🚌 Vol 184: Can a bus shelter help power the future?

Hi there,

Most bus shelters have one job: keep you (mostly) dry while you wonder if the bus will ever arrive. In Bangkok, Swedish solar company Midsummer and Chulalongkorn University have unveiled what's believed to be the world's first carbon-negative solar-powered bus shelter, generating enough electricity to power lighting, fans, phone chargers and digital travel information. If a humble bus stop can double as a power station, it makes you wonder what other overlooked bits of infrastructure have been hiding in plain sight.

Before you dive into the rest of the news, one quick note from the team: we're taking an extended summer break, so this will be our last newsletter until September. Thanks for reading and supporting us this year, and we hope you have a fantastic summer.

In this week’s edition: 

🚗 Flease raised €13 million
🐝 Bees x intensive commercial farming
💧 Nvidia’s answer to water use in data centres

AgriFood x Climate

🏭 Berlin-based Seqana raised €3.2 million in a funding round led by Pymwymic with participation from HTGF, Counteract and Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank. It uses satellite imagery and machine learning to quantify soil health, and will use the funds to expand its soil carbon MRV tools and measure additional soil health indicators and carbon pools.

☕️ Israeli startup Brevel has partnered with coffee cell-culture specialist Coffeesai to use its illuminated fermentation platform to scale cultivated coffee production, supported by a $1 million grant from the Israel Innovation Authority to expand the technology into plant cell culture and adjacent industries.

🌱 Schouten Europe has acquired fellow Dutch plant-based producer Bobeldijk Food Group for an undisclosed sum, expanding its manufacturing capacity and private-label meat and fish alternatives business as it claims to become Europe’s largest family-owned meat alternatives producer.

🥔 Israeli molecular farming startup Finally Foods has completed its final pre-commercial field trial, confirming potatoes can express all four casein subunits in one plant as it targets dairy applications by 2027 or 2028.

🌳 The UK government announced plans to tighten food supply chain rules by requiring businesses trading forest-risk commodities such as soy, palm oil, cocoa and rubber to check they are not linked to illegal deforestation, aiming to improve traceability, protect rainforests and give consumers greater confidence in everyday products.

Biodiversity x Climate

🐝 BASF’s eight-year “Pollinators in Practice” study on a Northamptonshire arable farm found that intensive commercial farming can coexist with thriving pollinator populations when farmers protect hedgerows, rotate wildflower meadows and maintain diverse habitats that provide pollen and nectar across the season.

🪸 KAUST-led researchers produced one of the first global assessments of marine ecosystems during a year above 1.5°C warming, analysing 201 impact events and finding widespread coral bleaching, harmful algal blooms, species deaths and fisheries disruption linked mainly to unusually warm seas. 

Energy x Climate

🇩🇪 Berlin-based VARM, which trains and deploys insulation specialists to make home retrofits faster and more scalable, raised €17.5 million in a Series A funding round led by ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund and GET Fund, with participation from Aurum Impact, Emerge Partners, Pale Blue Dot, Emerge VC and noa, to expand its installer network across Germany and eventually Europe.

☀️ ARENA has committed an additional A$95.4 million to the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics to extend research into higher-efficiency, lower-cost solar cells and modules through to 2033.

🇦🇺 Australia’s Air Springs Supply is highlighting pneumatic air spring actuators as a lower-cost, low-maintenance way for solar panels to track the sun, potentially boosting output by 30–40% for industrial, rural and remote solar farms while withstanding harsh conditions. 

🌞 Researchers have developed a new manufacturing method for kesterite solar cells that improves how the material is formed, boosting energy conversion efficiency to a record certified 15.3% and bringing this low-cost, abundant-material solar technology closer to commercial use.

🔋 UK-based PowerUp Off-Grid Services has deployed its Battery Energy Distribution System in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, as part of the UK-backed ZEBRAS project, using renewable charging hubs, swappable lithium-ion batteries, electric delivery vehicles and AI monitoring to provide “endless” reliable clean power and reduce reliance on diesel generators.

🚌 Sweden’s Midsummer AB and its Thai subsidiary Midsummer Siam have partnered with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok to launch a prototype carbon-negative solar bus shelter, using engineered wood and lightweight thin-film solar panels to power lighting, fans, phone charging and digital traffic systems while exploring climate-positive urban infrastructure. 

Mobility x Climate

🚐 Commercial EV manufacturer Superlight, which is reimagining middle-mile logistics with aerospace design principles and software-centric vehicle architecture, closed an oversubscribed $21 million Series A funding round co-led by Engine Ventures and 2150 to scale its operations.

🚙 Flease, a reconditioned vehicle leasing platform for enterprise fleets, raised €13 million in a round led by Partech Impact to accelerate commercial deployment, strengthen operational and financial capacity, and scale its flexible, lower-emission fleet leasing service across France.

🐙 UK-based Octopus Energy and China’s CATL have formed a joint venture called Swaptopus to build a European battery-swapping network for electric lorries, with the first UK mega hubs due in 2027 and the partners aiming to support 300,000+ electric trucks, unlock over £30 billion in private investment and cut freight reliance on imported oil.

Water x Climate

🚰 Swedish startup Wayout International, which develops decentralised systems that turn local water sources into safe, purified and digitally monitored drinking water, raised a €2.42 million Series A extension to move from technology validation into commercial deployment.

💧 Ofwat’s Water Efficiency Lab awarded £5.2 million to seven UK projects, including 50 Liter Home, RHS-led garden water insights and MyWaterGPT, to help homes and businesses cut water use through smarter appliances, data-led advice, education, sensors and AI tools. 

🆒 Nvidia unveiled a warm-water, closed-loop cooling system that can dramatically cut on-site water use in AI data centres.

😎 Summer Break x Climate

We’d love to hear from you, how did you like today's email?

Love it😁 Meh 😐 Hate it🙁

Editorial and curation by Nicola