Some call it the “commercial valley of death,” and it’s the point at which many climate tech startups struggle.
Climate nonprofit Prime Coalition is hoping to bridge the valley with a new program, Trellis Climate.
Trellis Climate follows the latter model with a focus on middle stages, where capital has grown scarce.
“There are more and more philanthropists that are really interested in solving the climate problem,” Lara Pierpoint, director of Trellis Climate, told TechCrunch.
“It is the most flexible and potentially risk-forward set of dollars that are out there.”For founders in climate tech, that sort of funding is likely welcome news.
Climate investor Bay Bridge Ventures is raising a new $200 million fund, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Bay Bridge filed paperwork Monday for the new climate fund with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
And Congruent Ventures raised a $275 million fund in 2023, turning down $325 million in additional LP interest.
Bay Bridge Ventures is new, having been founded in 2022 with a focus on ESG more broadly and sustainability in particular.
Still, that doesn’t mean Bay Bridge lacks experience.
For the firm that calls itself “the first check in deep tech,” the last check for SOSV’s latest $306 million fund took a bit longer than founder Sean O’Sullivan would have liked.
“We’re concentrating and double doubling down on deep tech,” O’Sullivan said.
We’re doing a fewer number of companies, more like 80 deep tech companies per year.
O’Sullivan said that SOSV intends to invest about 70% of the funds in climate tech companies, 25% in health tech, and the remaining 5% will be reserved for opportunistic investments.
“We have a special place to serve because we do deep tech, because we do get into the biology, we do get into the chemistry, the physics and the electronics.
When Josh Silverman started shopping around the idea for his methane-eating microbe startup, Windfall Bio, eight years ago, the market just wasn’t ready.
Menlo Park–based Windfall Bio raised a $28 million Series A round to expand its commercialization efforts.
The round was led by Prelude Ventures with participation from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Incite Ventures and Positive Ventures, among others, as well as existing investors, including Mayfield.
Windfall works with industries that produce large levels of methane, such as agriculture, oil and gas, and landfills.
The startup supplies methane-eating microbes that absorb methane emissions, turning them into fertilizer.
New U.S. ‘green bank’ aims to steer over $160B in capital into climate techFor years, banks have been financing large renewable power projects, from utility-scale solar farms to horizon-spanning wind farms.
But the demand is there, which is why advocates have been clamoring for the federal government to support a so-called green bank, which will underwrite these sorts of projects.
That green bank is now a reality.
Green bank loans have a pretty good track record, too.
The Connecticut Green Bank, for example, has a delinquency rate that’s on par with other commercial lenders across both residential and commercial portfolios.
DCVC wanted to raise $500M for its first climate fund, but the market had other plansDCVC’s target for its first climate-focused fund, DCVC Climate Select, has been all over the place and highlights the roller coaster venture fundraising conditions of the last few years, and how LPs aren’t as quick to back new strategies from established managers.
The Silicon Valley VC firm launched the fund in December 2022 with a $500 million target, according to a SEC filing.
This climate fund is targeting climate startups at the mid-stages where the firm thinks the climate startup ecosystem is currently underfunded, according to materials from a recent New Mexico State Investment Council meeting where the GP presented.
Tiger Global’s latest fund raised $2.2 billion of its $6 billion target.
In the first half of 2023, firms including Founders Fund, Insight Partners and TCV all slashed their fund targets.
Nvidia might be clouding the funding climate for AI chip startups, but Hailo is still fightingHello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our Wednesday show, when we take a moment to dig into a raft of startup and venture capital news.
No big tech here!
Keep in mind that Y Combinator’s demo day kicks off today, so we’re going to be snowed-under in startup news the rest of the week.
Consider today’s show the calm before the storm.
Climate change.
The UK will be even better off, gaining 40 outdoor days by the end of the century.
Illinois will lose more than a month of outdoor days by the 2080s as the summers grow unbearably hot.
Nigeria’s summers will grow even hotter and longer, lopping off nearly two months of outdoor days.
Both Nigeria and India would only lose one month of outdoor days, and more northerly regions retain some of their added outdoor days.
Climate-tech VC Satgana has reached a final close of its first fund, which targets to back up to 30 early-stage startups in Africa and Europe.
“I ran it for like five years, and about six years ago I started to really have the awakening to the extent of climate change.
“We are entering the continent to pursue green growth objectives; so deploying renewable energy, low carbon buildings, mobility solutions and so on.
Satgana is among the new funds that are dedicated to the African climate tech sector.
These funds include Africa People + Planet Fund by Novastar Ventures, Equator’s fund and the Catalyst Fund.
New Summit Investments is raising a new $100 million impact fund, according to documents filed with the SEC.
This is the firm’s fifth fund and marks a sizable jump from the $40 million its previous fund, which closed back in 2022.
New Summit has supported marginalized fund managers by launching initiatives like its partnership with investment firm Gratitude Railroad to source and underwrite underrepresented fund managers.
New Summit Investments’ was founded in 2016 as an impact investment firm focusing on climate, health, and economic opportunities.
New Summit Investments’ first fund closed for $20 million in 2016, followed by $36 million in 2018, according to Pitchbook.
