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Hi there,

First day of December! Last month of the year!! JK, who cares!!! Time is a flat circle as is.

First off for today, one correction: Last week, I covered Divert’s recent announcement about their Turlock facility to turn food waste into renewable natural gas. I got some numbers wrong or was at least insufficiently specific: On an annual basis, Divert will inject 225,000 MMBtu of RNG into PG&E's gas lines. That’s the correct number. Onwards.

For the rest of this newsletter, I kept it a bit lighter and tighter than usual, as we’re still in the post-Thanksgiving mode here in the U.S. Still lots to explore, including a bevy of LPO funding announcements, as the pre-Trump inauguration clock is ticking.

In today’s email:

• One story in a chart and a sentence

• Climate 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. ♡

THIS WEEK IN CLIMATE TECH & ENERGY

One story in one sentence and a chart

• Pursuant to some other updates covered below, a New York Times piece this week nicely covered how China has trounced the rest of the world in vehicle manufacturing of late, specifically by embracing EV production. Link.

15+ headlines

The good

• The DOE aims to grant up to $6.6 billion in conditional loan funding via the Loan Programs Office (LPO) to Rivian for the company to resume building a big EV factory in Georgia, where it plans to make up to 400,000 of its midsized SUV, the R2, and its R3 crossover. TBD whether the loan will be completed before the new administration takes over. Either way, the clock is ticking on this DOE’s remit; might as well try to dole out cash now. Link. Link.

• The LPO also announced a conditional loan commitment up to $289.7 million for Sunwealth’s Project Polo in an effort to finance the deployment of up to 1,000 solar systems and battery energy storage systems (BESS) at commercial and industrial facilities across up to 27 states. Link.

• The DOE also announced a $1.3 billion direct loan to ENTEK Lithium Separators for the company to build a new plant in Indiana to make lithium-ion battery separators used in EVs. Link.

• The HUD in the U.S. also finalized the last $30 million of more than $1 billion in funding it has now spent to modernize older apartment buildings for low-income renters across the country. The funding is focused on dweller comfort and making buildings more sustainable, less polluting, and better adapted to extreme weather. Link.

• In addition to its advances in EV and plug-in hybrid vehicle manufacturing, BYD launched its first grid-scale sodium-ion product offering for battery-energy storage projects this week. Link.

• Solar electricity generation continues to rise markedly in the U.S. (and elsewhere). Across the first three quarters of 2024, utility-scale solar power generation (thermal and PV) rose ~30% compared to the first three quarters of 2023. Link.

The inbetweens

• Natural gas prices in the U.S. hit a one-year high as a cold front crosses most of the country. European gas prices also hit highs, as Europe imports a lot of gas from the U.S. Link. Link.

• ADNOC, the UAE's state-owned oil company, announced major new investments that cement continued focus on core gas and chemical business lines, though they did include allocations for things like lower-carbon ammonia, too. Link.

• NOAA is building an early-detection system to track smaller releases of aerosols into the atmosphere, which countries or private sectors may (and already do) deploy for geoengineering purposes. Link.

• President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on all imports from China, Canada, and Mexico on “day one” of his presidency. Specifically, Trump proposed 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff hike for existing Chinese tariffs. Frankly, there’s no point in dissecting the implications of all this particularly closely yet because it may just be bluster to kickstart more specific negotiations. 83% of Mexico's exports and 75% of Canadian exports come to the U.S., so the impacts would certainly be significant. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum seems happy to negotiate so far (last link). Link. Link. Link. Link.

The bad

• Internal company leaks from Nissan revealed that the company has "12 to 14 months to survive." It will require a substantial new investor. Odds are intense global auto manufacturing competition, increasingly from China, where Nissan’s sales are falling sharply. Link. Link. Link.

• After a prolonged deliberation (one could call it a struggle, too), Volkswagen sold a Chinese car plant to Chinese competitors. Volkswagen is struggling, like Nissan. Link. Link. 

• ArcelorMittal, an integrated global steelmaking and mining major, announced this week that it will delay a final investment decision (FID) on lower-carbon steelmaking projects across Europe. The company cited poor market conditions and a lack of supportive European policy. Link.

• Thyssenkrupp AG also announced it will cut 11,000 jobs in its steelmaking this decade, reducing its labor force by 40%, likely for reasons similar to those cited by ArcelorMittal. Link.

• Norsk Hydro ASA announced it will shutter its battery materials and green hydrogen businesses unit, another domino to fall in the accelerating industrial turmoil across Europe, which, of course, extends to “green” industrial efforts, perhaps even disproportionately so. Link.

• US Magnesium, a company that produces magnesium, lithium, and other chemicals from Great Salt Lake, announced it will lay off 186 employees and idle its operations. Link.

• California’s Governor Gavin Newsom kicked off an EV tax credit spat this week by noting that if the Federal $7,500 EV tax credit gets cut by Trump’s Admin, California will consider bringing back its Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which ran from 2010 to 2023 and offered rebates from $5,000 to $7,500 for EV buyers. Importantly, Newsom noted the rebates would exclude Tesla specifically, allegedly to encourage more market competition, but likely also a targeted slight at Elon Musk, who has been critical of Californian policy and has moved more of Tesla’s operations out of the state, though it still maintains substantial manufacturing capacity in it. Musk is understandably upset. Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds

🔬 Cradle, based out of Amsterdam and Zurich, raised ~$73 million in Series B funding for its startup that develops an AI-powered platform to help scientists design and optimize proteins for various applications, including partnerships with synthetic biology companies like Ginkgo Bioworks. IVP led. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds

🔌 Ampeco, based out of Sofia, Bulgaria, raised $26 million in Series B funding to develop software that helps businesses manage white-labeled EV charging stations. Revaia led. Link.

📊 Wherobots, based out of San Francisco, raised $21.5 million in Series A funding to make cloud-based software analyze and process spatial data, whether satellite imagery or GPS information, which has implications for earth observation data in particular. Felicis led. Link.

📦 Lactips, based out of Saint-Paul-en-Jarez, France, raised ~$16.9 million in equity funding to make biodegradable, water-soluble polymers for packing and more. Blue Ocean Fund led. Link.

📊 Predium, based out of Munich, raised ~$13.7 million in Series A funding for its ESG management software for the real estate and finance industries. Norrsken VC led. Link.

📊 Metron, based out of Paris, raised ~$13 million in equity funding to collect and analyze energy data to help businesses with energy efficiency. GET Fund led. Link.

📉 Frequenz, based out of Berlin, raised ~$10.5 million in “follow-on financing” to help corporate and industrial clients achieve energy efficiency improvements via its autonomous energy management solutions. Cape Capital, SET Ventures, and Enkraft joined existing investors. Link.

Smaller funding rounds

♨️ FPR Energy, based out of Newcastle, Australia, raised ~$9.7 million in seed funding for its ‘Concentrated Solar Thermal’ technology, which uses ceramic particles to store solar electricity as heat. The company spun out of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which collaborated with Japanese utility Osaka Gas on the new venture. Next step for the company? Develop a 50 MW demonstration plant with up to 16 hours of integrated thermal energy storage. Link. Link.

⚡️ etalytics, based out of Darmstadt, Germany, raised ~$8.5 million in equity funding to expand its AI-powered energy management solutions, designed to optimize energy use, reduce costs, and minimize environmental impact across industries like data centers, chemicals, and automotive. Alstin Capital and ebm-papst led. Link.

🔋 Molyon, based out of Cambridge, U.K., raised ~$4.6 million in equity funding to make advanced lithium-sulfur batteries with high energy densities. IQ Capital and Plural co-led. Link.

♨️ Hyperheat, based out of Offenburg, Germany, raised $3.7 million in equity funding to develop electric heaters that can replace natural gas burners in industrial applications like steel, cement, and chemical manufacturing. Amadeus APEX Technology Fund led. Link.

🌞 Volter, based out of London, raised ~$3.2 million in pre-seed funding for its operating system for rooftop solar and other distributed energy resources. Transition and Seedcamp led. It will use the funds to expand. Link.

🔁 Barton Blakeley, based out of Harpenden, U.K., raised ~$3 million in equity funding to commercialize a new chemical process that can turn captured industrial CO2 emissions into synthetic silica. Elbow Beach Capital led. Link.

📦 Movopack, based out of Milan, Italy, raised ~$2.6 million in seed funding to make more circular and sustainable packaging materials for e-commerce. 360 Capital led. Link.

🔁 Value Group (Value Maritime and Value Carbon), based out of Rotterdam, Netherlands, raised ~$2.1 million from Energietransitiefonds Rotterdam (‘ETF-R’) for its CO₂ processing hub in Rotterdam, where it captures CO₂, stores it, or processes it for use in other applications. Link.

🦜 Darwin, based out of Paris, raised ~$1.6 million in equity funding for its methodology to develop methodologies to help corporates understand, measure, and act on their businesses’ impact on biodiversity and alignment with global standards like SBTN and TNFD. Astérion and various angel investors participated. Link.

Other funding rounds

🔌 Pony AI, based out of Fremont, CA, and Beijing and Guangzhou in China, listed on the Nasdaq on Wednesday at $15 per share (marking a $5.25 billion valuation). Shares rose 15% in early trading. The company develops autonomous technologies (which are almost always electric, too, as EVs are fundamentally software-led and software-defined products). Link.

New funds

💰 IP Group Australia, based out of Melbourne, raised an additional ~$81.6 million from Hostplus for its IP Group Hostplus Innovation Fund, with which it supports university-originated deep tech startups, often including ones focused on climate and energy prerogatives. Link.

💰 Hort Innovation and Artesian, both based out of Australia, launched a new $60 million VC fund to support early-stage startups addressing challenges spanning sustainability, robotics, and farming and agricultural applications such as crop resilience and productivity. Link.

💸 GNT, a plant-based ingredients company based out of the Netherlands, launched GNT Ventures, a new, independent venture capital firm that will invest up to €1 million in startups working on challenges like plant-based food coloring, fermentation, upcycling, and more. Link.

Hope you have a fruitful final month of 2024,

– Nick