BESS up

Hi there,

Rounding up a semi-random explosion of funding rounds for this newsletter, including for several material recycling and upcycling businesses and a few in the methane mitigation category, kept me busy late on Friday night. But I got to go to one of my favorite museums on Saturday to compensate.

What’d you get up to this weekend? If you’d rather just read than reply, that’s cool too.

In today’s email:

• One story in a chart and a sentence

• Climate tech and energy headlines from the week

• Climate tech fundraising announcements

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• The solar plus storage continues being borne out in the U.S.; Q1 was a record-setting quarter for battery deployment in the U.S., with deployments rising 84% year-over-year. North American battery manufacturing capacity is also poised to surpass a TWh by 2030. Link. Link. Link.

13 headlines

The good

• Hyundai’s $7.6B battery and EV production plant in Georgia is almost through construction. Link.

• The EPA and DOE opened up $850M in grant funding for projects that promote methane mitigation and monitoring opportunities in the oil & gas sector. The DOE also launched $900M in funding for advanced small nuclear reactors. Link. Link.

• Congress also passed the ADVANCE Act, designed to accelerate new nuclear deployment in the U.S, in a striking bipartisan fashion with an 88-2 vote. Link.

• The E.U. passed its Nature Restoration Plan, under which E.U. countries will be required to restore at least 30% of habitats like forests, rivers, grasslands, wetlands, and more deemed in “poor condition” by 2030. Link.

• In a bright spot for the nature-based carbon removal market, Microsoft bought 8 million credits from BTG Pactual in the largest-ever sale for forestry-based carbon credits. Salesforce also committed $25M to Frontier, the advanced market commitment coalition for carbon removal, and Frontier signed a $48.6M offtake agreement with Stockholm Exergi, which operates BECCS plants. Link. Link. Link.

• According to new EIA data, natural gas flaring and venting in the U.S. have dropped to new record lows, though it’s worth noting that this data set involves a lot of estimation. Whether in agriculture or oil and gas, the methane intensity of production in the U.S. is much lower than in other geographies globally. Link. Link.

• CarbonCapture, a direct air capture removal company, unveiled its first direct air capture unit that’s expressly designed for modular mass production. Link.

The bad

• BMW canceled a $2B+ battery order with Northvolt, citing that its counterparty failed to deliver on time. Consequently, Northvolt is re-considering whether to build its sixth plant. Link. Link.

• Titan Solar Power, previously one of the largest residential solar installers in the U.S., recently shut down. Link.

• An Australian proposal to allow open-pit coal mines to self-report methane emissions could be a step backward for methane monitoring and reporting globally. Link.

• American EV startup Fisker officially filed for bankruptcy. Link.

• Ecuador faced nationwide blackouts after transmission line failures on its electrical grid, as Kuwait also struggled to keep the lights on amidst a staggering heat wave and Bogotá rations water, with an enforced 24 hours sans water every nine days for each household. Link. Link. Link.

• Record-breaking heat is scorching North America now after the rest of the world got hit hard by extreme heat in May. Link. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

🚚 Waabi, based out of Toronto, raised $200M in Series B funding to make fully driverless trucks. Uber and Khosla Ventures co-led. More here. (Canada, Transportation)

Medium-sized funding rounds

♻️ Sortera, based out of Markle, IN, raised $44.4M in extended Series C funding to expand its first metals recycling plant and to begin building a second. More here (paywall). (U.S., Materials)

⚡ M2X Energy, based out of Rockledge, FL, raised $40M in Series B funding for its natural gas to methanol trailers that help oil and gas companies mitigate flared and vented methane. Conifer Infrastructure Partners led. More here. (U.S., Methane)

🔋 Princeton NuEnergy, based out of Bordentown, NJ, closed on $30M in Series A funding to recycle battery materials via its direct recycling technology. Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and Helium-3 Ventures invested. More here. (U.S., Industry)

♻️ LD Carbon, based out of Seoul, raised $28M in Series C funding for its tire recycling business. Woven Capital led. More here. (South Korea, Materials)

🥩 THIS, based out of London, raised ~$25.4M in Series C funding to make plant-based meats. Planet First Partners led. More here. (U.K., Food & Agriculture)

🚗 Bitsensing, based out of Seoul, raised $25M in Series B funding to make high-resolution radar technology for autonomous driving. Korea Development Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, and others participated. More here. (South Korea, Transportation)

⚡ Molten Industries, based out of Oakland, CA, raised $25M in Series A funding to make graphite and hydrogen via methane pyrolysis (breaking CH4 into C and H). Breakthrough Energy Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Industry)

🛠️ Kinetic, based out of Santa Ana, CA, raised $21M in Series B funding to provide digital service and maintenance to EVs. Menlo Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Transportation)

🌞 Planted Solar, based out of Los Altos, CA, raised $20M in Series A funding for its combined hardware and software solutions that enable solar deployment on sites that are otherwise challenging to develop on. Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Khosla Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Energy)

💧 SewerAI, based out of Walnut Creek, CA, raised $15M in Series B funding to use AI to help detect problems in sewer pipes. Innovius Capital led. More here. (U.S., Water)

🥩 Tender Food, based out of Sommerville, MA, raised $11M in Series A funding to make plant-based meats. Rhapsody Venture Partners led. More here. (U.S., Food & Agriculture)

🥩 Ever After Foods, based out of Haifa, Israel, raised $10M in equity funding for its cultivated meat bioreactor platform. Tnuva Group invested. More here. (Israel, Food & Agriculture)

Smaller funding rounds

🧪 Maxterial, based out of Pleasanton, CA, raised $8M in Series A funding to make more sustainable chemicals and advanced coatings. Helios Climate Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Industry)

💧 Kilimo, based out of Cordoba, Argentina, raised $7.5M in Series A funding to help pay farmers to save water. Emerald Technology Ventures led. More here.

🏘️ Bisly, based out of Tallinn, Estonia, raised ~$6.7M in Series A funding for their “smart building system” software and hardware products that advance automation and decarbonization in the real estate sector. Foxway, Urvo Männama, and others invested. More here. (Estonia, Built Environment)

🔎 atmio, based out of Germany, raised ~$5.5M in seed funding for its operating system that helps natural gas find, fix, and report on their fugitive methane emissions. Notion Capital led. More here. (Germany, Methane)

💧 Spotless Water, based out of Dorset, U.K., raised ~$4.6M to supply ultra-pure water to clean equipment like solar panels via self-service dispensing stations. YFM Equity Partners led. More here. (U.K., Water)

🛰️ IENAI, based out of Madrid, raised $4.2M in equity funding to make electric propulsion systems for satellites. GED Conexo led. More here. (Spain, Transportation)

🌬️ Aikido Technologies, based out of San Francisco, raised $4M in seed funding to manufacture floating wind turbines. Azolla Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Energy)

📊 Stepwise, based out of Stavanger, Norway, raised ~$3.3M across equity, convertible note, and debt funding for its emissions management platform. More here. (Norway, Data Applications)

📊 Forward Earth, based out of Berlin, raised $2.1M in equity funding to make software to simplify reporting on environmental data. Speedinvest led. More here. (Germany, Data Applications)

🏘️ Balto Energy, based out of Palo Alto, CA, came out of stealth with $1M in pre-seed funding to make it easier for homeowners to electrify by connecting them with contractors and facilitating interactions between all parties. More here. (U.S., Built Environment)

♨️ Rondo Energy, based out of Alameda, CA, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from H&M Group for its heat batteries. More here. (U.S., Energy)

🌬️ LiftWerx, based out of Cambridge, Canada, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from TowerBrook Capital Partners to provide maintenance services to the onshore wind industry. More here. (Canada, Energy)

Other funding rounds

🏘️ Hometree, based out of London, raised $317.5M in debt financing for its home energy services business. The company will use the funds to deploy residential solar, batteries, and heat pumps. More here. (U.K., Built Environment)

🪵 Aymium, based out of St. Paul, MN, raised $50M in debt financing to make biocarbon and biohydrogen products. More here. (U.S., Carbon Removal / Materials)

New funds

💰 The Engine Ventures, based out of Cambridge, MA, raised $398M for its third fund, out of which it will invest in companies across climate tech, health, and other sectors from pre-seed to Series A rounds. More here. (U.S., Funds)

💰 Columna Capital, based out of London, raised ~$310M for its third fund, out of which it will invest in food and agriculture as well as animal health and other sectors. More here (paywall). (U.K., Funds)

💸 Wind Capital, based out of Paris, raised $96.3M in a first close of a new fund from which it will invest in seed through Series A deep tech companies across food and air quality, mobility and energy, construction, and more. More here. (France, Funds)

💰 Forbion BioEconomy Fund I, based out of Naarden, Netherlands, raised ~$80M for a new fund to invest in biotech-enabled solutions in Food, Agriculture, Materials, and more. More here. (Netherlands, Funds)

💸 Breega, based out of Paris, raised $75M to invest in African seed-stage companies across agtech, climate, energy, infrastructure, mobility, and other sectors. More here. (France, Funds)

OTHER ~COOL~ STUFF

Hat tip to the excellent work of Jeff Davies of EnerWrap. In conjunction with Bloomberg, Jeff put together a super valuable dataset on where IRA dollars have been spent, with a particular eye for bifurcation across Democratic vs. Republican districts. Check it out here.

bye,

– Nick