Group, a provider of precision liquid cooling for data centres and AI infrastructure, raised $26 million Series B funding led by Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures, with participation from Edinv, ABC Impact, Northern Gritstone and British Patient Capital, to bring its energy- and water-saving cooling technology to market.

🇩🇰 Copenhagen-based Reel raised €15 million Series A funding in a round led by Future Energy Ventures, with participation from UVC Partners, Transition, The Footprint Firm and angel investors. It helps businesses secure predictable renewable electricity costs while improving returns for energy producers through PPAs, data-driven trading, flexibility and battery-storage tools, and will use the funds to expand its portfolio.

⚡️ Durham University spinout H2CHP secured £1.5 million from Innovate UK, Blackfinch Ventures and Northstar Ventures’ North East Spinout Inspire Fund to develop and demonstrate its fuel-flexible free-piston linear generator technology, which can run on hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels and e-fuels to provide cleaner, resilient local power for data centres, microgrids, EV charging and ports.

🏡 Stockholm-based Elvy, which offers fully integrated home energy subscriptions covering solar panels, heat pumps, batteries, installation, maintenance and electricity needs, raised €5.9 million in a funding round led by Essential Capital and Daft Capital, with participation from Mathias Kamprad and other angels, to accelerate its model across Europe. 

☀️ Researchers in Germany have demonstrated a compact solar-powered hydrogen module in Freiburg that achieved a record 31.3% solar-to-hydrogen efficiency under real outdoor conditions.

🌞 UK property developer Zunikh has partnered with solar company Gryd to install fully funded rooftop solar on a new-build apartment block in Enfield, using a UK-first model that allocates solar generation directly to nine individual flats.

Materials x Climate

🧬 US precision fermentation startup Melazyme, founded by former Perfect Day executives Perumal Gandhi and Bonney Oommen, raised $2 million seed funding in a round led by SeaX Ventures with participation from Stellaris Venture Partners and Plug and Play Ventures to advance and scale its platform for high-value biomolecules including ultra-pure melanin for cosmetics, coatings, filtration and environmental applications, plus sweet proteins such as brazzein.

🔥 Engineers at the University of Nottingham secured funding for a new research project exploring smouldering, or flameless combustion, as a more sustainable and energy-efficient way to reduce contaminated nuclear graphite waste bricks to ash.

The Met Gala x Climate

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Editorial and curation by Nicola