🐠 Vol 180: Fish are losing their social skills

Hi there,

New research from Adelaide University suggests ocean acidification isn’t just bleaching coral and warming seas; it’s scrambling the social behaviours fish rely on to survive. In other words: the oceans are getting so acidic, even the fish are feeling a little salty.

But oceans run on teamwork. Fish depend on social cues to find food, avoid predators, reproduce, and keep entire marine ecosystems in balance. If those behaviours start to break down, the ripple effects could travel all the way up the food chain, impacting biodiversity, fisheries, and the health of the oceans that regulate our climate and support millions of livelihoods.

From confused clownfish to schools that simply can’t keep it together, scientists are discovering that climate change isn’t just altering habitats, it’s changing behaviour itself. And that’s a pretty deep problem.

In this week’s edition: 

🛣️ REPS bagged $23.6M for its “road power plant”
💄 Lipstick made with palmless oil
🌞 Elon Musk has given up on solar

The Digest

📊 Interesting: Michael Jackson shares why coal doesn’t make sense any more.

🥤 Brussels-based Borro raised €1.3 million from Seeder Fund, imec.istart, bluesnipe, PMV and butterfly & elephant to expand its digital deposit system for reusable cups into the Netherlands, Germany and France.

🐠 Researchers at Adelaide University have found that ocean acidification reduces reef habitat complexity, causing reef fish to form smaller shoals that weaken social protection and could undermine survival even when individual fish appear behaviourally resilient.

🎧 Hugo Rauch hosted of New Wave podcast, released the two first episodes recorded at the HackSummit 2026 with our speaker Renaud Visage and Patrick Möller. 

AgriFood x Climate

🐮 Phytolon raised $23.6 million Series B funding in a round led by an undisclosed strategic investor, with Millennium Foodtech, NextGen Nutrition, Colorcon Ventures and Yossi Ackerman participating, to commercialise its yeast-fermented natural food colours, starting with FDA-approved beetroot red dye.

🇮🇳 India’s StrainX Bioworks secured $13 million from Prime Venture Partners, Leo Capital, Good Startup, Sparrow Capital, Sun Icon Ventures, Dholakia Ventures and WindT Angels to further develop its precision fermentation platform for high-value nutritional and flavour ingredients.

🍗 Germany’s Pacifico Biolabs raised €7 million Series A funding from Stray Dog Capital, TFGS, Sprout & About Ventures, Simon Capital, FoodLabs and a regional brewery partner to scale its beer-tank fermentation platform for whole-cut mycelium chicken alternatives, with the aim of securing commercial partnerships across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Nordics by late 2026.

🇪🇺 The European Commission has opened public consultation on its proposed Biotech Act II, expected in Q4 2026, with fermentation, cultivated biomass and biomanufacturing companies urging clearer, harmonised EU regulation to support novel proteins, precision fermentation and industrial biotech scale-up.

Chemicals x Climate

🇧🇪 Belgian startup D-CRBN secured €17.5 million Series A funding in a round led by Astaia, with participation from SFPIM and the EIC Fund, to scale its electrified plasma technology that converts industrial CO₂ and hydrocarbons into circular carbon molecules.

🧪 Connecticut-based P2 Science raised $23 million in an oversubscribed round led by Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Emerald Technology Ventures, GS Futures, Lewis & Clark Partners, dsm-firmenich ventures, Connecticut Innovations, Elm Street Ventures, Chanel, BASF and Safer Made, to expand its renewable green chemistry ingredients platform across beauty, personal care, aroma technologies, polymers, home care, coatings and crop care.

🇦🇺 Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have developed a modular electrochemical generator that uses captured CO₂, water and electricity to produce formate for formic acid.

Energy x Climate

⚛️ US fusion startup Thea Energy closed an oversubscribed $100 million Series B led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, with investors including General Innovation Capital Partners, Linse Capital and Climate Capital, to scale its software-controlled stellarator fusion technology, expand magnet manufacturing and begin building its Eos demonstration reactor.

🛣️ REPS raised $23.6 million in equity financing to scale its Road Energy Production System, a patented “road power plant” that converts vehicle traffic into clean electricity, targeting ports, logistics hubs, cities and industrial sites. 

🇳🇱 Utrecht-based Eddy Grid raised €7.5 million from existing investors including Graduate Ventures and Volve Capital to scale its real-time optimisation algorithms for solar, wind and battery assets and support expansion into Germany.

🌊 Oxford University spinout Caudal Energy secured £4.3 million from Oxford Science Enterprises, Empirical Ventures, Zero Carbon Capital and Creator Fund to advance its modular fin-based tidal power system, with funding supporting full-scale testing in Northern Ireland ahead of planned commercial deployment by 2028. 

😬 The Trump administration has selected five US nuclear startups - Oklo, Standard Nuclear, Shine Technologies, Flibe Energy and Exodys Energy - for talks to use surplus Cold War-era weapons-grade plutonium as reactor fuel, aiming to help dispose of 34 tonnes of plutonium and support next-generation nuclear power, despite concerns over security and proliferation. 

☀️ Mumbai-based SolarSquare is in advanced talks to raise $55–$60 million in Series C funding co-led by B Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Elevation Capital expected to participate, to expand its full-stack rooftop solar platform for homes, housing societies and enterprises across India. 

🐟 A new global study suggests fishery-photovoltaic integration could generate solar power alongside fish and shrimp farming, with elevated panels over ponds and tidal flats potentially delivering 856GW of capacity, 1,266.5TWh of annual electricity and nearly 580 million tonnes of CO₂ reductions.

🌞 Interesting: TechCrunch argues that Elon Musk has given up on solar power. On Earth, anyway.

Materials x Climate

💰 The Bezos Earth Fund awarded $34 million in grants to Columbia University, Clemson University, UC Berkeley and The Cotton Foundation to develop sustainable, plastic-free textile fibres including bacteria-grown rayon-like material, gene-edited cotton and biodegradable silk alternatives for lower-impact fashion.

🧱 UK-based Mykor raised £4 million from Clean Growth Fund, the South West Investment Fund, British Business Bank and Innovate UK to scale its biofabrication technology, which turns industrial and agricultural waste into low-carbon construction materials such as prefab walls and insulation.

💄 California-based Tower 28 Beauty launched a ShineOn Plumping Lip Jelly using New York-based C16 Biosciences’ precision-fermented Palmless Torula Oil, a deforestation-free palm oil alternative.

🇪🇸 Spain’s AIMPLAS-led SOUL project has developed 11 biodegradable-in-soil agricultural and cosmetic packaging solutions made with more than 95% renewable content, aiming to reduce fossil-based plastic use and environmental impact through scalable bio-based materials and circular production methods.

ESG x Climate

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Editorial and curation by Nicola