A great week for Keep Cool “alumni”

KEEPING COOL WITH:

Hi there,

It was a great week to be a company that Keep Cool has previously covered: 

• Epic Cleantec (our deep dive from 2022 here) announced its Series B funding round.

• Divert (past podcast with the CEO here) dropped details on the progress it has made on one of its first-of-a-kind projects, where it turns food waste into renewable natural gas that it injects into PG&E’s pipelines in California. We also wrote about the business in 2023 here and here.

• Extantia, a stellar venture capital firm based out of Germany, with whom we recently recorded a live podcast, announced it raised ~$214.8 million for a new fund to invest in early-stage climate startups in Europe and the U.S. The podcast featured co-founder and Extantia Partner Sebastian Heitmann in discussion with me and the CEO of Reverion, a startup making more flexible and efficient biogas production technologies.

Sometimes, I know what I’m doing when I offer companies for your consideration (-‿◦☀).

More details (and much more) below.

In today’s email:

• One story in a chart and a sentence

• Climate and energy headlines from the week

• Climate tech fundraising announcements

PRESENTED BY SUPERCRITICAL

Not all trees are created equal. In the push to net zero, Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) have faced tough scrutiny—and rightly so.

But one approach is standing out for all the right reasons.

Introducing Community Agroforestry.

It’s not just about carbon removal (though it’s very good at that). With up to 90% of profits flowing to local farmers and Indigenous communities, it’s empowering people, restoring degraded land, and delivering measurable climate impact.

Want to know how it works—and why it might just redefine what “high-integrity” really means in the NBS carbon credit space? We’ve got the scoop in Supercritical’s new report.

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in one sentence and a chart

• European natural gas reserves are falling rapidly, and as the Russian and Ukrainian conflict continues to escalate and Germany grapples with the absence of the 23 GW of functional nuclear energy capacity it voluntarily gave up, Europe could be in for a tight winter energy supply wise. Link.

25+ headlines

The good

• The DOE made $2.2 billion in award commitments as part of its hydrogen "hubs" program funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This program is the federal government’s largest support mechanism for the green and low-carbon hydrogen market. Specifically, the “Gulf Coast” hydrogen hub in Texas will receive up to $1.2 billion, and the “Midwest” hub, with sites and infrastructure across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan, will receive $1 billion. The Gulf Coast hub will produce hydrogen via electrolysis and with natural gas and carbon capture infrastructure, while the Midwest hub will produce hydrogen with nuclear and wind energy and natural gas with carbon capture. Link.

• In October, vehicles with a plug (EVs and plug-in electric hybrids) hit 53% market share in China, with fully electric vehicles claiming 30% of new car sales for the month (all new records). Regardless of what the U.S. does with respect to federal EV policy, the Chinese train isn’t stopping. Link.

• Indonesia, the fifth largest coal-consuming country in the world, announced it will try to retire its entire coal power plant fleet by 2040. President Prabowo Subianto made the announcement this week at the G20 summit that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I laud the ambition here—it’s much needed—but have some doubts about feasibility. More than 60% of Indonesia’s grid is coal-fired today. It has also built minimal solar and wind energy so far and its population will grow by 15% by 2040, meaning it needs to increase electricity access considerably, not just decarbonize existing supply. Link. Link. Link.

• Divert, based out of Concord, MA, released results for one of its first-of-a-kind projects in Turlock, CA, where it turns wasted or unsold food products into renewable natural gas. The plant processes 60,000 tons of wasted food products annually and aims to scale to 100,000 tons annually by early 2025. The food mainly stems from grocery stores and can be converted into 650 MMBtu of renewable natural gas (RNG) daily. On an annual basis, Divert has agreed to inject 225,000 MMBtu of RNG into PG&E’s gas pipelines in California. It’s not that much gas or food waste in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a great start, considering more than a third of food in the U.S. is wasted, and California’s power grid is still dominated by natural gas (40%+ in the grid mix). Link. Link. Link. Link. For more from Keep Cool on Divert, we interviewed Divert’s CEO, Ryan Begin, on the Keep Cool Podcast here and wrote about the business last year here and here.

• Denmark finalized a new deal that will incorporate a tax on methane emissions from livestock (we alluded to this in a past piece here), allocate ~$6.1 billion to convert 10% of its farmland into forests to accelerate carbon removal and sequestration to offset agricultural emissions over the next two decades, and bolster efforts to develop plant-based meat alternatives. Link. Link. Link.

• While most of COP29 looks like it was unsatisfactory to most participants (I’m happy to have spent little time covering it closely), the E.U. and 25 countries did commit to building no new coal power plants, though they do reserve the right to build coal power plants with carbon capture and storage. The largest coal consumers (India and China, which together account for 60% of coal consumption, as well as the U.S.) were not among the signatories. An overarching deal for “at least $300 billion per year by 2035” of funding from wealthier countries to support climate adaptation and emissions reduction projects in developing nations was also reached, though whether that money ever materializes is always a question mark. The original goal for that deal was also $1.3 trillion, more than 4x the final agreement. Link. Link.

• The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted Kairos Power approval for its first electricity-producing plant, the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This follows the NRC’s approval of Kairos’ advanced, high-temperature, small nuclear reactor designs, which integrate fluoride salt versus water for cooling. The company has begun construction on its first demonstration reactor and will now start working on the power plant in Tennessee. Link.

• New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved Governor Hochul’s new congestion pricing fee, a $9 charge to enter lower Manhattan that will go into effect in January. While a lot lower than the $15 charge initially proposed, the fee could cut traffic and emissions in New York considerably while helping fund improvements to the city’s mass transit system. Thailand is considering congesting pricing for Bangkok now, too. Link. Link. Link.

• New videos from BYD’s expansion efforts in China highlight the enormous scale of its, well, scaling efforts! Especially as Northvolt unravels (more on that below), it’s hard to imagine European or American battery manufacturing capacity even keeping pace with Chinese manufacturing capacity expansion at this point. Link.

• One of the largest battery energy storage projects in ERCOT is already using recycled batteries, offering a positive indication of flexible and circular opportunities in battery production and use. Link.

• Two bills passed the House this week. They aim to make it more seamless for geothermal energy project developers to build new clean power generation capacity. The CLEAN Act and HEATS Act would remove many of the federal permitting regulations that currently slow drilling for geothermal energy, provided they pass in the Senate as well. So far, the voting was largely bipartisan, with all House Republicans voting in favor. Link.

• Senators Michael Bennet (Democrat, Colorado) and Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) also introduced a new bill in the Senate to offer tax credits for carbon removal projects. The bill would grant direct air capture projects a $250 credit per metric ton of carbon removed. “Indirect” capture projects (e.g., via biomass) would receive $110. To qualify, projects would have to commit to durable sequestration of 1,000 years, privileging more engineered removal solutions versus nature-based approaches, whether in reforestation, afforestation, or soil carbon sequestration. A bit curious to me that DAC gets a more than 2x premium here, but we’ll take what we can get (if we can get it at all). Link. Link.

• Honda unveiled a demonstration production line for solid-state batteries in Sakura City, Japan. While a small demo (Honda has allocated $277 million or so to the effort so far), it signals that, alongside sodium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries are not far from commercialization. Link. Link.

• Centrus Energy, based out of Maryland, announced a $60 million expansion of its Oak Ridge, Tennessee, uranium enrichment facility, which will help provide fuel to nuclear power plants. The U.S. imports 35% of its nuclear fuel from Russia today, even as it funds Ukraine’s resistance efforts in the war against Russia (classic energy Catch 22!). Link.

• Return Carbon and Verified Carbon announced a new direct air capture project, “Project Concho,” which is being built in Tom Green County, Texas. Project Concho is the first DAC hub powered entirely by wind power and will use onsite geological storage to store removed carbon dioxide. By 2030, it aims to remove 50,000 tons annually and 500,000 tons per year at full capacity. Link. Link.

• The IEA released new data on electricity access, noting “...the number of people without access to electricity declined by more than 10 million from over 760 million in 2022 to below 750 million in 2023. This follows a period of stagnation and setbacks in extending electricity access, where population growth exceeded new connections in many countries.” Link.

The inbetweens

• Exxon signed a (non-binding) memorandum of understanding to supply 100,000 tons of lithium from its Arkansas extraction project (the Smackover project Exxon drilled its first mine a year ago) to LG Chem’s EV battery plant in Tennessee. While that doesn’t mean the deal will “happen” for sure, it is worth noting that LG Chem’s plant is expected to be the largest of its kind in the U.S., with the capacity to produce 60,000 tons of cathode material annually. Similarly, while Exxon remains highly committed to its core oil and gas business, it is worth tracking its expansion into lithium production, especially as it uses more advanced extraction techniques like direct lithium extraction (DTE). Link. Link.

• Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the U.S.’s largest electricity generators, released load growth projections this week that ballooned by roughly 50% to 36.5 MW since its last projections, primarily due to forecast data center demand growth. Its 2028 to 2029 pipeline specifically tripled from 6 GW to nearly 20 GW. To put this in perspective, the two most recent nuclear reactors finished in Georgia offer about 2 GW of capacity, a tenth of what the utility thinks it'll need to add out to 2029. I’ll have a piece out on data center demand growth in a few weeks. Link.

• Trump will nominate Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, to lead the Department of Transportation. Trump noted Duffy will focus on “maintaining and rebuild [the country’s] Infrastructure…” While scant on details, it’s unlikely Duffy will prioritize EV sales and charging infrastructure expansion or mass transit. He may well oversee rollbacks of several Biden Admin rules pertaining to vehicle emissions limits as well as EV subsidies. That said, he may also reduce regulations for self-driving cars, many of which are electric. Link. Link.

The bad

• That’s it! At least in this form. Northvolt, a battery energy storage startup based out of Sweden that raised a total of $14.3 billion (!), secured more than $50 billion in orders for its batteries and was one of the most vaulted unicorns/darlings/standout companies of climate tech 2.0, filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S., which will give it access to ~$245 million in new financing to try to save some of its business. The CEO, Peter Carlsson, also resigned. Definitely one of the biggest stories at the intersection of the private and public sectors for battery manufacturing, clean energy, and more right now. More good reading on this topic is linked in the fourth and fifth links here to the right. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

• A new Carbon Brief analysis found that 94% of the global carbon emissions “budget” before the world tips past 1.5°C of warming has been used, with global cumulative emissions since the industrial revolution clocking in at more than 2.6 trillion tonnes of carbon. China also surpassed Europe in terms of cumulative emissions. The U.S. is still the leader in all-time cumulative emissions by a wide margin. Link.

• New Delhi in India declared a state of medical emergency given toxic smog levels that are more than 25x limits prescribed by the World Health Organization (the air quality index reached 484 on a rolling 24-hour basis this week). Schools closed and citizens were told to stay inside. Pakistan has been dealing with similar smog and toxic pollution for weeks. Link. Link. Link.

• Russia used an intermediate-range ballistic missile to strike a Ukrainian target (sans nuclear payload), marking the first time any aggressor has launched an ICBM or IRBM at another state in a war. Oil and natural gas spiked as this signals an additional heightening of already precarious geopolitical risks surrounding the Russian and Ukrainian conflict. Natural gas, of which Russia is a major producer and exporter, spiked significantly. Link.

• HSBC cut plans to launch a carbon credit trading desk as major banks continue to divert capital and attention away from climate and sustainability business lines. Similarly, Equinor cut 20% of its renewable energy business unit staff as oil majors across the world double down on fossil fuel production. Link. Link.

• French farmers are once again protesting proposed E.U. policies, including but not limited to newly proposed environmentally-focused standards. Link.

• The American Volkswagen CEO resigned unexpectedly this week, which is not a great sign for Volkswagen’s domestic manufacturing efforts (including for EVs and PHEVs). Link.

• The CEO of GE Vernova, the world’s third-largest wind turbine manufacturer by market share outside of China, noted he is pausing searches and evaluations for new offshore turbine orders until market conditions improve. Link.

• Ford will cut 800 jobs in the U.K. over the next three years, citing slowing EV demand. Link. 

• The Swedish government rejected 13 offshore wind farm applications in the Baltic, citing security risks, as the presence of large turbines could have reduced defensive ability to quickly identify and attempt to shoot down inbound Russian missiles from 2 minutes to 1. That’s a first for me as far as reasons to reject new energy projects. Link.

• Phillips 66, a prominent American oil and energy company, faces federal charges for allegedly dumping 790,000 gallons of wastewater into Los Angeles sewers. Link.

• One more interesting read (albeit not so fun, though it offers a needed wake-up call): Get plastics out of your kitchen! That includes those black spatulas many of us have. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

🖥️ Lancium, based out of Houston, raised more than $500 million in equity funding from Blackstone to develop new data centers. Lancium has a pipeline of up to 5 GW of data center capacity to build in West Texas (where there is ample and often underutilized renewable energy capacity). Link.

🔎 Skydio, based out of San Mateo, CA, raised an additional $170 million in Series E on top of the $230 million it closed last year to make autonomous drones for applications ranging from defense to energy infrastructure monitoring and inspection. KDDI, Axon, and Linse Capital invested. Link.

⚛️ Tokamak Energy, based out of Oxford, U.K., raised $125 million in equity funding to develop tokamaks—nuclear fusion reactors that leverage (very) hot superconducting magnets to contain and control superheated plasma. East X Ventures and Lingotto Investment Management led. Link.

🖥️ Enfabrica, based out of Mountain View, CA, raised $115 million in Series C funding to make high-performance networking chips to enhance data center efficiency. Spark Capital led. Link.

🔥 Technosylva, based out of San Diego and Leon, Spain, raised an undisclosed amount (in the “9-figure range,” we’re told) of funding from General Atlantic through its BeyondNetZero climate fund for its wildfire and catastrophic event simulation modeling technologies. Link.

🖥️ MatX, based out of Mountain View, CA, raised $80 million in Series A funding at a post-money valuation in the “low $300 million range” to make high-throughput chips for large language models (think AI). Spark Capital led. Link.

🔎 Tekever, based out of Lisbon, Portugal, raised ~$73.7 million in equity funding to develop unmanned aerial vehicles for many types of data collection, with applications relevant to energy infrastructure monitoring. Baillie Gifford and the NATO Innovation Fund led. Link.

🤖 Pickle Robot, based out of Cambridge, MA, raised $50 million in Series B funding to make robots that accelerate the automation of logistics such as truck and shipping container unloading operations, which could drive efficiency gains at distribution centers globally. Teradyne Robotics Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Ranpak, and others invested. Link.

In case you didn’t catch it two of the above listed rounds, Spark Capital led multiple of them for companies making more efficient computer chips. We’ll write about why this matters more in two weeks, as it pertains to the data center demand story as well.

Medium-sized funding rounds

🧪 Liquid Wind, based out of Gothenburg, Sweden, raised ~$46.2 million in equity funding to build e-fuel plants that turn wind energy into green methanol. Uniper and Samsung Ventures invested. Link.

🔋 Iontra, based out of Centennial, CO, raised $45 million in Series C funding to make microcontrollers for battery chargers. Volta Energy Technologies led. Link.

📦 OneRail, based out of Orlando, FL, raised $42 million in Series C funding to manage and optimize last-mile deliveries. Aliment Capital led. Link.

♻️ Prism Worldwide, based out of Kirkland, WA, raised $40 million in Series A funding for its tire recycling business. Columbia Pacific Advisors and James Sinegal, co-founder and former CEO of Costco, co-led. Link.

🥩 Meatable, based out of Delft, Netherlands, raised $30 million in extended Series B funding for its cultivated meat startup. Betagro, a pet food producer. Link.

🌱 EarthOptics, based out of Arlington, VA, raised $24 million in equity funding to develop software and sensor technology for more precise soil health and structure measurement for agricultural applications. Conti Ventures led. Link.

🚚 Class8, based out of Toronto, raised $22 million in Series A funding to help trucking companies manage their fleets more efficiently. Xplorer Capital led. Link.

🏗️ Teleo, based out of Palo Alto, raised $16.2 million in two Series A extensions to retrofit heavy construction and mining equipment to make it remotely operational and semi-autonomous. UP.Partners led both rounds. Link.

🍓 Oishii, based out of Jersey City, NJ, raised $16 million in extended Series B funding for its indoor vertical farming business that’s focused on growing strawberries, at least for now. Resilience Reserve and Miyako Capital invested. Link.

💼 Faircraft, based out of Paris, raised ~$15.8 million in equity funding to make lab-grown leather. Kindred Ventures, Cap Horn, Blue Wire Capital, and others invested. Link.

🔎 BrightAI, based out of San Francisco, raised $15 million in seed funding to help businesses monitor and manage physical assets like factory equipment with AI and IoT technologies. Upfront Ventures was the sole investor in the round. Link.

🛥️ Candela, based out of Stockholm, raised an additional $14 million in Series C funding (extending the total round to $39 million) for its electric hydrofoiling boats. SEB Private Equity led. Link.

♻️ Descycle, based out of London, raised ~$12.8 million in Series A funding to recycle metals e-waste. BGF and Vorwerk Ventures led. Link.

🔋 Echion Technologies, based out of Sawston, U.K., raised ~$12.6 million in equity funding to make niobium-based anode materials for lithium-ion battery cells. Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital led. The company also opened its first production plant in Brazil. Link. Link.

💦 Aquaria, based out of Orlando, FL, raised $12 million in equity funding and $100 million in project debt financing to make heat exchange cooling systems that absorb air and condense it into clean drinking water. Upwell Water provided the project debt funding. Ciri Ventures, Soma Capital, Mistletoe, and others led the equity investment. Link.

♻️ 💦 Epic Cleantec, based out of San Francisco, raised $12 million in Series B funding to design and install water recycling systems for large buildings. Epic Cleantec's ‘OneWater’ system can recycle up to 95% of a building's wastewater for reuse in toilet flushing, irrigation, cooling, laundry, and other non-potable uses. Kathy Fields' family office and Garry Rayant led. Link.

🔋 GridBeyond Storage, based out of Dublin, Ireland, raised ~$11.9 million in equity funding from Triodos Energy Transition Europe for its battery energy storage project development business. Link.

🌾 Tract, based out of Amsterdam, Netherlands, raised ~$11.2 million in equity funding to make software for agriculture supply chain traceability and transparency. Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company, and Olam led. Link.

🌊 OceanWell, based out of Menlo Park, CA, raised $11 million in Series A funding to develop modular deep-sea/sub-surface desalination systems. Kubota Corporation and Charles McGarraugh of Altis Partners invested. It also announced a pilot project to provide water to the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Calabasas, CA. Link.

🔌 Flipturn, based out of New York, raised $11 million in Series A funding for its EV charger and fleet management platform. CRV led. Link.

Smaller funding rounds

🤖 Four Growers, based out of Turtle Creek, PA, raised $9 million in Series A funding to make robots for greenhouse harvesting operations. Basset Capital led. Link.

⚡Juna.ai, based out of Berlin, raised $7.5 million in seed funding to develop AI agents to help factories monitor and optimize energy consumption. Kleiner Perkins, Norrsken VC, and John Doerr invested. Link.

📊 Portcast, based out of Singapore, raised $6.5 million in Series A funding to develop software to make shipping and logistics more efficient. Susquehanna Asia VC led. Link.

🦠 BiocSol, based out of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, raised ~$5.5 million in seed funding round to develop microbial substances for use as more sustainable biopesticides to protect crops. Agri Investment Fund and Vivies IUF led. Link.

🦐 Three-Sixty Aquaculture, based out of Swansea, U.K., raised ~$5.2 million in Series A funding to develop a more sustainable land-based prawn farm to supply fresh, locally produced prawns for sushi. PrimeStar Industries led. Link.

📦 IonKraft, based out of Aachen, Germany, raised ~$3.7 million in equity funding to make more sustainable coatings for packaging. M Ventures and TechVision Fonds led. Link.

🏠 Tewke, based out of London, raised ~$3.3 million in seed funding to make light switches to make homes more energy efficient. Funding came from the U.K. Net Zero Pre-Commercialisation Support Fund, the Housing Digital Innovation Award, and other investors. Link.

🌞 Swap Robotics, based out of Kitchener, Canada, raised $3 million in equity funding for its robotic vegetation-clearing and installation services for solar projects. Array Technologies led. Link.

🧪 Alchemyca, based out of San Francisco, raised $2.5 million in equity funding from venture studio Ferment to use enzymes to enhance the efficiency of anaerobic digesters that convert organic waste into renewable natural gas. Link.

♻️ B’ZEOS, based out of Oslo, Norway, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding for its compostable seaweed-based packaging solutions. Faber led. Link.

Other funding rounds

♻️ ExxonMobil, based out of Houston, TX, will invest $200 million to expand its plastic recycling operations at sites in Baytown and Beaumont, Texas. The company aims to have additional recycling capacity operational by 2026 to boost recycling rates and keep more plastic out of landfills. By 2027, Exxon aims to have the capacity to recycle 1 billion pounds of plastic per year. Link.

🔋 The DOE awarded $50 million in grant funding over the next five years to establish a new “Low-cost Earth-abundant Na-ion Storage (LENS) Consortium” that will be led by the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. The LENS consortium includes Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and others. It will aim to develop high-energy, long-lasting sodium-ion batteries. Materials for sodium-ion batteries are typically safer, more abundant, and less expensive than those needed for lithium-ion batteries. Link.

🔋 🔁 Ample, based out of San Francisco, raised $25 million in equity funding from Mitsubishi to build EV battery swapping infrastructure both for charging and for vehicles themselves. Link.

🔋 Eecomobility, based out of Ontario, Canada, raised an undisclosed amount of equity funding to make testing and monitoring software for batteries and other similar products. Risc Capital led. Link.

♻️ Ecore International, based out of Lancaster, PA, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from  BeyondNetZero to convert used tires into flooring. Link.

New funds

💵 Neos Partners, based out of San Diego, raised ~$1.4 billion for its second energy transition infrastructure fund and $350 million for a co-investment vehicle. Link.

💵 Generate Capital, based out of San Francisco, raised $1.2 billion for a revolving credit facility to develop and operate cleaner energy infrastructure assets. Link.

💰 Extantia Capital, based out of Berlin, raised ~$214.8 million to invest in early-stage climate startups in Europe and the U.S. Here’s the link to the fundraising announcement, and here’s a link to our latest podcast, which featured co-founder and Extantia Partner, Sebastian Heitmann, discussing one of the firm’s largest investments in Reverion, an innovative company making better biogas and electrolyzer production technologies.

💰 Blue Bear Capital, based out of Paris and Los Angeles, raised $160 million for its third fund to invest in early-stage climate tech businesses. It aims to invest $3 million to $5 million in 15 companies from the seed to Series B stage via the new fund (it has already written four checks from the new fund so far). Link.

💰 Virescent Ventures, based out of Sydney & Melbourne in Australia, raised $125 million in commitments for its second fund to invest in climate tech startups across clean energy, sustainable agriculture, circular economy businesses, and built environment and urban applications. Link.

💰 DVx, based out of Boston, raised $100 million in new funding for its startup incubator that has invested in indoor farming and more efficient HVAC technology development startups. Jon McNeill, a prominent leader with experience at Tesla, Lyft, and more, co-founded the incubator. Link.

💸 Nucleus Capital, based out of Berlin, launched a new ~$42 million fund to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage companies focused on alternative food and industrial production processes, especially those that leverage synthetic biology. Of note also was there explicit call-out that a “climate tech” fund is too general a focus (their opinion, though it also echoes mine) Link.

💸 Move Energy, based out of Amsterdam, announced a capital raise for its first fund, including a ~$36.7 million commitment from the European Investment Fund. It will invest in companies focused on accelerating the energy transition across power grids, transport, and building decarbonization. Link.

💸 Ferment, based out of Santa Monica, CA, raised $20 million for a new venture studio to invest in synthetic biology startups. Former Ginkgo Bioworks executive Jason Kakoyiannis founded the venture studio. Link.

💸 The U.K.’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, based out of London, launched a new competition, the “Manchester Prize,” to support U.K.-based startups and researchers advancing AI innovations focused on electricity grid decarbonization. Ten finalists will receive ~$125,000 in seed funding. The winner of the competition will receive ~$1.25 million. Go apply if that sounds like you fit in! Link.

P.S.: in case you missed it at the top, check out Supercritical’s new report on necessary evolutions and opportunities in the nature-based solutions ecosystem (more here).

Also — are these two longs? Would a tighter curation help? I’m curious for your feedback.

Ciao for now,

– Nick