March Week 2, 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. Renaissance Fusion
Founded: 2020 – Grenoble, FR
Leadertship: Francesco Volpe
Elevator Pitch: Renaissance Fusion is a European nuclear fusion startup pioneering the commercialization of stellarators—the most efficient, stable, and steady fusion reactors. By simplifying stellarator construction through directly patterned high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets and liquid metal shielding, the company aims to bring fusion energy to the grid and make fusion electricity cheap, clean, and scalable.
Problem they solve: Traditional fusion approaches face critical challenges including engineering complexity, energy inefficiency, and high costs. Stellarators, while promising, have historically been too complex to scale. At the same time, the world urgently needs a carbon-free, reliable, and abundant energy source to meet growing demand and mitigate climate change.
Impact: Renaissance Fusion is developing a zero-emissions energy source that uses no fossil fuels, emits no CO₂, and offers limitless clean energy once operational. Their innovative approach to building HTS-based stellarators dramatically simplifies deployment, bringing fusion energy closer to commercial reality. The long-term impact is a decarbonized global energy system powered by safe, sustainable, and abundant fusion power.
Stage: Series A.
Interested in Renaissance Fusion?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here.
Food, Agriculture & Land Use
2. Avalo
Founded: 2020 – North Carolina, USA
Founder: Brendan Collins
Elevator Pitch: Avalo is revolutionizing plant breeding through its AI-powered Rapid Evolution™ platform, creating more resilient, sustainable, and profitable crops faster and more affordably than traditional methods. By blending natural diversity with cutting-edge machine learning, Avalo is accelerating agriculture’s ability to adapt to climate change and meet global food demands.
Problem they solve: Modern agriculture relies heavily on input-intensive practices that harm soil health, pollute ecosystems, and contribute to climate change. Crop development is also too slow and expensive to keep up with the pace of environmental shifts. Avalo addresses this by speeding up the evolution of crops without genetic modification, enabling climate resilience, input reduction, and regional adaptation—all while expanding genetic diversity.
Impact: Avalo’s platform enables the development of crops that require less water, fertilizer, and pesticides, reducing carbon emissions, chemical runoff, and land degradation. The result is a low-input, high-output agricultural future that supports biodiversity, enhances food nutrition, and helps stabilize food systems in a changing climate.
Stage: Series A.
Interested in Avalo?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Transportation
3. Chemix
Founded: 2021 – Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Founders: Kaixiang Lin & Jason Koeller
Elevator Pitch: Chemix is revolutionizing EV battery development by leveraging AI to accelerate material discovery and optimization, reducing development time by 10x compared to conventional methods. With AI-driven design, Chemix is pioneering sustainable, high-performance battery chemistries that eliminate cobalt and, ultimately, reduce dependence on nickel and lithium—all while maintaining seamless compatibility with existing Li-ion battery manufacturing capacity.
Problem they solve: Battery innovation is critical for the transition to electric vehicles, but traditional battery R&D is slow, expensive, and resource-intensive. The industry also faces supply chain risks and ethical concerns due to reliance on cobalt, nickel, and lithium, which are costly, environmentally damaging, and subject to geopolitical instability.
Impact: By eliminating cobalt and reducing reliance on nickel and lithium, Chemix is creating more sustainable EV batteries with lower environmental and ethical costs. The company’s AI-driven approach accelerates the discovery of high-performance, next-gen battery chemistries, enabling faster EV adoption and reducing reliance on resource-intensive mining. Chemix’s mission aligns with the broader goal of decarbonizing transportation by making EV batteries cleaner, more efficient, and more accessible.
Stage: Series A.
Want to learn more about Chemix?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Energy
4. Exowatt
Founded: 2023 – Miami, USA
Founders: Hannan Happi & Jack Abraham
Elevator Pitch: Exowatt is a next-generation renewable energy company delivering a modular, full-stack solution that provides dispatchable power and heat for up to 24 hours a day. Purpose-built for energy-intensive industries like data centers, Exowatt enables reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable energy—anytime, anywhere.
Problem they solve:
Impact: Exowatt’s technology supports continuous, zero-emissions energy for hard-to-decarbonize sectors. By combining renewable generation, thermal storage, and intelligent system design, the platform reduces reliance on fossil fuels, cuts greenhouse gas emissions, and accelerates the transition to clean, always-available power—enabling a greener industrial future.
Industry
5. Claros Technologies
Founded: 2018 – Minneapolis, USA
Leadership: Michelle Bellanca
Elevator Pitch: Claros Technologies is a cutting-edge materials and environmental tech company delivering continuous, high-efficiency destruction of PFAS in water and wastewater. With advanced analytical services and sustainable functional materials, Claros is engineering circular economy solutions that tackle today’s toughest environmental challenges.
Problem they solve: PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” are among the most persistent and harmful pollutants found in water systems. Traditional filtration methods only remove PFAS temporarily, creating secondary waste. Claros addresses this by offering 99.99% destruction of PFAS—including long, short, and ultrashort chain compounds—in a continuous, scalable process.
Impact: Claros’s technology offers a game-changing solution to one of the most pressing global water contamination issues. By eliminating PFAS at the molecular level, Claros helps prevent toxic buildup in ecosystems and human health. In addition, their sustainable functional materials reduce chemical treatments in textiles, promoting longer-lasting products and supporting a circular economy.
Stage: Series A.
Interested in Claros Technologies?
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.
