April Week 3, 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 Industry and Buildings
1. InRange
Founded:
2021 – London, UK
Founder:
John Mushriqui
Elevator Pitch:
InRange is the local carbon-free energy marketplace.
Problem they solve:
With InRange, you can examine and measure the maximum potential onsite renewable energy generation of your sites, have actionable procurement insights into offsite renewable energy aggregation from viable commercial solar sites, and purchase energy through InRange, a single point of access to multiple clean energy generators.
Impact:
We’re on a mission to create reliable local carbon-free energy at scale so that our local grids become 100% renewable. We bring electricity supply and demand response together to keep things simple and save you money on your bill. We understand that for leading energy buyers, governments and suppliers, it’s essential to focus on hourly decarbonization of local and regional electricity grids.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in InRange?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here
Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use
Founded:
2021 – San Francisco, CA, USA
Founders:
Alex Brown, Daria Balatsky, and Caroline Anne McKeon
Elevator Pitch:
We are decreasing agricultural methane emissions using one of the most scalable resources on our planet: algae.
Problem they solve:
We’re using biochemistry to eliminate enteric methane emissions, save farmers money, and buy the world more time in the fight against climate change.
Impact:
With less energy allocated towards methane production, each cow requires substantially less feed to maintain the same weight.
Our feed additive is inexpensive, highly scalable, safe for cattle, and reduces their methane emissions by 90%.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Alga Biosciences?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Founded:
2020 – San Francisco, CA, USA
Founders:
Michael Buckwald, Vasya Tremsin, and Anton Tremsin
Elevator Pitch:
Torch Sensors detect wildfires early and prevent disaster at the start.
Problem they solve:
Traditional outdoor fire detection methods have repeatedly failed at detecting fires early enough, resulting in huge wildfires destroying the environment and causing billions of dollars in damage, year after year.
Torch has taken a radically new [and simply more effective] approach compared to watchtowers, satellite imagery, or ultra-expensive camera equipment. Torch consists of distributed solar-powered IoT devices that are installed in just a few minutes. Our highly affordable price point allows for wide adoption: from consumers looking to protect their private property, to agriculture and vineyard owners, to utility companies and governments.
Impact:
As a California-based team, we’ve witnessed fires bringing destruction and intoxicating smoke. That’s why our mission is to make outdoor fire detection as widespread as indoor fire detection. We won’t stop until Torch sensors cover every piece of land at high-risk of outdoor fires. This will directly improve air quality and decrease carbon emissions.
Stage:
Seed
Want to learn more about Torch Sensors?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Founded:
2020 – Incline Village, NV, USA
Leadership:
Allison Wolff, Neil Hunt, Scott Conway, Ashley Saydah, Guy Bayes, and Geoff Curless
Elevator Pitch:
Vibrant Planet has created a cloud-based planning and monitoring tool for agile, adaptive land management at any scale.
Problem they solve:
Our software provides real-time scenario planning, monitoring, and reporting for natural resource managers seeking to improve community and wildland resilience to wildfire and climate change. Our system calculates the potential avoided loss and ecosystem services value of each land management and community wildfire protection treatment, helping to qualify projects for carbon, water, biodiversity and other types of conservation finance.
Impact:
Vibrant Planet harnesses data driven science and cloud-based technology to help make communities and ecosystems more resilient in the face of climate change.
Our goal is to help planners and policy makers save lives, avoid trillions of dollars in infrastructure loss, and restore the ability of natural systems to store carbon, deliver clean water, and support biodiversity, local economies, and recreational habits.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Vibrant Planet?
To learn more about this company, see here.
GHG Capture, Use, and Storage
Founded:
2023 – Vancouver, Canada
Founders:
Silko Barth and André Sobolewski
Elevator Pitch:
Blue Skies Minerals Inc captures and stores atmospheric carbon dioxide in mining waste and sells the resulting carbon credits.
Problem they solve:
Blue Skies Minerals is developing the Carbonated Tailings Process. In this process, a carbonated solution produced by a Direct Air Capture system is blended with ground mining wastes (mine tailings) along with additives, and this mixture is disposed together with waste rock. Carbon is converted to carbonate minerals and is permanently retained.
Our process eliminates metal leaching from mining wastes, providing a tangible environmental benefit.
Impact:
Our Carbonated Tailings Process is designed to achieve the highest possible impact on climate by sequestering large volumes of atmospheric CO₂. We estimate that we will remove 1-3 MTons CO₂/yr at each mining operation. By the mid-2040’s, we expect to have removed over 1.0 Gigaton of atmospheric CO₂ through 25 mining operations.
Stage:
Pre-seed
Interested in Blue Skies Minerals?
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.
