April Week 1, 2023: In this monthly series, we highlight 5 climate tech startups to watch by featuring the incredible startups, companies, or projects that are leading the fight against the climate crisis.
Each month, we add these startups to our running list, which we have categorized based on fuel emission sector data from the most detailed, recent data SBC could identify from the World Resource Institute in 2016.
This initiative from Startup Basecamp aims to support founders by giving them access to networking and exposure opportunities that help them to scale and finance their climate tech solutions.
Do not hesitate to join our collective movement by requesting your membership.
With care,
Guillaume and the SBC TEAM
Energy use in transport
1. Elonroad
Founded:
2014 – Lund, Sweden
Founder:
Dan Zethraeus
Elevator Pitch:
Elonroad offers a charging infrastructure for all electric vehicles.
Problem they solve:
A holistic charging solution for all electric vehicles – commercial or private, light or heavy, autonomous or not, to use while driving or parked. Data heavy, highly connected and fully automatic! The system can be used to build charging infrastructure such as electric roads, charging stations and opportunity chargers at stops and loading bays. We provide the necessary next steps to electrify the future of transportation in a sustainable way!
Impact:
Transports are one of the biggest challenges to tackle in the climate crisis. We are in the midst of a massive paradigm shift, with increasing growth in online retail where transports and logistics are a necessity. Instead of bringing transportation to a grinding halt, we decided to try and redefine the conditions for electrified transportation and come up with a more sustainable alternative.
Stage:
Series A
Interested in Elonroad?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here
2. Roev
Founded:
2020 – Brisbane, Australia
Founders:
Noah Wasmer, Paul Slade, Robert Dietz
Elevator Pitch:
We convert your fleet to electric to lower your organizations carbon footprint and reduce running costs.
Problem they solve:
Australia is a world leader in solar generation. However, from 6-8pm – our grid suffers from the loss of sun, and without adequate renewable energy storage – we fall back on fossil fuels. Roev is addressing the problem by creating “batteries on wheels” through EV conversions of light commercial utes.
Our EV Fleet program is tailored to meet the needs of fleets, councils, and businesses. Best yet, we can convert your incoming new or existing lightly used vehicles. Roev is built to support your transition to electric!
Impact:
We are more than an EV conversion company. We are helping unlock a world with abundant and accessible renewable energy. It’s a big, audacious goal but one that we believe is doable and necessary.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Roev?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Industry
3. Lisus Energy
Founded:
2020 – Los Angeles, CA, USA
Founders:
Oscar Neyra-Nazarrett and Maxime Le Mével
Elevator Pitch:
LISUS is developing the new cutting-edge technology to unlock the essential materials needed for a net zero world.
Problem they solve:
We need more metals, not less. Wind, solar, geothermal power, and energy storage are deployed alongside Electric Vehicles at an unprecedented pace to transition to a low-carbon and clean energy economy. The demand for the critical minerals fuelling these technologies is set to explode by 400-600% and for lithium by as much as 1,000%. These materials are essential but they are already in shortage putting significant risk on climate goals and increasing threats to energy security. We need to mine more metals in a safe, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive way.
Offering maximal performance and optimal energy density in comparison to any other metal, Lithium is irreplaceable for the energy transition and more specifically the high energy batteries that power electric vehicles or store the energy in the power grid. New gigafactories are announced every month – which is great – but demand is growing significantly faster than supply with shortages expected until 2025. We need to develop additional lithium resources very fast.
Impact:
We help businesses unlock the secrets of the earth with our revolutionary patent pending AI mining tool and take your mining operation to the next level.
We allow businesses to make the most of their projects trough the optimization of their exploration processes, by using our state-of-the-art AI technologies to identify the most promising areas in their site.
Stage:
Seed
Want to learn more about Lisus Energy?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use
4. Pivotal
Founded:
2022 – Cambridge, UK
Founders:
Cameron Frayling and Zoe Balmforth
Elevator Pitch:
We are a team of ecologists, technologists and entrepreneurs who believe good business must be good for nature. We’re building an economy that puts nature and business in balance. An economy for our future – where there’s always a positive exchange
Problem they solve:
We use drones, acoustic and image sensors to monitor plant and animal life in detail on the ground across our suppliers’ land. By applying technology, expert knowledge and machine learning, we can measure biodiversity – efficiently, accurately, and at scale.
We quantify the uplift in biodiversity by taking several key factors into account: the number of different species present, the abundance of each species, the prevalence of threatened species, and the size and cohesion of habitat. This uplift is then translated into a tradeable asset.
This tradeable asset can then be traded between suppliers and buyers on the Pivotal Nature Exchange. Both parties gain from the uplift in nature and monetary value.
Impact:
By measuring and creating value in biodiversity, we can start to build an economy that puts nature and business in balance.
The more the planet profits, the more investors, suppliers and businesses profit too.
Suppliers are paid to keep increasing the biodiversity on their land. Businesses make an immediate impact on their sustainability commitments. Investors in regeneration benefit from financial returns. And nature flourishes from the success of investment and business growth.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Pivotal?
To learn more about this company, see here.
Founded:
2022 – Menlo Park, CA, USA
Founders:
Josh Silverman and Louis Stenmark
Elevator Pitch:
Windfall Bio is naturally transforming methane into organic soil nutrients.
Problem they solve:
In the past 2 decades, we’ve mobilized around reducing and sequestering CO2, but CH4 remains critically under-addressed.
“Methanotrophs” are a family of naturally occurring soil microbes that eat methane, and transform it into bioavailable nutrients for plants. Like tiny trees that eat CH4, instead of CO2. Mimicking nature’s blueprint we’ve found a way to cultivate and scale this solution for the world.
We’re bringing nature’s power of methane transformation to farmers, turning this climate woe into an agricultural windfall.
Impact:
By restoring Methane Eating Microbes to their land, farmers will help re-establish soil’s place as earth’s biggest Methane mitigator and prevent 0.5°C of warming by 2050, that’s equivalent to ⅓ of the temperature target set by the Paris Climate Agreement.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Windfall Bio?
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 350+ climate tech startups to watch we have featured.
