44.01 is turning carbon into rocks
Recommended by: Rokas Peciulaitis, Contrarian Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: London
Total raised: $5 million
What it does: 44.01 is a carbon-removal startup using mineralization to turn Co2 into rocks, sequestering the carbon. It uses an ultramafic rock called peridotite, which naturally reacts with CO2 and converts it into minerals. The company’s tech speeds up this reaction.
Startup representatives said it’s on track to mineralize gigatons of Co2 by 2040. It works with direct air-capture-tech companies to sequester the carbon capture.
Why it’s poised to take off: “One of the noteworthy advantages of the 44.01 solution is that it does not involve the use of toxic substances that could, in the event of malfunction, pollute the environment,” Peciulaitis said. “With pilots in action, we see how this technology has a path to scale to first-of-a-kind project deployment.”
Alectro is a virtual-sustainability officer
Recommended by: Jeffrey Faustin, Jenson Funding Partners
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £222,000, or about $261,911
What it does: Alectro is a carbon-management company that refers to itself as a “virtual-sustainability officer,” for small- to medium-size businesses. Its data-and-insights platform allows companies to measure, reduce, and offset their carbon footprints. The software takes input data to establish where emissions hotspots lie within a company and suggests ways to reduce it. For those that it can’t reduce, Alectro also offers offsetting.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Alectro facilitates businesses’ understanding of carbon footprint on three different levels,” Faustin said. “It allows businesses to understand and reverse their carbon footprint and also allows them to offset directly their impact, while they work on changing long-term behaviors.”
Aquatic Labs is unlocking the blue economy
Recommended by: Steve Singh, Madrona Venture Group
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Total raised: Undisclosed
What it does: Aquatic Labs builds low-cost, low-power sensing equipment for ocean-use cases.
“Aquatic Labs brings together the risk-averse culture of traditional ocean engineering with the risk-tolerant practices of modern rapid prototyping and development to create a new generation of aquatic tools and better align industrial incentives with ecological responsibility,” the company told Insider.
Why it’s poised to take off: Aquatic Labs is an early-stage startup attempting to create more affordable tools for a wide range of so-called “blue economy” needs, which refers to economic activity around oceans, seas, and coasts.
It hopes to accelerate and simplify innovation for product development.
“Operating businesses or equipment in the ocean is expensive, hard and bespoke,” Singh said, adding that “aquatic-build solutions that cheap, disposable, and universal” could be “transformational for unlocking ocean-carbon opportunities.”
BeeHero is increasing farming-crop yields by saving the bees
Recommended by: Shmuel Chafets, Target Global
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Del Rey, California
Total raised: $17.6 million
What it does: BeeHero sells smart beehives equipped with sensors that monitor the bee health and population. It can predict issues with the hive so beekeepers can step in before a hive collapses. The healthy hives, placed on farms, improve pollination of crops and boost biodiversity.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Bees are vitally important to the health of the planet,” Chafets said. There are around 20,000 bee species worldwide which, like other insects, pollinate plants. Bee populations are declining for a variety of reasons, research shows.
“As well as lowering crop yields, the loss of pollinators could also raise food prices for consumers, and reduce agricultural profits. Solving the global food crisis depends on co-joining the efforts of growers and beekeepers to scale their operations, incrementally innovating current and generational knowledge and processes,” Chafets said.
BeZero Carbon is increasing transparency in the carbon markets
Recommended by: Zoe Chambers, Frontline Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £17 million, or around $20 million
What it does: BeZero Carbon is a platform that rates the performance of various carbon-credit projects to help inform people on which ones are achieving the goal of removing one tonne of carbon per credit. It also integrates with offsetting platforms.
Why it’s poised to take off: “How do you drive any behavior in a market? Incentives and pricing. Carbon is very much now recognised as a balance-sheet item so it needs to be a recognizable, measurable, understandable asset with information and analytics that you’d expect on a bond — is it junk, what’s its grading, etc.,” Chambers said.
“In 2022, we’ve seen them use their voice and content to educate the market and to accelerate their partnership program.”
Bike Club is keeping bikes in circulation longer
Recommended by: Jamie Vollbracht, Kiko Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: London
Total raised: $33.4 million, per PitchBook
What it does: Bike Club is a bike-subscription service, allowing people to rent bikes on a rolling monthly basis. Bike Club often refurbishes its fleet’s bikes, and customers can exchange them at any time, so parents can get bikes — affordably — for their children as they grow, extending the life cycle of bikes.
Why it’s poised to take off: “With a new generation of families growing up in cities and having bikes as their main mode of transport, it’s clear there’s a demand for companies such as Bike Club, that help families minimize their impact on the environment,” Vollbracht said.
Biomason is making an alternative to cement
Recommended by: Sebastian Peck, Kompas
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Durham, North Carolina
Total raised: $96.3 million, per PitchBook
What it does: Biomason is using biology to produce cement, taking inspiration from the way nature absorbs carbon. Its cement uses microorganisms and the company makes it at ambient temperatures, unlike the extreme heat needed for traditional methods.
Why it’s poised to take off: “The building industry is notorious for the use of materials that pollute or are difficult to recycle,” Peck said. “Finding low- or even zero-carbon alternatives with similar performance characteristics that can be easily recycled or reused is essential if we want to decarbonize our housing stock.”
Bio-Sep turns sawdust into biochemicals
Recommended by: Tim Mills, ACF Investors
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: Leicestershire, UK
Total raised: £3.2 million, or around $3.7 million
What it does: Bio-Sep has created a way to break down biomass — namely sawdust — to extract renewable biochemicals. These biochemicals can replace the toxic petrochemicals present in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and personal-care products.
Why it’s poised to take off: “The products produced by chemical companies are essential to having a high quality of life — they are the foundation of everything from modern healthcare to technology. But it’s also an industry that has a lot of work to do when it comes to decarbonizing,” Mills said. “Bio-Sep’s technology could be key to that process, and the business model — turning £1 of sawdust into £6 worth of biochemicals — has the potential to be a highly profitable one.”
Bramble Energy is betting on hydrogen vehicles
Recommended by: Jamie Vollbracht, Kiko Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Crawley, UK
Total raised: £41 million, or around $48.4 million
What it does: Bramble Energy has developed a new type of hydrogen fuel cell using printed circuit boards’ existing supply chains, which removes some of hydrogen’s scalability issues.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Through Bramble, the promise that fuel cells could replace diesel engines can finally become a reality,” Vollbracht told Insider.
Bramble Energy raised a £35 million Series B earlier this year, launched its portable-power products with BOC, a British gas company, and announced a demonstration fuel-cell hybrid van with Mahle Powertrain, an engineering company.
“The funding raised will enable Bramble to roll out its portable-power products globally as well as continue to develop its liquid-cooled fuel-cell stack capability,” Vollbracht said.
Carla runs a managed marketplace for used electric vehicles
Recommended by: Magda Lukaszewicz, Balderton Capital
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden
Total raised: 30 million euros, or around $30 million
What it does: Carla is an online marketplace for used electric cars. Its cars are battery-tested, less than seven years old, and come with a one-year warranty, according to its website.
Why it’s poised to take off: “While electric cars are not perfect, they are certainly a more sustainable alternative to traditional cars,” Lukaszewicz said. “But new electric cars are still quite expensive, and in particular first-time buyers can be reluctant to buy used cars online. I think Carla is addressing this in a very consumer-friendly way.”
Circulor is arming companies with ESG data for better decision making
Recommended by: Alex Smout, a principal investor at InMotion Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: London
Total raised: $44.9 million
What it does: Circulor is an ESG-management platform that allows companies to track, measure and reduce carbon emissions throughout their supply chain. It also allows businesses to make ESG-friendly decisions around sourcing and any human-rights impacts it might have.
One of the company’s focuses is on tracking “high-risk and high-human-impact materials” used within the manufacturing and recycling supply chains. For example, rare Earth materials that are mined and used in batteries: The origins of such materials are not always clear, meaning manufacturers don’t have full oversight of supply-chain risks, according to Circulor’s website.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Demand for supply-chain visibility is only set to increase as regulators force companies to take sustainability seriously. EU Battery Regulation comes into force in less than 24 months, requiring battery passports that clearly show the battery’s embedded CO2 emissions, compliance to ethical-production standards, and a growing amount of recycled content,” Smout said.
Charm Industrial uses bio-oil for carbon sequestration
Recommended by: Alex Roetter, a senior partner at Moxxie Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: San Francisco
Total raised: $30 million
What it does: Charm Industrial is a carbon-removal startup taking advantage of what’s leftover on farm fields after farmers have harvested their crops.
Plants absorb carbon throughout their life. Charm Industrial takes leftover plant waste and converts it into bio-oil, which is then pumped it underground. Here, it solidifies and sequesters carbon.
Why it’s poised to take off: Charm Industrial is making fast progress on affordable, permanent bio-oil-based carbon reduction, Roetter said. It was also selected as a carbon-project provider by big names like Stripe, Shopify, and Microsoft, Roetter said.
Cleaner Seas is tackling microplastics, starting with laundry
Recommended by: Angelika Burawska, SFC Capital
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Cornwall, UK
Total raised: £410,000, or around $485,792
What it does: Cleaner Seas Group is tackling microplastic pollution with a microfiber-filter technology. It’s first product is a filter that can be retrofitted onto washing machines.
“Every time we wash our clothes, up to 700,000 plastic microfibers are released into the water system,” the company told Insider, adding that those fibers then become pollutants that make their way into rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Cleaner Seas is working on a solution that can help to remove microplastic produced by everyone through their daily consumption,” Burawska said. “It is a really special company because it has a direct impact, and can empower individuals to take action directly by incorporating their products into their usual buying habits.”
Ebb Carbon is developing ocean-based carbon removal while treating acidification
Recommended by: Ed Phillips, Future Planet Capital
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: San Carlos, California
Total raised: $3 million
What it does: Ebb Carbon has created an electro-chemical system to process seawater, rearranging the salt and water molecules into acidic and slightly alkaline saltwater solutions.
When the alkaline saltwater is returned to the ocean, it kickstarts a natural chemical reaction that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and converts it into bicarbonate, storing the Co2 for thousands of years while addressing ocean acidification.
Why it’s poised to take off: Ebb Carbon has built a system that fits into a shipping container, Phillips said.
“The world’s oceans are the single largest source of natural carbon capture, accounting for about 30% of anthropogenic emissions. But, this has come at the cost of rising acidity, an issue which can lead to ecosystem imbalances, harming marine biodiversity and resulting in knock effects on the billions of people,” he said.
Ebb Carbon’s system “can reach gigaton scale at sub-$100 a ton of CO2 captured” while also using less energy than other methods, Phillips added.
EV Biotech is using science to discover microbes for food ingredients and bioplastics
Recommended by: Lea Bajc, partner at Blue Horizon
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Groningen, the Netherlands
Total raised: €800,000, or around $800,000, per PitchBook
What it does: EV Biotech offers AI-modeling software for the development and discovery of microbe strains that can be used to produce anything from food ingredients and bioplastics to ultimately more sustainable products.
Why it’s poised to take off: “EV Biotech unlocks the benefits of modern tools such as cheap sequencing and high-throughput experimentation by combining them with state-of-the-art machine learning and bioinformatics tools,” Bajc said. “EV Biotech has the potential to propel the whole bio-manufacturing world forward.”
EV.Energy helps consumers get cheaper deals on energy use
Recommended by: Alex Smout, InMotion Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: London
Total raised: $22.2 million, per PitchBook
What it does: EV.Energy has developed an app to helping drivers make smarter electric-vehicle-charging decisions. The platform integrates with utilities, cars, and chargers to control and manage charging based on grid capacity, cost, and emissions. For example, it will pause charging at peak times until demand has dropped.
Why it’s poised to take off: “EV adoption is on the rise and investment in the charging ecosystem is critical to answering the question of how these vehicles will be powered,” Smout said.
“Charging complexities are one of the key pain points of electric-vehicle ownership, and smart-charging technologies such as EV.Energy drastically enhances the ownership user experience: making charging simple, sustainable, and low-cost for drivers.” The startup also helps manage grid demand, which is important in areas like California, where outages are more likely, Smout said.
Imagindairy is creating animal-free milk alternatives that taste like the real thing
Recommended by: Shmuel Chafets, Target Global
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Ashdod, Israel
Total raised: $28 million
What it does: Imagindairy is developing animal-free dairy alternatives using precision fermentation. It hopes its products will reach taste and texture parity with animal-based dairy while also having the same functionality and nutritional value.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Imagindairy is about to launch its first product this year,” Chafets said. “In 2020, the ‘clean-meat’ industry started to shine; 2022 is the year of milk alternatives.”
The investor also noted the environmental and animal-welfare impacts of milk, that consumer eating habits are changing, and that the alternative-protein industry could reach $4.4 billion by 2026.
Kita Earth is de-risking carbon removal through insurance
Recommended by: Angelika Burawska, SFC Capital
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: London, UK
Total raised: £350,000, or around $413,711
What it does: Kita Earth is set on becoming “the world’s first carbon insurer.” It offers insurance to de-risk carbon-removal technologies, which are currently unproven at scale. Acting as a buffer in case something goes wrong, Kita Earth hopes carbon-removal technology can attract more capital and therefore scale more quickly.
Why it’s poised to take off: “The company uses insurance products to guarantee the quality and delivery of carbon units and carbon-removal solutions,” Burawska said. “Like in every industry, there is a chance of fraud in the carbon-removal market. This type of solution removes the risk by protecting both sides of the transaction and ensures good actors can access greater flows of capital to scale their activities and, therefore, their impact.”
Living Carbon genetically engineers plants to capture more carbon
Recommended by: Kevin Patrick Mahaffey, SNR
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: San Francisco
Total raised: $15 million
What it does: Living Carbon is genetically engineering plants and trees to capture more carbon with the goal of restoring ecosystems. It does this by enhancing natural features, supported by “generations” of scientific research, the company said.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Solving the climate crisis is one of the most important items on humanity’s agenda and Living Carbon is improving one of the most important processes on the planet, photosynthesis, at scale,” Mahaffey told Insider. “The company has successfully engineered trees that accumulate biomass 53% faster than ordinary trees.”
Normative helps retail, construction, and furniture companies count their carbon
Recommended by: Alston Zecha, Eight Roads
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden
Total raised: €43 million, or around $43 million
What it does: Normative offers carbon-accounting software that helps companies estimate, reduce, and report their carbon footprints.
Why it’s poised to take off: It counts retail, construction, and furniture companies as customers and recently launched a carbon calculator for small businesses, with the support from Google.org and the UN-backed SME Climate Hub.
“While carbon-accounting software has been used for a while by highly pollutive industries — oil and gas — it is now starting to be adopted across almost every industry,” Zecha said.
Zecha said the team has a background in AI and enterprise software so the tool “ingests transactional data from companies’ existing systems and uses around 30 million data points to make its calculations” on their carbon usage.
Pachama measures carbon captured in forests using satellites
Recommended by: Katie Stanton, Moxxie Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: San Francisco
Total raised: $79 million
What it does: Pachama uses satellite imagery, remote sensing, and machine learning to measure the carbon stored in forests and track how it grows over time.
Pachama monitors forest-conservation projects as a way to encourage carbon-offset programs. The data it gathers is used to verify and sell carbon credits to companies looking to offset.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Climate change presents the most urgent challenge to humanity,” Stanton said. “We are facing unprecedented temperatures and swings in weather. Pachama helps enterprises measure, manage, and remove carbon emissions at scale.”
Piclo lets you trade energy with your neighbors
Recommended by: Tim Mills, ACF Investors
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio. However, ACF Investors partner George Whitehead is chair of the Clean Growth Fund’s advisory committee, which is an investor.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £6.4 million, or around $7.5 million
What it does: Piclo is a peer-to-peer marketplace for trading energy that matches people with energy produced by their neighbors, local businesses, or incumbent energy provider. It trades 100% renewable electricity, moving the industry towards net-zero target emissions.
The company said it is dedicated to making access to electricity cheap, efficient, and environmentally friendly. It shows producers and consumers what energy costs and how that changes over time.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Piclo is a revolutionary young energy company that is democratizing access to local energy markets in the UK and overseas,” Mills said. “The company is growing rapidly with over £47 million of contracts awarded and over 650 Megawatt capacity procured.”
Propelair makes environmentally-friendly toilets
Recommended by: Avent Bezuidenhoudt, Earth Capital
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £9.30 million, or around $10.9 million
What it does: Propelair has created environmentally friendly toilets to cut down on water use, energy, emissions, and germs. Standard toilets use nine liters of water to flush just once, and typical low-flow toilets use about 5 liters, or 1.28 gallons, while Propelair’s uses 1.5 liters with an air-powered flush.
Why it’s poised to take off: Propelair has developed “fantastic technology that makes a real positive impact on an increasingly global scale — finding positive solutions to real-world problems,” Bezuidenhoudt said.
The company incorporated in 1998 and spent 15 years designing a prototype. It has now reached a scale where it is selling its product across the UK, South Africa, and the Middle East, with growth rates this year in the triple digits and continuing to accelerate, Bezuidenhoudt said.
Satellite Vu monitors the temperature of buildings
Recommended by: Rokas Peciulaitis, Contrarian Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £20 million, or $23.6 million
What it does: Satellite Vu is a space-tech firm that can monitor the temperature of buildings in near real-time. Using infrared cameras and heat, its images provide insight into economic activity, energy efficiency, and disaster response.
Why it’s poised to take off: Satellite Vu’s technology “will allow us to know exactly where the most efficient housing stock is, which buildings need improved energy efficiency, and how best to target spend on insulation,” Peciulaitis said.
“The move to decarbonize real estate has barely started, and Satellite Vu is ideally positioned to benefit from changes in this market,” he added.
Seaweed Generation is sinking harmful seaweed into the deep ocean
Recommended by: Ferdi Sigona, LocalGlobe
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: Cornwall, UK
Total raised: Undisclosed
What it does: Seaweed Generation is set on reducing carbon by sinking Sargassum — an invasive floating seaweed — into the deep ocean while exploring the cultivation of seaweed.
Why it’s poised to take off: Millions of tons of Sargassum pile up on beaches in the Caribbean, West Africa, and Central America every year, poisoning marine life, reefs, and people with arsenic and hydrogen sulfide.
Seaweed Generation has been in discussions about its solution with several island governments over the past few months, Sigona said.
“The cultivation and sinking of kelp or seaweed has been proposed in recent years as an effective and scalable method to sequester carbon,” he said. “Seaweed Generation is a British company that is taking a creative approach to this category: Why cultivate seaweed, when tonnes of one overgrowing species — Sargassum — are already available in various parts of the world?”
Shellworks has created a new material for cosmetic packaging
Recommended by: Ferdi Sigona, LocalGlobe
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: London
Total raised: $7.6 million
What it does: Shellworks has created two alternatives to plastic packaging for the cosmetics industry. It’s first is called Shellmer, based off lobster shells and made from a material that is flexible and can be dissolved in hot water to be reused. The second, called Vivomer, is a hard, plastic-like shell created with microorganisms that consumers can compost at home.
Why it’s poised to take off: Shellworks played a big role in the rebrand of Haeckels, a sustainable-skincare brand, Sigona said, which shifted to the startup’s compostable packaging.
“Shellworks is applying a software-development approach that is iterative and focused on customer needs to the materials space,” Sigona said. “And they are doing so in an industry — beauty — that is demonstrating huge interest in finding alternatives to the enormous amounts of plastics packaging it currently uses.”
Sila is prolonging battery life with silicon battery parts
Recommended by: Peter Barrett, Playground Global
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: California
Total raised: $925 million
What it does: Sila has created silicon-based battery anodes that improve the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.
Why it’s poised to take off: Last year it shipped its first silicon anode, which it claimed is the world’s first, in an advanced health-and-fitness tracker. Its technology will also power Mercedes Benz electric vehicles starting with the automaker’s G-Class series, Sila told Insider.
“Lithium-ion batteries play a crucial role in the energy transition but are held back from their full potential with their current chemistries,” Barrett said. “Sila encapsulates the silicon anode with a graphite structure that mitigates swelling and degradation, enabling near-infinite battery cycles.”
Small Robot Company analyses farming crops individually to maximise yield
Recommended by: Avent Bezuidenhoudt, Earth Capital
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Salisbury, UK
Total raised: $5.4 million, per PitchBook
What it does: Small Robot Company is building AI-powered robots to farm “per plant,” encouraging a move away from tractors and toward regenerative agriculture.
Its robots scan fields to understand what each plant needs for optimal yield and feeds data back to farmers.
Why it’s poised to take off: The startup will roll out its robots to 50 farms later this year after a trial revealed they can cut herbicide use by around 77% and fertilizer use by 15%.
Bezuidenhoudt is impressed by the startup’s “great” use of technology to tackle the food crisis currently facing the world. Small Robot Company also has the capabilities to provide add-on solutions for more sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture, he said.
Sourceful helps companies with sustainable packaging
Recommended by: Terese Hougaard, Atomico
Relationship to VCs: Non-portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Manchester, UK
Total raised: $32.2 million
What it does: Sourceful sources, produces, and manages the logistics of sustainable packaging, which the company said is the most “ubiquitous and wasteful part of the product ecosystem.” Companies can also use its platform to create bespoke-packaging designs so it can still brand its packaging.
Sourceful plans to add more features to create an all-in-one platform that helps companies make better environmental-impact product decisions.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Sourceful has built an impressive verticalized platform through understanding supply chains in detail,” Hougaard said. “This allows them to help companies to reduce the carbon emissions of their footprint by allowing them to source better packaging and logistics alternatives.”
Symplicity Foods is using fermentation for meat alternatives
Recommended by: Zoe Chambers, Frontline Ventures
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: London
Total raised: £2 million, or around $2.3 million
What it does: Symplicity Foods is an alternative-meat startup making vegan products through fermentation. A former steak chef founded the startup, which currently has burgers, meatballs, sausages, and vegan sauces on the market.
Why it’s poised to take off: “If we wish to solve the climate crisis, one of the most important things humans must do is eat less meat and use sustainable healthy alternatives,” Chambers said.
The current options for alternative protein “focus too much on replication of meat often at the sacrifice of nutrition and taste,” Chambers said, adding that Symplicity’s alternative-protein products have “no chemicals” and “are not just better for the climate but genuinely healthy and taste great.”
Tibber is helping people make smart energy decisions
Recommended by: Alston Zecha, Eight Roads and Magda Lukaszewicz, Balderton Capital
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Førde, Norway
Total raised: $181 million
What it does: Tibber has developed an energy-management platform that provides customers with locally produced renewable energy at wholesale prices for a monthly subscription. Customers use an app to manage and reduce their energy consumption thanks to tips from the company, prompting them to use power when it’s cheap.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Subscriber numbers nearly quadrupled over the course of 2021 and in 2022, where Europe faces the current terrible energy crisis,” Zecha said. “We believe that Tibber’s tech-forward green energy represents the future of how people will power their homes.”
The company’s decentralization of energy was a pull for Lukaszewicz. “It’s needed from an environmental perspective, but also from a political perspective,” she said. “With homes increasingly producing, consuming, and also storing energy, a holistic operating system is needed to manage it.”
Tropic Biosciences is genetically modifying crops to solve food insecurity
Recommended by: Lea Bajc, partner at Blue Horizon
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Norwich, UK
Total raised: $75 million
What it does: Tropic Biosciences is an agricultural biotech using plant breeding and gene editing to create high-performing varieties of coffee, bananas, and rice in efforts to alleviate food insecurity, particularly in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Tropic is going to have a massively positive impact in an area thanks to its cutting-edge gene-editing technology,” Bajc said.
“Gene editing is a great way to address these effects on crops, as it can be scaled as easily as software and is far safer than solutions that involve chemicals,” Bajc said, adding that by working closely with growers, the company also helps to boost their fortunes by boosting their yields.
Tynt Technologies’ windows can control light and heat flow, saving energy costs
Recommended by: Sebastian Peck, Kompas
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Boulder, Colorado
Total raised: $9 million
What it does: Tynt Technologies makes windows that tint from clear to total blackout in under two minutes and can control light and heat flow.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Tynt has a terrific scientific team led by Ameen Saafir and Professor Michael McGehee, a leading specialist in advanced materials who developed the technology during his tenure at Stanford and CU Boulder and acts as the company’s chief scientific advisor,” Peck said.
“The company’s addressable market is massive, and the technology has the potential to have real impact on the reduction of carbon emissions by regulating the amount of light and sun heat that enters a building,” Peck added.
Universal Hydrogen aims to make flying more sustainable
Recommended by: Peter Barrett, Playground Global
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Hawthorne, California
Total raised: $82.5 million
What it does: Universal Hydrogen has developed a green-hydrogen fuel cell that can be retrofitted onto aircraft. The company is determined to see carbon-free air travel come to fruition and is starting its rollout with regional and single-aisle airplanes.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Air travel represents 2.5% of global emissions and reducing that damage could take a decade or more without the innovation of this world-class team — ex-Airbus, ex-NASA — retrofitting commercial passenger aircraft to fly on their proprietary green-hydrogen capsules,” Barrett said. “Look for them to take to the air later this year in their first test flight.”
Vaarst monitors undersea infrastructure
Recommended by: Ed Phillips, Future Planet Capital
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Bristol, UK
Total raised: $20 million, per PitchBook
What it does: Using computer vision and AI, Vaarst is creating marine robotics so sub-sea drones can 3D map, model, and monitor underwater infrastructure.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Amid the billions being invested in ocean infrastructure by governments and energy companies, there’s a little-acknowledged but incredible challenge of overseeing our new energy assets,” Phillips said. “Monitoring is dangerous, expensive and, completely counterproductively, carbon-intensive.”
Vaarst also offers drones to monitor offshore wind farms remotely, the investor said, which “reduces the risks to human life” while cutting costs.
Vaayu helps retailers track carbon emissions
Recommended by: Terese Hougaard, Atomico
Relationship to VCs: Portfolio
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Berlin
Total raised: $13 million
What it does: Vaayu offers a SaaS platform that automates carbon accounting for retailers and e-commerce to measure, monitor, and reduce their carbon footprints.
Founded by a former sustainability head at Zalando, Vaayu allows retailers to understand what to change within their businesses to reduce emissions. It uses any data the customer can provide, such as packaging-box size, delivery routes, and materials, and fills in any gaps with proprietary data.
Why it’s poised to take off: “Since its inception at the height of the pandemic, Vaayu has onboarded over 50 clients and helped some of the world’s biggest brands to reduce their carbon footprint,” Hougaard said.
It is working on a consumer product, too, where people can see the carbon footprint “on individual products so they can make more sustainable choices,” Hougaard said.