Pace Ventures’ Post

Cool Planet raises €23.7 mm for carbon capture solution - Cool Planet Technologies has raised €23.7 million in a Series A2 funding round. - The investment validates the appeal of Cool Planet's low-energy and low-cost membrane-based carbon capture solution. - The funding round was led by Taranis Carbon Ventures, with participation from CRH Ventures, BlueScopeX, and existing investors Eni Next, NEVA SGR, and Audacy Ventures. - This funding will help Cool Planet enhance its carbon capture solutions for industrial emissions and complete technology demonstrations. - A manufacturing facility for membrane production will also be built with these funds. - Cool Planet previously closed an oversubscribed A1 Round in September 2022. - CEO Andrew Corner expressed gratitude towards investors and highlighted the investment as a significant endorsement of their technology. - Cool Planet aims to provide affordable decarbonization solutions to traditionally hard-to-decarbonize industries. - The company will demonstrate its advanced technology at Holcim’s Höver cement plant, aiming to capture 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. - Cool Planet's technology, developed in collaboration with Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon, has undergone successful pilot tests, including at Holcim's plant. - A large-scale demonstration of the membrane capture technology is planned for 2025. https://lnkd.in/g_kwpFmD

EIT InnoEnergy has appointed Ryan Dings as the new CEO for the US market, aiming to leverage his extensive cleantech experience to drive growth and innovation. Ryan Dings will lead the Boston-based team and foster a collaborative environment for industrial scale-ups, enhancing US-EU partnerships in clean energy technologies. "We have a handful of decades to build a thriving regenerative economy to replace centuries of extractive economic activity. Climate change is the challenge of our lifetime. And potentially, one of our greatest economic opportunities. It will foster innovation and investment in abundance if we can harness the right skills, entrepreneurs and technology to scale at unprecedented levels and meet industrial policy targets," said Ryan Dings. #CleanEnergy #NetZero #ClimateTech #USMarket #EUCollaboration #Innovation #Sustainability #RyanDings #InnoEnergy #TransatlanticSummit #Cleantech #GreenTechnology #IndustrialGrowth #Decarbonization

🗣️📈 Lightrock’s Kevin Bone talked through the recent $40m investment in Velocys with Real Deals’s Shivani Khandekar. He explains how Lightrock pursued its first ever take-private alongside consortium members Carbon Direct Capital, GenZero and Kibo Invest, and how the consortium aims to drive value and impact in the company. ✈️⛽ Velocys, a UK-based #sustainableaviationfuel (SAF) technology company, has developed a patented catalyst and micro-channel reactor platform that provides a scalable and flexible solution for SAF-producing ventures. 🌳🗑️ Velocys’s #technology enables the production of low-carbon, synthetic drop-in fuels from waste materials including forest residues and household waste, tackling the #aviation industry’s sizeable carbon footprint. 📰🔗 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/enVCU7n6 and learn more about Velocys here: https://velocys.com/

In great news for the green economy, Harpoon portfolio company Solugen has secured a conditional commitment for a $213.6M loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Solugen, which is leading the charge in decarbonizing the chemicals industry through its carbon negative manufacturing process, will use these funds to develop its second facility, the Bioforge Marshall, a groundbreaking production plant that will be operated in partnership with ADM in the Midwest. Solugen is 1 of less than 20 startups that have received this financing from the DOE, underscoring its national significance in developing next-generation U.S. energy infrastructure. Solugen joins the ranks of other leading companies in the energy transition that have received this financing, like Sunnova (solar) and Plug Power (hydrogen). It's great to see this administration living up to the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation issued in September 2022. Innovative solutions like Solugen's are critical in reshaping hard to abate sectors, and this funding shows that our country is committed to setting the standards for a productive bioeconomy.

With €4 million in fresh funding, Delft-based CarbonX pushes forward its innovative battery technology to provide carbon material alternative to dependence on Chinese suppliers 🇳🇱 🔋 “A resilient battery supply chain is crucial for global electrification” said Co-founder Rutger Van Raalten. “Yet, we don’t see sufficient alternatives for locally sourcing critical raw materials such as graphite. With CarbonX unique feedstock technology we do offer the necessary scale, cost efficiency and battery performance to meet demands for a growing electric future.” This funding extension, on top of its €10 million growth funding round,  was co-led by new investor Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam, managed by InnovationQuarter, alongside existing shareholders Innovation Industries and Borski Fund. The funding will drive efforts to scale battery testing capabilities, secure feedstock and offtake agreements, and prepare for a feedstock mixing facility in the Port of Rotterdam. https://lnkd.in/drkmpmiz

Amsterdam’s CarbonX secures an additional €4M to address critical battery supply chain challenges: Amsterdam-based CarbonX, a deep tech startup focused on transforming battery anode materials, has extended its €10M growth funding round by an additional €4M.  The round saw support from existing investors Innovation Industries and Borski Fund, alongside new backing from the Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam, managed by InnovationQuarter. Founded in 2014 as a spin-off from Delft ... Read more #Amsterdam #CarbonX #DeepTech

As we close out 2024, I want to celebrate some of the great work in our portfolio this year: 1. KoBold Metals closes over $490m. KoBold has developed a repeatable methodology to discover materials for the energy transition, and has established itself as one of the breakout successes of the era. KoBold continues to develop the copper resource at Mingomba, which contains enough copper to power more than 100 million electric vehicles. 2. Earthshot invested in Etched. Etched designs AI chips optimized for transformer models, which power technologies like ChatGPT. These transformer specific chips use 93% less energy. Without substantial advances in energy efficiency, the growth of AI risks undoing much of the progress we've made on climate in recent years. 3. Earthshot invested in Ceramic. Ceramic builds software to help hyperscalers improve the efficiency and performance of their models, reducing the need for hardware through more efficient architecture. It saves energy through the reduction of bandwidth, memory usage, and the optimization of learning clusters. Ceramic was founded by Anna Patterson, former VP of Engineering at Google and Managing Partner at Google’s AI seed fund. 4. Vaulted Deep raises $32m led by Prelude Ventures. Vaulted sequesters carbon by burying organic waste and has built the lowest cost, scalable, permanent carbon sequestration solution deployed at scale today. This year they signed a $58.3m offtake contract with Frontier, Frontier’s largest purchase to date. 5. Kanin Energy breaks ground on its first project.  Kanin converts waste heat at industrial sites into large-scale, baseload, carbon-free electricity. Kanin announced a partnership with Tallgrass Energy, a division of Blackstone, to build the first large-scale waste heat to power project in the U.S. in a decade. 6. Mitra Chem wins $100m DOE award. Mitra is accelerating the battery R&D lifecycle through machine learning, and they are building one of the first commercial lithium iron phosphate plants in the U.S. General Motors led Mitra’s $60m Series B round earlier in the year, in line with their commitment to build a U.S.-focused battery supply chain. 7. Earthshot backs Klim’s $22m Series A. Klim has built a marketplace that simplifies the transition to regenerative farming through monetizing carbon reductions, creating a scalable solution to decarbonize agricultural supply chains. Over 3,500 farmers use the platform, cultivating over 700,000 hectares, representing over 5% of German farmland. And on a personal note, my wife Caroline and kids (Liam, Avery, and Lilah) remind me every day why I do the work that I do. 🙂 It's impossible not to be an optimist within a community of inspirational founders, engineers, financiers, missionaries, and even the mercenaries singularly focused on solving mankind's greatest challenge. I fully expect some setbacks, but am excited about the problems we'll solve in 2025. May your days be merry and carbon-light!

Big news for Vancouver Cleantech 100 firm Ionomr, big funding gaps for Canada's seed-scale hard-tech ventures, and more intel and insights about the Canadian tech scene. Featuring: Ionomr Innovations Inc., e-Zinc, Summit Nanotech, Cyclic Materials, Pani, Enersion Inc., Moment Energy, Hydrostor, Myant, Bitnobi Inc., Asima Health, CELLECT Laboratories, and ventureLAB

Climate Tech Funding Rounds of the Week 🌱 🔋 H2 ($16M): developer and manufacturer of vanadium flow batteries offering sustainable and secure energy storage solutions 💰 Investors: STIC Investments... 🥩 PROJECT EADEN ($16M): plant-based meat developer using innovative fiber-spinning technology for ultra-realistic texture 💰 Investors: Planet A Ventures, REWE Group... ⚡ Gravity ($13M): carbon accounting and energy management platform for industrial businesses and their supply chains 💰 Investors: Ansa Capital, Buoyant Ventures... 🏠 Bedrock Energy ($12M): developer of geothermal heating and cooling solutions for buildings 💰 Investors: Energy Impact Partners, Sustainable Future Ventures... ⚗️ Addis Energy ($4M): clean ammonia producer for industry decarbonization 💰 Investors: Engine Ventures, Pillar VC... ♻️ ScrapBees GmbH ($4M) 🇩🇪: innovative metal recycling and disposal service 💰 Investors: BONVENTURE, EIT RawMaterials... Which innovation excites you the most? 🤓 #climatetech #innovation #future

The Technology Fund offers loan guarantees of up to CHF 3 million to startups and SMEs to develop and commercialize marketable innovations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote the use of renewable energies and conserve natural resources. Applications are assessed based on their technological suitability and the applicant's financial capacity.  During the second half of this year, ten companies were awarded a loan guarantee from the Technology Fund. AgroSustain SA Alithea Genomics Bionomous Cerrion Distran GRZ Technologies Modual AG Picterra Solaxess SA TVP SOLAR SA Simone Riedel Riley, CFA https://lnkd.in/ekekQu_P