Climate

Foray Bioscience is breaking down the barriers of bringing biomanufacturing to plants

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 […]

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Unigrid wants to make batteries cheaper and safer using sodium

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

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Aepnus wants to create a circular economy for key battery manufacturing materials

Earlier this year, BASF had to delay the opening of a battery materials plant in Finland when a court agreed with environmental groups that the company didn’t have a good plan to deal with its wastewater.  As battery factories spring up around the world, the specter of wastewater threatens to stall their construction. One startup,

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Civic Renewables is rolling up residential solar installers to improve quality and grow the market

For an industry that’s about 20 years old, residential solar is still pretty tumultuous. Some of that can be blamed on shifting regulations, like what happened in California last year where a policy update lengthened the amount of time it took for homeowners to recoup their investments. But other bumps can be attributed to the

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Gorilla, a Belgian startup that helps energy providers crunch big data, raises $25M

Gorilla, a Belgian company that serves the energy sector with real-time data and analytics for pricing and forecasting, has raised €23 million ($25 million) in a Series B round led by U.S. venture capital firm Headline. Founded in 2018, Antwerp-based Gorilla works with energy providers across Europe, the U.S. and Australia, including British Gas’ parent

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After hits like Reddit and Scopley, Collaborative Fund easily raised a $125M fund to tackle climate, health and food

The folks at Collaborative Fund certainly like a challenge. They don’t specialize in venture capital’s favorite business model, SaaS, preferring instead to invest in sectors like climate, health and food. What’s more, they like companies that focus on consumers, whose fickle attitudes can add another layer of complexity to any business plan. Oh, and they

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SiTration uses silicon wafers to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste

Brendan Smith didn’t intend to be in the critical minerals business. He initially thought his high-tech filters would be good at desalination. But it was hard to beat existing systems, so he and his advisor, MIT professor Jeffrey Grossman, quickly ruled it out. After a few years “where we sort of intentionally meandered,” they found

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