Big ass buoys

Hi there,

Checking in with love from the New Orleans airport. Back to New York to hunker down for most of March. What’s up with you? Always love hearing what’s up in y’alls worlds. You know the drill; we’re here to roundup the week in climate tech and energy with some leaks from stealthy wave energy companies and more.

In today’s email:

• One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• Climate and energy headlines from the week

• Climate tech fundraising announcements

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• Some days you're deep in the weeds on something, then other days Hannah Ritchie reminds you that less than half of folks polled in the U.K. are confident nuclear is low-carbon… Link.

13 headlines

• Perhaps wave energy isn’t dead? Panthalassa, a stealthy startup, noted it recently finished a three-week open ocean test with a massive 200-foot wave energy buoy. Not a ton on this company out there; I appreciate the Everett Herald out of WA for the scoop. Scope link #1 for pics. Link. Link.

• BYD is now selling its Seagull model as the “Dolphin Mini” in Mexico, putting pressure on North American auto manufacturers. The compact EV model will start at $21,000, which is cheaper than most U.S. EVs by a wide margin. Link.

• Solar Technology LLC plans to build a 1M sq ft solar component assembly plant in Michigan. The company will invest $900M in the project and is targeting completion by 2028. Link.

• Addionics, an Israeli battery manufacturer, announced plans to build a $400M factory in the U.S. to make components for EV batteries. With initial production slated to start in 2027, Addionics aims to supply enough anode material for roughly 1M EVs annually. Link.

• Updated projections suggest Texas may onboard north of 6 GW of battery energy storage this year, which is a) more capacity than the state already has online and b) potentially more than California (the current leader in installed capacity) will onboard this year. Link. 

• The U.S. House approved a bipartisan bill designed to re-accelerate deployment of nuclear energy in the U.S. Named the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, it’s the U.S.’s first significant nuclear policy update in more than two decades. It will aim to accelerate review timelines and reduce licensing fees for new advanced nuclear reactor designs. Link.

• As the U.S. signals it will slow LNG export growth after 2030, Qatar says it’s down to go whole hog to meet growing demand from Asian buyers. Link. 

• A wildfire in Texas has ripped across the state to become the second-largest wildfire in U.S. history. In February, no less. Xcel Energy, a local utility, may face substantial liabilities. Link. Link. Link. 

• After a decade of work, Apple is winding down efforts to develop an electric vehicle. It had roughly 2,000 people working on the project. Link.

• To the chagrin of many in energy and environmental circles, the EPA will exempt existing gas power plants from new regulations that will de facto require carbon capture infrastructure for plants to remain compliant with emissions limits. Link. Link.

• Mexico City is hurtling towards a water crisis and may be months away from running out of water. Major metropolitan areas have reached similarly critical levels previously (think Cape Town in 2017). If you’re an affluent American making a winter pilgrimage to CDMX, watch your water usage. Link.

• Those farmer protests we’ve been tracking in Europe aren’t over. Increasingly, governments (most recently Macro’s Admin in France) are bending the knee and recalibrating policy. Link.

• Fisker, the U.S.-based EV manufacturer, appears to be on its last legs. Link. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

♨️ Fervo Energy, based out of Houston, raised $244M for its enhanced geothermal energy solutions and technologies. Devon Energy led. More here. (U.S., Energy)

🌞 Enviria, based out of Frankfurt, raised $200M+ in Series B funding from BlackRock to deploy up to 2.3 GW of solar capacity on roofs and buildings across Germany. More here (paywall). (Germany, Energy)

🍓 Oishii, based out of Jersey City, raised $134M in Series B funding to grow strawberries and tomatoes in indoor vertical farms sans pesticides. NTT led. More here. (U.S., Food & Agriculture)

🔌 PowerDot, based out of Lisbon, Portugal, raised ~$108M for its EV charging network. Antin Infrastructure Partners and Arie Group led. More here. (Portugal, Transportation)

♨️ Exodigo, based out of Palo Alto, CA, raised $105M in Series A funding to create detailed underground maps for construction companies, utilities, and other industries. Greenfield Partners and Zeev Ventures co-led. More here. (U.S., Industry)

🚢 Unseenlabs, based out of Rennes, France, raised $92.2M in Series C funding to use satellite imagery to track ships and maritime traffic to drive security and environmental monitoring outcomes. Supernova Invest, ISALT, and UNEXO, co-led. More here. (France, Transportation)

🛰️ AiDash, based out of San Jose, CA, raised $50M from Duke Investments towards its ongoing Series C for its infrastructure resilience software. More here (paywall). (U.S., Infrastructure)

Medium-sized funding rounds.

🧪 Tsubame BHB, based out of Kanagawa, Japan, raised ~$35.2M in Series C funding to build distributed, lower-carbon ammonia production plants. Heraeus, Yokogawa Electric Corporation, and Energy & Environment Investment invested. More here. (Japan, Industry)

💸 Hellas Direct, based out of Athens, Greece, raised $32.5M in equity funding from ETF Partners for its climate-risk insurance business. More here. (Greece, Finance)

✈️ LanzaJet, based out of Chicago, raised $30M from Southwest Airlines to collaborate on a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production facility and to leverage SAFFiRE Renewables technology to turn corn stover into ethanol. More here. (U.S., Transportation)

📊 Xcelerate, based out of Singapore, raised $25M+ in equity funding for its ESG and compliance software startup. Federated Hermes Private Equity led. More here. (Singapore, Data Applications)

🚚 Range Energy, based out of Mountain View, CA, raised $23.5M for its electric truck trailers.  Trousdale Ventures led. For our write-up on the business from last year, see here. More here. (U.S., Transportation)

🔋 Anthro Energy, based out of San Jose, CA, raised $20M in Series A funding to build a Bay Area-based pilot production facility to commercialize its advanced lithium-ion battery technologies. Collaborative Fund led. More here. (U.S., Energy)

💸 Ecoligo, based out of Berlin, raised ~$11.8M in equity funding from Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund and Gaia Energy Impact Fund for its renewable energy investment platform. More here (in German). (Germany, Energy)

Smaller funding rounds

🖥️ Flexnode, based out of Bethesda, MD, raised $9M in seed funding to build data centers with liquid-cooling tech to reduce energy usage. Zacua Ventures led. More here. (U.S., Industry)

🌞 Insolare, based out of Bengaluru, raised ~$8M in equity funding for its solar engineering, procurement, and construction services business. Negan Capital led. More here. (India, Energy)

📊 Elevated Signals, based out of Vancouver, raised $7.9M in Series A funding to expand its data tracking software from cannabis production to climate applications, like vertical farming. Yaletown Partners led. More here. (Canada, Data Applications)

🔧 Logan Energy, based out of Edinburgh, Scotland, raised ~$6.3M from Lanxing New Energy for its engineering solutions company focused on hydrogen technologies. More here. (Scotland, Energy)

📊 Sunhat, based out of Cologne, Germany, raised $5.4M in seed funding to help businesses navigate and streamline sustainability reporting and compliance. EnBW New Ventures and others invested. More here. (Germany, Data Applications)

📊 Axiom Cloud, based out of San Jose, CA, raised $5M from Toshiba Tec and Windsail Capital Group for its refrigeration management and efficiency-focused software. More here. (U.S., Industry)

♨️ Heat Geek, based out of London, raised ~$4.7M in seed funding for its digital platform that offers HVAC engineers and technicians training, insight on new technologies, and a pre-qualified customer pipeline. Transition led. More here. (U.K., Built Environment) 

🍎 Mondra, based out of Richmond, U.K., raised~$4.5M from 7 Generation Ventures, AlbionVC, and others for its SaaS platform to track food supply-chain emissions. More here. (U.K., Food & Agriculture) 

📊 Looq AI, based out of San Diego, CA, raised $2.6M in seed funding for its survey platform designed to help digitize and gather data on critical infrastructure. BootstrapLabs led. More here. (U.S., Infrastructure)

🪵 Sonichem, based out of Leicester, U.K., raised ~$1.5M to convert forestry waste byproducts like sawdust into renewable biochemicals. ACF Investors invested. More here. (U.K., Industry)

🔍 atmio, based out of Hamburg, emerged from stealth with ~$1.4M in pre-seed funding to help natural gas operators and producers identify and fix methane leaks along their supply chains with both hardware and software. HCVC, Robin Capital, and Nucleus Capital invested, alongside others. More here. (Germany, Methane)

Other funding rounds

⚡ Engie North America, based out of Houston, raised $1B in tax equity financing to support a 1.3GW portfolio of solar wind assets across the U.S. More here. (U.S., Energy)

🔁 Thiozen, based out of Pasadena, CA, received $1.18M in grant funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to produce clean hydrogen from "sour gas" waste streams from oil and gas operations. More here. (U.S., Energy)

New funds

💵 Verdane, based out of Oslo, raised ~$1.2B for a new growth fund to invest in European companies working on digitization and decarbonization applications. More here. (Norway, Funds)

💵 Inspired Capital, based out of New York, raised $330M for its third fund to invest in pre-seed to Series A startups “solving the hardest challenges facing humanity.” More here. (U.S., Funds)

💰 Zacua Ventures, based out of San Francisco, raised $56M for its first fund, with which it will invest in construction tech companies. More here. (U.S., Built Environment)

KEEP COOL PODCAST

There’s a soundbite from the latest Keep Cool Podcast, where myself and Josh Silverman, the CEO of Windfall Bio, broke down the methane story holistically while also exploring the solutions Windfall is bringing to market to make more use of methane on Earth and keep it out of the atmosphere.

Will try to get a newsletter up on this at some point too, but for now, listen here if it calls to you.

Hasta la vista,

– Nick