China continues to lead

Hi there,

I was floored by the number of positive responses to Thursday’s newsletter. Thank you so much for all the responses. As I’ve said before, if I haven’t responded yet, I promise I will. It means a lot.

I also wanted to call one thing a few people have told me recently. Namely, they didn’t know there’s a clear split between my Thursday and Sunday sends. Not that it inherently matters too much, but Thursdays are always longer-form (though I am to make them shorter over time op-eds or analyses of trends, tech, and companies. Occasionally, the company deep dives are paid, but I always specific that very clearly when true.

Sundays are effectively news and fundraising update curation. Which is what we’ll now do. And I’m also trying to keep these shorter, as that’s the point of good curation.

In today’s newsletter:

• Another great content resource

• One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• Climate tech and energy headlines from the week

• Climate tech fundraising announcements

♡ If you find this work valuable, you can support it here. I put a lot of time into it. ♡

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CLIMATE PROOF

Quick note: I’ve featured a plug for Climate Proof’s adaptation in a few recent newsletters. Without spending a ton of time convincing you as to why, here’s one more plug:

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in a sentence (and a chart)

• China installed more solar capacity last year (277 gigawatts) than the entire world did in 2022 (h/t Nat Bullard). Link. Link.

15+ headlines

The good

• More specifics on the above: China continues to lead the world in installing renewable energy. Official data from the Chinese National Energy Administration (not always to be trusted entirely) shows the country’s increased solar and wind capacity installations 45% and 18%, respectively, last year, breaking records. Solar installations in China now top 886 GW and 520 GW of wind power. China routinely installs more clean energy than the rest of the G7 combined. Link. Link. Link.

• Also in China, fusion energy researchers at the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences logged an impressive milestone with their ‘Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak,’ sustaining “steady-state high-confinement plasma operation for 1,066 seconds.” Link.

• FWIW, while on the topic, it has spent at least $230 billion on expanding its domestic EV charging structure and has a stated goal of achieving “full coverage” of its highways by 2030. Link. Link.

• Europe is doing its part, too. Solar electricity generation in the E.U. hit 304 TWh in 2024, a 22% increase from 2023. Coal power fell 16% to 269 TWh. Compare the two, and guess what? Solar won! That’s a solid milestone, especially as some of the biggest European economies, like Germany, are struggling with power grid decarbonization and as solar capacity factors in much of Europe are lower than in other parts of the world (which is just a physics thing–they get less sun) Link. Link. Link.

• Three cheers for the Loans Programs Office under the Biden Administration. The DOE’s LPO deployed a record $60.6 billion for 25 closed loans and ~$47 billion for 28 conditional commitments. If you’re keeping score at home (maybe you bet the over?), that’s 53 deals total deals for ~$108 billion in project investment, including for many first-of-a-kind projects that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Like.

• Pacific Steel Group is planning to build a significant lower-emission steel mill in California starting next month with the help of a $200 million secured loan from Generate Capital, a sustainable investment and operating firm. Link.

• South Carolina utility Santee Cooper is looking for buyers to restart construction of two stalled nuclear reactor projects, not dissimilar to other announcements we’ve seen for other nuclear restarts like Three Mile Island, though all others have been for finished but decommissioned reactors. Santee Cooper paused the reactors' construction in 2017 after the project lost $9 billion over four years and Westinghouse Electric, the reactor maker, went bankrupt. Fingers crossed someone can make this work economically and (relatively) quickly. Link.

• MP Materials, one of the only companies that mines rare earth materials in the U.S., announced its ‘Independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas, commenced commercial production of neodymium and trial production of automotive-grade, sintered neodymium-iron-boron magnets. These are all vital for more domestic climate and energy tech manufacturing capacity. Link.

• ZO MOTORS will build a manufacturing plant in Fontana, California to make electric trucks. Link.

The inbetweens

• There’s some good reading (in German, but you can translate) that offers historical context on the question of why Germany shuttered all of its (23 GW) of nuclear energy capacity over time. Link.

• There’s also some good debate going on about how impactful Trump’s executive orders on onshore wind and offshore wind will be. As I noted below and on Thursday, there’s an element to all this that involves not over-analyzing or getting mired in the process. That said, multiple publications (including ones I referenced have noted) that the vast majority of onshore wind development is not federal lands. Meanwhile, Heatmap talked to some very concerned analysts and developers who still think onshore wind could be impacted dramatically. TBD. Link. Link. Link. Link. 

• In a similar vein, some of Trump’s executive orders might not be all bad. Hard to say. Link. Link.

The bad

• Suffice it to say that the new Trump Administration released a veritable flood of executive orders last week—which will range from purely performative to ones that get held up in courts, to ones that are quite impactful and perhaps quite bad for climate mitigation efforts, the energy transition, and the U.S. clean energy and climate tech efforts. I will not recount them all here; as I wrote on Thursday, part of the strategy behind a wave of executive actions is intentionally to overwhelm you, make it impossible to focus on anything, let alone act on it, and demoralize you. I will link other pieces here if you do want to dig in: Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

• Last week, we covered news about a GW-scale coal plant in Indiana, once slated for retirement by 2023—the ninth largest single greenhouse gas emissions source in the state—that may extend a long-term agreement to sell electricity to an as-of-yet unnamed data center developer. This week, there was more comprehensive coverage of other coal plants that may delay retirement, such as the Bowen plant in Georgia. Trumps’s exec orders and policy may well not help here either. Link. Link.

• In Q4, offshore wind manufacturers will take a $1.7 billion charge due to “higher costs for its planned Sunrise Wind project off New York, lower valuations for seabed leases,” etc... In addition to the wind executive order drama, the offshore wind already has long been in disarray. Link. Link.

• While southern California got some welcome rain today, new fires (and old ones were still raging all week). Link. Link.

• Fires in Brazil last year also saw a 79% jump in monitored areas, even as deforestation fell. Link.

• Electric van startup Canoo filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations last week. It had partnerships to sell EVs to the USPS, the Department of Defense, and Walmart but ran out of cash first. Canoo raised approximately $600 million when it went public through a merger with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp (a SPAC) in late 2021. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

• Aegis Energy, based out of Wakefield, U.K., raised ~$125 million from Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners to build a network of lower-emission and multi-fuel source refueling hubs for lower-to-no-emission commercial vehicles. Link.

• Domna, (fka Hestia), based out of London, raised ~$73.5 million to help landlords implement retrofits and upgrades targeted at energy-inefficient buildings. Hestia Venture Partners led. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds

• Tive, a Boston supply chain visibility software developer, raised $40 million in Series C funding led by World Innovation Lab and Sageview Capital. Link.

• Sonocharge Energy, based out of Mountain View, CA, raised $23.5 million in equity funding for its device that can send acoustic waves across a battery and help the lithium ions charge in a smoother way, which can help extend the life of batteries for consumer electronics, EVs, and more. Cycle Capital led. Link.

• Ati Motors, based out of Bangalore, India, raised $20 million in Series B funding for its autonomous electric vehicles designed for industrial settings. Walden Catalyst Ventures and NGP Capital led. Link.

• ecoplanet, based out of Munich, raised ~$16.7 million in Series A funding for its energy management software that helps companies identify energy inefficiencies, supports them with compliance, and can help them adopt renewable energy where and when appropriate and applicable. EQT Ventures led. Link.

• H2, based out of Daejeon, South Korea, raised $16 million in bridge funding for its vanadium flow batteries. Stic Investments led. Krun Ventures and Lighthouse Combined Investment participated. Link.

• Project Eaden, based out of Berlin, raised ~$15.6 million in Series A funding to use a fiber-spinning process from textile manufacturing to make alternative ham and other meat-like products. Planet A and Rewe Group led. Link.

• Gravity, based out of San Francisco, raised $13 million in Series A funding for its carbon accounting and energy management software. Ansa Capital led. Link.

• Green Fusion, based out of Berlin, raised ~$12.5 million in Series A funding for its software that helps digitize and optimize apartment-building heating systems, which can help with energy efficiency, or at least identifying opportunities to enhance it. HV Capital and XAnge led. Link.

• Bedrock Energy, based out of Austin, TX, raised $12 million in Series A funding to increase installations of its geothermal HVAC systems in buildings. Titanium Ventures led. Link.

• StormHarvester, based out of Belfast, Northern Ireland, raised $10.4 million in Series A funding to use AI to help wastewater utilities identify and execute on opportunities to enhance efficiency. YFM Equity Partners led. Link.

Smaller funding rounds

• ENAPI, based out of Berlin, raised ~$7.9 million in seed funding to make APIs for EV infrastructure. Voyager Ventures led. Link.

• Bolt.earth, based out of Bengaluru, India, raised $5 million in additional Series A funding for its EV charging network. Version One Ventures led. Link.

• Degree Analytics, based out of Austin, TX, raised $5 million in equity funding to help colleges and universities optimize performance metrics, including energy management. LiveOak Ventures led. Link.

• Addis Energy, based out of Cambridge, MA, raised $4.3 million in pre-seed funding to make ammonia with less emissions-intensive processes and heat sources. Engine Ventures, Pillar VC, and Voyager Ventures invested. Link.

• Chapter, based out of Amsterdam, raised ~$3.15 million led by Rubio Impact Ventures and CapitalT for its AI-powered operating system for knowledge in the sustainable energy industry. Link.

• Fusebox, based out of Tallinn, Estonia, raised $2.7 million in equity funding for its energy management system that helps utilities, energy retailers, and other asset owners balance energy loads, reduce costs, and integrate renewable energy sources. Soulmates Ventures led. Link.

• CapeZero, based out of Kingston, NY, raised $2.6 million in seed funding to facilitate clean energy financing with software that helps solar, wind, and energy storage developers and operators manage financial decisions across capital planning, buying and selling, and fundraising, whether equity, tax equity and credit transferability, or debt. Powerhouse Ventures led. Link.

• Cyclic Materials, based out of Ontario, Canada, raised $2 million in Series B funding from Jaguar Land Rover's InMotion Ventures for its rare earths and critical minerals recycling business. Link.

• Alteva, based out of Cologne, Germany, raised ~$1.78 million in pre-seed for its battery cell development business, HTGF led. Link.

Other funding rounds

• Bees & Bears, based out of Berlin, raised ~$525 million in (I’m not sure what type of funding for its software that facilitates cleaner energy installations for small and medium-sized installers. A “listed bank in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, supervised by the European Central Bank, invested. Link.

New funds

• Algebris Investments, based out of London, raised ~$63 million in an initial close of its first venture fund, “Algebris Climatech” to invest in 15-20 climate and deeptech startups. Link.

• 4elements, based out of TK, France,  raised ~$8.8 million to launch ten new high-impact climate startups over five years. Link.

• Regeneration VC, based out of Los Angeles, took over management of Sky Ocean Ventures's climate fund. Link.

Bye,

– Nick