April Week 1, 2025: Welcome to our ongoing blog series, where we spotlight the most promising climate tech startups. Each week, we feature five companies and add them to our running list of innovative companies driving solutions across sectors with the highest potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.
These sectors are as follows:
Why did we decide to focus on the five specific sectors?
These sectors present immense opportunities for innovation as well as addressing critical challenges related to GHG emissions. By narrowing our focus to these areas, we can better align our mission with impactful solutions and support founders who are driving meaningful change.
By spotlighting these startups, we aim to support founders by providing them with networking and exposure opportunities that can help them scale and finance their solutions.
Do not hesitate to join our collective movement by requesting your membership.
With care,
Guillaume and the SBC TEAM
Energy
1. Capalo AI
Founded: 2022 – Kuopio, FI
Leadertship: Henry Taskinen
Elevator Pitch: Capalo AI provides a fully integrated, turn-key solution to trade, optimize, and operate battery energy storage systems (BESS). Through its platform, Capalo Zeus VPP™, the company delivers seamless access to all energy markets, AI-optimized automated trading, prequalification, and lifetime BESS value maximization in one package.
Problem they solve: Operating and trading battery storage assets is complex, requiring expertise in forecasting, market access, trading strategies, and regulatory compliance. Capalo AI simplifies this process by combining route-to-market access, AI-powered optimization, and BRP services into a single platform, reducing risk and operational overhead for battery asset owners.
Impact: By enabling smarter, more profitable operation of energy storage systems, Capalo AI plays a key role in balancing the grid, integrating more renewable energy, and reducing dependency on fossil-fuel-based peaker plants. Their platform enhances grid flexibility and accelerates the transition to a more sustainable energy system.
Stage: Seed.
Interested in Capalo AI?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here.
Food, Agriculture & Land Use
2. Topanga
Founded: 2021 – Los Angeles, CA, USA
Leadership: Max Olshansky
Elevator Pitch: Topanga is a food-service technology company helping large-scale culinary operations eliminate food and packaging waste through intelligent, scalable solutions like ReusePass and StreamLine. Their tools integrate seamlessly into dining programs to drive measurable environmental and economic impact.
Problem they solve: Commercial food operations struggle with high levels of food and packaging waste, leading to environmental harm and unnecessary costs. Reusable systems are often hard to implement at scale due to logistics and user friction.
Impact: Topanga’s ReusePass achieves a 98%+ return rate, drastically reducing single-use packaging waste, while StreamLineoptimizes production with AI-powered smart scales to prevent food waste. Together, these solutions help decarbonize food systems and conserve resources across campuses and enterprises.
Stage: Series A.
Interested in Topanga?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Transportation
3. Novac
Founded: 2020 – Modena, IT
Founder: Matteo Bertocchi
Elevator Pitch: Novac is developing a groundbreaking shapeable pouch structural supercapacitor that offers automotive manufacturers new design freedom, enhanced safety, and superior performance for electric and hybrid vehicles.
Problem they solve: Traditional energy storage components in EVs are bulky, rigid, and limit vehicle design flexibility while posing safety concerns. Novac addresses these challenges by enabling custom-shaped supercapacitors that integrate seamlessly into vehicle structures without compromising performance or safety.
Impact: By improving energy density, charge/discharge rates, and safety in EV power systems, Novac’s technology supports the widespread adoption of electric vehicles—reducing reliance on fossil fuels and lowering transport-related emissions. Their lightweight, structural energy storage also contributes to improved vehicle efficiency and range.
Stage: Seed.
Want to learn more about Novac?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Energy
4. Supercritical
Founded: 2020 – London, UK
Founder: Gaël Gobaille-Shaw
Elevator Pitch: Supercritical is a clean energy company developing the world’s first high-pressure, ultra-efficient electrolyser to deliver green hydrogen at industry-leading efficiency and purity. Its cutting-edge technology reduces the cost of hydrogen production without relying on subsidies, making zero-emission energy accessible and scalable.
Problem they solve: Hydrogen is critical to decarbonizing the hardest 20% of global emissions, but current production methods are inefficient, expensive, and rely on rare materials. Supercritical addresses the high costs, material dependencies, and scalability challenges that prevent green hydrogen from becoming mainstream.
Impact: Supercritical’s electrolyser operates at full system efficiencies of up to 42kWh/kgH2 and 99% purity, reducing the operational footprint of hydrogen production. By eliminating the use of PFAS, membranes, and iridium, it offers a sustainable, scalable solution to replace fossil-based hydrogen, aiming to reduce hydrogen production costs to under £1/kgH2 and accelerate the transition to a net-zero economy.
Industry
5. Epoch Biodesign
Founded: 2019 – London, UK
Founder: Jacob Nathan
Elevator Pitch: Epoch Biodesign is pioneering biorecycling through an AI-driven platform that designs enzymes capable of breaking down hard-to-recycle plastics and textiles at low temperatures. Their technology enables infinite recycling loops and generates sustainable raw materials for industries like apparel, automotive, and packaging.
Problem they solve: Conventional recycling methods fall short when it comes to complex, blended, or low-grade plastics and textiles—most of which end up in landfills or incinerators. Epoch solves this challenge by engineering enzymes that can degrade these materials efficiently, economically, and sustainably, enabling true circularity.
Impact: By enabling closed-loop recycling for materials like nylon and polyester, Epoch drastically reduces plastic pollution and dependency on virgin fossil-based inputs. Their low-temperature, enzyme-powered process cuts emissions and energy use, supporting a circular and low-impact materials economy.
Stage: Seed.
Interested in Epoch Biodesign?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Do you know of other startups we should include in our Startups to Watch Series? Submit to our list!
How do these startups fit in with all the others we have looked at?
Check out our running list of the 400+ climate tech startups to watch we have featured.
