Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing close of an oversubscribed £5.04 million Series A round (around $6.4M at current exchange rates). Jones’ […]
Byway is using AI to help travelers slow down and take the scenic route Read More »
Google has issued its 2024 Environmental Report, a more than 80-page document describing all of the massive company’s efforts to apply tech to environmental issues and to mitigate its own contributions. But it totally dodges the question of how much energy is AI using — perhaps because the answer is “way more than we’d care
Google’s environmental report pointedly avoids AI’s actual energy cost Read More »
Electricity demand is booming on account of AI. In a May 2024 report, Goldman Sachs predicted that data centers will use 8% of the U.S.’s total power supply by 2030, up from 3% in 2022, as cloud service providers expand to meet the demand for AI infrastructure. Assuming the current trend holds, U.S. utilities will need to
The amount of waste produced by the construction industry adds up to more than a third of the overall waste produced each year in the European Union. And it’s no better in the U.S. Stateside, the construction industry produces more than double the waste that households do each year. Sensorita wants to help the construction
Hannah Sieber knows just how transformative batteries can be. At her previous startup, EcoFlow, she used them to replace generators, whether for powering homes after a bad storm or RVs at a campsite. The experience made her wonder what else batteries could do, especially smaller ones. “What are the other industries that could dramatically change?”
Cold shipping might be the next industry that batteries disrupt Read More »
Amid a fraught environment for battery startups, Sila has raised $375 million to finish construction of a U.S. factory that will scale its next-generation battery technology for customers like Mercedes-Benz and Panasonic by the end of 2025. Sila, formerly known as Sila Nanotechnologies, is slated to finish construction of its Moses Lake, Washington plant in
As battery startups fail, Sila snaps up $375M in new funding Read More »
When it comes to building software for climate tech, it might make sense at first to work on something in the general vicinity of carbon accounting, given that the hottest software companies in the space have something to do with either accounting, offsets, removals, or regulatory disclosure. A glance at the startups in the space
Ashley Beckwith spent years of her academic and professional career focused on the intersection of biology, materials and manufacturing to build medical solutions more efficiently. When she realized the tech could be applied to plants and plant-based materials, an area that desperately needed it, she decided to switch gears. “Life on earth is only as
Foray Bioscience is breaking down the barriers of bringing biomanufacturing to plants Read More »
In the nearly 20 years that James Quazi has been a climate tech founder and operator, he’s seen a lot. From solar to geothermal, energy audits to energy storage, he’s had a front row as homeowners have sought to slash their energy use. He’s also been able to observe what makes those startups successful. “You
Dandelion co-founder is back to help you electrify your home for less Read More »
If there’s one thing holding back batteries, it’s cost. The most widespread type of battery, lithium-ion, still costs around $140 per kilowatt-hour for a pack. While that’s low enough to have triggered quickening adoption of electric vehicles, even the cheapest lithium-ion chemistries are still too expensive to put a big battery in every home to
Unigrid wants to make batteries cheaper and safer using sodium Read More »
