Climate

Focused Energy buys two of the world’s most powerful lasers for its fusion quest

Climate /

Fusion power startup Focused Energy has signed a deal to buy two of the world’s most powerful lasers, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The massive lasers will be installed in the startup’s future facility, which it is building in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next two years. “These are some of the highest-average-power […]

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G2 Ventures Partners is raising $750 million for a third fund

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G2 Venture Partners, the high-profile firm that spun out of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is raising a third fund with a target of $750 million, TechCrunch has learned.  The raise, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing, is a bullish vote of confidence in climate and sustainability startups, while other investors have voiced cautious

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EVgo secures $1.25 billion loan amid Biden’s rush to approve clean energy loans

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Electric vehicle charging startup EVgo is the latest company to secure funds from the U.S. Department of Energy as the Biden administration races to approve clean energy loans before Donald Trump takes over.  Trump has promised to cancel any unspent funds from Biden’s bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act, including the $7,500 tax credit for new EV

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Activate and The Engine Accelerator team up to train scientists to become founders 

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The road from scientist to founder is well trodden, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Those pitfalls are why, over the last decade, several programs have sprung up to help smooth the path for technical founders. Now, two prominent programs, Activate and The Engine Accelerator, have decided they can give founders an even bigger advantage

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SolarSquare raises $40 million in India’s largest solar venture round

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SolarSquare has raised $40 million in what is the largest venture round in India’s solar sector. The Mumbai-based startup bootstrapped and was profitable selling to corporate customers for five years before switching to residential solar in 2021. Now it has scaled to powering over 20,000 homes and 200 housing societies across India, and is India’s

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A new wave of desalination startups argues that deeper is better

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It’s a cruel reality that only about 3% of the world’s water is fresh, and of that, only a fraction is readily available. Yet as the world’s arid regions encounter intensifying droughts, more people are eyeing the other 97% that’s sloshing around in the oceans. Islands, cities, and water districts have been using desalination to

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Planet A Foods nabs $30M to make tons more cocoa-free chocolate

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Turning sunflower seeds into sustainable, cocoa-free chocolate has netted Munich-based B2B foodtech startup Planet A Foods (formerly QOA) a $30 million Series B funding round. Now, the Y Combinator alum is gearing up for industrialization, with the funds set to be deployed to scale its production capacity by around 7.5x. The round fast follows a

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FireDome’s autonomous launcher is gunning to protect acres of land from wildfire

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Fighting wildfire is a lot like waging war. There are foot soldiers and paratrooper-like smokejumpers, air support from airtankers, and mobile centers that can direct firefighter movements in the field. “It’s a battlefield,” Gadi Benjamini, co-founder and CEO of FireDome, told TechCrunch. “It changes, it’s dynamic, it’s unexpected.” But what firefighters have been missing is

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