🌏 CTVC’s guide to NYCW #163

Happy Monday! We’re back from a brief summer break.

Is it just us starting to get that back to school feeling? And with September fast approaching, that means it’s almost time for conference season - in particular, the annual whirlwind that is New York Climate Week! Pack your bag and prep your schedule with us so you’re ready to board the bus for NYCW.

In the news this week, $7T for fossil fuel subsidies, the summer brings more tropical storms, and Equinor opens the world’s largest floating wind farm… to power oil drilling.

Deals haven’t slowed over the past two weeks, with another Big (with a capital B) $1.2B for Northvolt to build energy storage, $100M for direct lithium extraction, and $60M for heat batteries.

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Where we’ll be at NY Climate Week

New York Climate Week is so, well, New York. Decentralized, overwhelming, and heavy on five night’s worth of Happy Hours. You double-book and spend just as much time picking what to prioritize as you do once you’re actually there. And just like with living in New York, everything’s better when you “know a guy.”

To help skip the hours of calendar coordination, we’re sharing an open list of where we’ll be from Sept 18th-22nd at NY Climate Week. (Well, the public events… sorry!) We hope that this is kind of like “knowing a guy” who knows their way around the NYCW early-stage climate innovation ecosystem.

See the tracker here

This is a living document, let us know if there’s anything we’re missing by submitting this form.

Over the years, Climate Week has grown up with the climate tech industry from parades featuring massive paper-mache Earths on fire to more of an unconference epicenter for the ecosystem of folks & things that get us excited at CTVC: innovators, funders, and policymakers convening to workshop and share across party lines, with the privilege of being IRL. Of course, programming spans well beyond early-stage innovation. Check out the official website for a selection of broader event programming.

We’ll be a part of a whole variety of events, and would love to meet y’all there! In particular, to kick the week off on Monday at 3:30pm, Sophie and Kim are (finally!) telling the long-overdue founding story of CTVC during a live podcast recording with My Climate Journey.

Are you going to be in town? Let us know! Hope to see you there.

Deals of the Week (8/14-8/27)

Venture Fundings

🔋 Northvolt, a Stockholm, Sweden-based lithium-ion batteries from recycled materials producer, raised $1.2B in Convertible notes from BlackRock, CPP Investments, OMERS, Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and other investors.

⚒️ Controlled Thermal Resources, an Imperial, CA-based direct lithium extraction technology developer, raised $100M from Stellantis.

🏠 Rondo Energy, an Oakland, CA-based low-carbon industrial heat battery developer, raised $60M in Series B funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, EIP, SCG, TITAN, Microsoft, Rio Tinto, SABIC, Aramco Ventures, SEEIT and John Doerr.

🔋 Mitra Chem, a Houston, TX-based li-ion battery materials company, raised $40M of a $60M Series B funding from General Motors, Social Capital, Fontinalis Partners, Earthshot Ventures, Keffi Group, and other investors.

⚡ dcbel, a Montréal, Canada-based residential EV charging infrastructure developer, raised $50M in Series B funding from Volvo Cars, Coatue, Real Ventures, Idealist Capital, and Investissement Quebec.

🛵 Ilectra Motor Group, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based electric motorbikes developer, raised $50M in Series B funding from Horizons Ventures, Foxconn, and Brama One Ventures.

⚒️ Aether Bio, a Menlo Park, CA-based developer of enzymes for lithium extraction, raised $49M in Series A funding from Natural Capital and Unless.

🏗️ Schüttflix, a Gütersloh, Germany-based circular economy for building materials platform, raised $49M from DEVK, FJ Labs, Goldbeck, Strabag, The Hagedorn Group, and other investors.

🥩 ENOUGH, a Glasgow, United Kingdom-based alternative protein from fungi company, raised $44M from World Fund, CPT Capital, Olympic Investments, AXA Investment Managers, and 280ppm.

🔋 FranklinWH, a San Jose, CA-based developer of home battery storage systems, raised $25M in Series B funding from Particle Future.

🏠 Clockworks Analytics, a Somerville, MA-based smart building analytics platform, raised $16M from Carom Growth Partners and SE Ventures.

⚡ Advanced Ionics, a Milwaukee, WI-based green hydrogen electrolyzer developer, raised $13M in Series A funding from bp Ventures, Clean Energy Ventures, GVP Capital, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

⚡ Nodal Power, a Salt Lake City, UT-based renewables developer using landfill gas to power datacenters, raised $13M in Seed funding.

🌳 NatureMetrics, an Egham, United Kingdom-based DNA-based biodiversity monitoring platform, raised $13M.

⚡ Electric Era Technologies, a Seattle, WA-based energy storage for EV fast charging platform, raised $12M in Series A funding from HSBC, SQM, Blackhorn Ventures, and Proeza Ventures.

☀️ Caelux, a Pasadena, CA-based solar perovskite developer, raised $12M in Series A funding from Temasek Holdings, Reliance New Energy Limited, Khosla Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, and Fine Structure Ventures.

💨 Yard Stick, a Cambridge, MA-based soil carbon monitoring platform, raised $11M in Series A funding from Toyota Ventures, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Lowercarbon, Breakthrough, and Pillar VC.

🏠 Verdigris Technologies, a Santa Clara County, CA-based building energy management platform, raised $10M from Solea Energy and DCVC.

🔋 Accure, an Aachen, Germany-based battery analytics software platform, raised $8M from Blue Bear Capital, HSBC, Riverstone Holdings, and Capnamic Ventures.

☔ The Demex Group, a Washington, DC-based climate financial risk solutions provider, raised $5M in Series A funding from Blue Bear Capital.

🏠 Kamma, a London, UK-based property analysis for environmental compliance platform, raised $5M from the Clean Growth Fund, Kiilto Ventures, Pi Labs and Triple Point Ventures.

⚡ ElectroTempo, an Arlington, VA-based EV charging network planning software developer, raised $4M in Seed funding from Buoyant Ventures, Schematic Ventures, and Zebox Ventures.

🥩 Jellatech, a Raleigh, NC-based animal-free proteins developer, raised $4M in Seed funding from byFounders, Milano Investment Partners, Joyful VC, Siddhi Capital, Blustein, and other investors.

🌱 P6 Technologies, an Austin, TX-based lifecycle assessment software platform for transportation and petrochemical industries, raised $3M in Seed funding from GOOSE Capital, Tupper Lake Partners, Veritec Ventures, and Artemis Energy Partners.

💨 EDAC Labs, a Baltimore, MD-based DAC technology developer, raised $3M in Seed funding from the Grantham Foundation.

⚡ AssetCool, a Sheffield, United Kingdom-based photonic cooling for power lines developer, raised $3M in Series A funding from Northern Gritstone, Northern Powerhouse Investments, and Kero Development Partners.

🧪 Cascade Biocatalysts, a Brooklyn, NY-based sustainable chemicals platform, raised $3M in Pre-Seed funding from Ten VC, Amplify.LA, Boost VC, Cool ClimateCollective, Range Ventures, and other investors.

🥩 Clean Food Group, a London, UK-based sustainable oils and fats producer, raised $3M in Seed funding from Allianza Team, Agronomics and DohlerGroup.

🏠 DREM, a Stockholm, Sweden-based heat pump installation services platform, raised $2M from Peak.

☀️ Solar AI Technologies, a Central Region, Singapore-based rent-to-own solar platform, raised $2M in Seed funding from Earth Venture Capital, Undivided Ventures and Investible.

🌱 Goodwings, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based sustainability tool for travel platform, raised $2M in Seed funding from Global Cleantech Capital and JTB USA.

Other Fundings

✈️ JetZero, a Long Beach, CA-based blended wing aircraft developer, raised $235M in Grant funding from the US Department of Defense.

⚒️ Techmet, a Dublin, UK-based critical minerals investment platform, raised $200M to expand their critical minerals operations.

🏠 Redaptive, a San Francisco, CA-based energy efficiency-as-a-service platform, raised $125M in a warehouse facility from Deutsche Bank.

⚡ Rega Energy, a Lisbon, Portugal-based biomethane and green hydrogen developer, raised $66M from Swen Capital Partners.

💨 CarbonCapture, a Los Angeles, CA-based DAC technology developer, raised $13M in Grant funding from the US Department of Energy.

Exits

💨 Carbon Engineering, a Squamish, Canada-based DAC technology developer, was acquired by Oxy (Occidental Petroleum) for $1.1B.

New Funds

Assembly Ventures, a Detroit, Michigan-based investment firm, announced the close of its $76M fund that invests in the mobility sector.

Share new deals and announcements with us at [email protected]

In the News

Fossil fuels were subsidized to a record $7T across the globe in 2022, the IMF reports. The Russian-Ukraine war likely tipped the scales.

SoCal gets a light taste of hurricane season in California’s first-ever tropical storm watch. Hilary doused San Diego and Los Angeles with vast amounts of rain that the desert communities aren’t equipped to handle.

Closing out the Montana climate change trial with a W, the state finds it has a constitutional right to protect residents from climate change. This was the first time a US court has ruled that residents have a right to a safe and stable climate system, and should set the precedent for future climate protection rights cases. Up next - the Supreme Court for an appeal.

New York is reeling from its hot battery summer. NY is struggling to keep the flames out of their lithium ion grid-scale batteries after 3 battery grid fires in the past 2 months. A new state inter-agency has been tasked with ensuring safety of the battery systems.

Ecuador says no to oil extraction in parts of the Amazon rainforest after a close critical vote. Petroecuador must now halt production, close wells, and remove infrastructure from the area. This retreat comes after a recent study indicated that during the 2020 first half of Bolsonaro’s Brazilian presidency, the Amazon’s annual emissions nearly doubled vs the previous decade.

Equinor, the Norwegian oil company, opens the world’s largest floating wind farm… to power their oil drilling operations. The 88 MW of capacity will supply ~1/3rd of yearly power demand for the Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas fields off of Norway’s coast.

Denmark plans to allocate 26.8B Danish crowns ($3.9B USD) over the next 15 years to carbon capture projects – aiming to store 2.3M metric tons of CO2 per year.

California and Australia have signed an MOU agreeing to a five-year collaboration on climate tech, clean energy, clean transportation, nature-based solutions, climate adaptation, and sustainable finance.

Pop-up

“If you see it, stomp it.” We are avid participants in the war against the invasive lantern fly, and are pleased our stomping may be paying off!

Where the rubber meets the code. Bessemer’s roadmap for climate software.

Drought threatens global shipping, especially paths via the parched Panama Canal.

The last march of the penguins? 80% of emperor penguin colonies may have lost their chicks in 2022 due to retreating sea ice.

The first GOP presidential debate was expectedly heated, but devoid of any climate conversation.

Building batteries in the sand.

Japan begins to release water from the Fukushima plant and China responds with seafood import restrictions.

India produces a new electric scooter every 90 seconds.

Please meet the SRWT, aka smol residential wind turbine.

Opportunities & Events:

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Check out CTVC’s NY Climate Week event tracker, from Sept 17th to Sept 24th. Submit any events and activities via the following form!

🗓️ MCJ Women in Climate: Register to join MCJ’s Women in Climate Meetup on Aug 30th to discuss industry and job trends in climate tech.

🗓️ Venture Houston 2023: Join Sophie at Venture Houston 2023 on Sept 7th to hear from numerous investors and leaders on decarbonization in a digital world. 10% discount using VH-SophiePurdom.

💡 EEx Innovation Challenge: Climate tech companies can apply to Elemental Excelerator’s third Innovation Challenge through Sept 15th to receive up to $2M in funding and a chance to pilot their technologies with Amazon and Technip.

💡Activate Fellowship: Scientific entrepreneurs can apply to the Activate Fellowship by Sept 19th to receive support ranging from funding to mentorship to develop your tech concept into a product.

🗓️ SOSV Climate Tech Summit: Join SOSV’s climate tech summit on Sept 26th to 27th to hear from top investors and founders in climate - featuring Kim moderating a panel on FOAK, Mark speaking on an analyst panel, and Sophie judging startups!