Climate Tech PR efforts drive prominent media stories spanning solar, energy storage, wind, electric vehicles (EVs), alternative fuels, grid edge technologies, software platforms, battery chemistry and development, hydrogen, bioplastics, agtech and so much more. FischTank PR has been entrenched in climate tech PR work for over a decade, advocating for and advancing technologies and processes that promote sustainability and improve community health.
Climate-Focused Venture Capital Firm Turns to ‘Planetary Boundaries’ Model | Bloomberg
“Transition, a London-based firm, is backing startups that work within the so-called “planetary boundaries.” Transition began raising funds in June 2022 and is already working with nine climate tech startups, including ocean carbon removal startup Running Tide, enterprise climate platform Watershed, and water risk management platform Waterplan, according to general partner David Helgason.
The planetary boundaries concept is a framework developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre that looks at nine systems under immense pressure by human activities, which include ocean acidification, climate change, freshwater consumption and biodiversity loss.
Transition is focusing on investing in companies with products that improve one or more of these planetary boundaries without negatively affecting the others,
Watershed co-founder Taylor Francis said the company chose to working with Transition, which was part of its $70 million Series B round led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, because its partners “knew that market well and shared our combination of optimism and pragmatism and a belief that the European market was going to be core to the future.”
4 climate tech startups to watch | Greenbiz
“Rebundle — a women-led team building the first U.S.-made, plant-based hair extensions brand — in early June won the Circularity 23 Accelerate fast-pitch competition of circular economy startups.
The hair extensions market is expected to nearly double to $11.8 billion by 2030, according to some projections. The problem Rebundle seeks to address is substantial: 30 million pounds of plastic hair end up in landfills each year.
San Francisco-based software company Sinai Technologies sells an application that helps companies including Siemens, Mitsubishi and Bayer create a decarbonization strategy aligned with science-based target guidelines.
With so many carbon accounting companies in the market, what sets Sinai apart is its fully integrated carbon footprint calculations, along with its ability to build custom strategies for carbon pricing and reducing emissions across an entire organization.
Enter Floodbase, a female-founded series A startup disrupting the insurance and flood-mapping industry for homeowners, businesses and government. Floodbase offers data solutions that expand insurance coverage while enabling policyholders to receive near real-time payments in the case of a trigger event (such as a natural disaster). This model is known as parametric insurance. Typically, affected communities receive payments from insurance companies weeks or months after the disaster. This delay hinders quick access to financing, which is crucial during emergency responses to provide communities with food and clean water, for example.
California-based startup Liminal is a battery cell manufacturing intelligence provider that combines ultrasound technology with machine learning to advance battery production insights. It does this via EchoStat, a high-speed ultrasound inspection solution designed to be used throughout the battery manufacturing process. EchoStat detects and corrects anomalies in real time, preventing accelerated deterioration or system failure once installed in the EV.”
GreenBiz is one of the top climate & energy trade publications, and should be on every climate tech PR pro’s radar.
It took 30 years for climate tech investments to pay off. Now they’re best placed to survive the VC winter | Fortune
“The environment following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse has been one of investor caution, and this might be doubly so due to investors’ general concerns about the VC market becoming heated in recent years. For climate, though, the current level of venture investment doesn’t reflect the $370 billion passed in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to help companies working to decarbonize the economy. That, in addition to the general maturation of zero-emissions technologies, will accelerate both innovation and investment in climate tech.
Today, things are quite different. In addition to robust policy support for clean energy and domestic manufacturing, many technologies have matured and come down cost curves to the point that clean energy is dramatically less expensive than it was a decade ago, and often cheaper than fossil energy when stacked up fairly.
Lastly, it’s become customary to seek additional sources of capital–not just venture. Previously, hardware and project-oriented companies needed to use venture dollars, rather than traditional project finance. Today, a combination of government support, grants, and alternative finance groups are allowing those companies to have less dilutive alternatives.
Along with those trends, in addition to an influx of venture and private equity investors, we are also seeing sources of non-dilutive capital such as accelerators, and grants from the governmental, philanthropic, and business communities, all of which create a more robust climate tech ecosystem to aid in growth from early stage to exit. The acceleration of technology will likely be a driver in the acceleration of climate solutions.”
State of play: Generative AI for climate | Axios
A growing list of startups is using advances in generative AI, the tech behind ChatGPT, to develop tools to mitigate or adapt to climate change and grow the use of climate technologies.
A growing list of startups is using advances in generative AI, the tech behind ChatGPT, to develop tools to mitigate or adapt to climate change and grow the use of climate technologies.
The applications from generative AI for climate are just emerging following advances in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and others working on generative AI models.
While generative AI could aid in the complex issue of climate change, models like ChatGPT also use large quantities of energy to both train and support user queries.
Companies will need to be able to make training and operating generative AI models as energy efficient as possible to reduce energy use.”
Axios, especially its Climate Deals newsletter, is a major media outlet for climate tech PR efforts.
Climate Mitigation Patent Program Boosts Green Tech Financing | Bloomberg Law
“The PTO’s extension of its Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program comes at a time of striking juxtaposition. While energy alternatives to fossil fuels have become more mainstream than ever—with renewable energy on track to supply 44% of American electricity by 2050—scientists warn that barriers to global adaptation persist, namely insufficient financing.
Launched last year, the pilot program expedites applications for innovations that reduce, remove, prevent, or monitor greenhouse gas emissions. The office expanded the initiative in June, increasing the maximum number of non-provisional applications an inventor can file under the program and broadening eligibility requirements to encompass more technologies.
Technologies that inventors have applied to patent under the PTO’s program harness renewable sources through innovations like wind turbines. Other ideas work to counteract emissions in the atmosphere through carbon sequestration.
The PTO’s announcement of the program in June 2022 focused on technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the office expanded eligibility last month to also include innovations that remove already-present “.”gases or monitor emissions reductions.
The PTO announced a work-sharing program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February to improve patent processing and encourage more innovation. While the PTO provides training to NOAA’s scientists, NOAA experts will educate patent examiners who review environment-related applications.”
TechCrunch+ Roundup: Traction slide help, climate tech homework, Euro cannabis investor survey | TechCrunch
“A killer traction slide needs as much favorable customer and market data as you can gather, such as recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost and conversion rates.
Globally, companies that are trying to solve environmental and social problems are worth more than $2.3 trillion, according to a study by Dealroom.co.
America’s medical and recreational cannabis market took off after decades of prohibition, but Anna Heim interviewed investors in Europe who are “wary of the mistakes they’ve seen being made in the U.S.”
To learn more, she interviewed several FoF managers and found that “as with most debates regarding diversity within venture, the argument always boils down to who is willing to take the risk.”
CleanHub closed a $7 million seed round to scale its marketplace that connects consumer brands with local waste companies that process plastic materials.
FedNow, the new initiative by the U.S. Federal Reserve that will enable instant payments 24/7/365 has officially launched.”
A tale of two climate tech SPACs | TechCrunch
“SPACs as a whole haven’t had the best track record. The vast majority of companies that have gone public via SPAC since 2021 now trade well below their merger prices, according to SPAC Track. It doesn’t matter the sector — SPACs as a whole haven’t held up.
AltC has been searching for an acquisition for more than two years. The shell company gave itself until July 12 to find a target and sign a letter of intent. Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, where Altman is CEO, observers speculated that AltC might merge with an AI company of some sort. Following the launch of ChatGPT, AltC’s share price rose from $9.86 to a peak of $10.70 on May 30. It was down as much as 2% the day the merger with Oklo was announced.
Oklo is betting that its small modular reactor (SMR) design can help break the logjam that fission finds itself in. Most new reactors produce around a gigawatt of electricity. They’re massive, highly specialized installations. Oklo’s SMR, on the other hand, will produce only 15 megawatts, enough for about 12,000 homes. The startup is hoping that by making smaller reactors using a design it claims is safer than existing fission reactors, it’ll find buyers for more units, allowing them to leverage economies of scale that could bring down the price of future installations.
SPACs have gotten a bad rap in the last year, perhaps rightly so. Plenty of promising companies (and their investors) have been lured by the song of quick cash only to crash on the rocks of market expectations regarding publicly traded companies. EV and climate tech firms, many of which are still many quarters or years from meaningful revenue, have been hit particularly hard. But ACG shows that SPACs aren’t necessarily all bad.”
Follow TechCrunch on Twitter for the most up to date climate tech PR news, especially around funding.
A $239 Million Climate Tech Fund for Startups With Overlooked Carbon Solutions | Bloomberg
“Prime Coalition and Azolla Ventures have rolled out a $239 million fund to invest in early-stage startups that are unlikely to lure traditional investors for their climate technology solutions.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit Prime Coalition and investing firm Azolla will look for startups with the potential to reduce or remove at least half a gigaton of CO2-equivalent emissions by 2050
The latest funding platform underscores the rush among sustainability-focused investors and policymakers to seek climate solutions in a rapidly warming planet that’s smashing temperatures records globally and triggering extreme weather events more frequently.
Prime Coalition will oversee impact and the startups’ ability to secure alternative funding while Azolla will assess the commercial potential of the investment candidates.”
Bloomberg has an established team of energy journalists who frequently break climate tech PR news.
Countries warn against over-reliance on carbon capture tech | Reuters
“In a statement, due to be published on Friday and seen by Reuters, the European Union and 17 nations including Germany, France, Chile, New Zealand and climate-vulnerable island states the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, said the focus should be on phasing out fossil fuels.
“Abatement technologies must not be used to green-light continued fossil fuel expansion,” the statement said.
Such technologies “must be considered in the context of steps to phase out fossil fuel use, and should be recognised as having a minimal role to play in decarbonization of the energy sector,” the statement added.
Countries disagree on the role CCS can play in fighting climate change. The issue is expected to come up at the UN COP28 summit in November, when delegates from nearly 200 nations will debate how to cut planet-heating emissions faster.
The IEA has said this capacity will need scaling up by more than 15 times if the world is to reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. At the same time, it said countries must massively expand renewable energy and halt investment in new oil and gas fields.”
Breakthrough Energy Ventures is raising Fund III for climate tech investing | Axios
“The firm — which also includes investors like John Doerr, Vinod Khosla and Jeff Bezos — will continue to back climate startups and will maintain its investing thesis despite a cooler
funding environment.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, founded in 2015, previously raised fund I and fund II, each with $1 billion, and a European fund of €100 million.
He said: “Even as the ebullience in investing in tech and climate companies is down a bit, I still think we’ll be able to raise the money. It’s not quite as easy as it was, say six months ago. . .”
***Guest post from FischTank PR intern Veronica Riga ***
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