July 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. Aed Energy
Founded:
2022 – London, UK
Founders:
Elevator Pitch:
Lowering the cost of decarbonised power and heat.
Problem they solve:
We are at a crossroads in the emergent global transition to a clean energy future. The sun radiates immense energy, and strong wind currents flow in interminable cycles across the face of the planet.
Yet these vast energy resources can only be transformed into on-demand, clean global heat and power using low cost energy storage – this is our mission critical work.
Impact:
We are unlocking heat to power applications for thermal energy batteries and industrial waste heat sources. Our innovative thermal storage systems are designed to optimise use of low-cost materials combined with our novel heat to power technology.
Aed Energy’s core technology is a radiant heat energy to electricity solid state power cycle based on the photovoltaic effect.
Stage:
Pre-Seed
Interested in Aed Energy?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here
Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use
2. BurnBot
Founded:
2022 – San Francisco, USA
Founders: Dr. Waleed S, “Lee” Haddad and Dr. Anukool Lakhina
Elevator Pitch:
BurnBot builds and operates systems to prevent destructive wildfires by scaling fuel treatment.
Problem they solve:
We can’t hire our way out of the megafire problem. Even with larger, skilled prescribed burn workforces, there’s risk of escaped fires, smoke hazards, and resulting carbon emissions. The burden treatment remains on landowners, many of whom are low-income, elderly, or disabled. Prescribed burns are dependent on short and fast-changing burn windows and have restrictions based on terrain, ecology, and landscape conditions. Prescribed burns require extensive pre-planning to identify sites, create fire breaks, igniting large areas by hand, monitoring the burn with little to keep the spread in check—and finally, ensuring that all fire and embers are extinguished.
Impact:
BurnBot’s controlled system is modular to meet the needs of the land
We combine hardware, automations, drones, and state of the art software to deliver a system that expands true force multiplication of fuels management programs.
Our remote-operated machines thin and burn safely for maximum fuel treatment with minimal impact on the environment.
Through iterative development and testing plans, we’re always improving the core technology that fuels the BurnBot system.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in BurnBot?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use
3. Holo
Founded:
2022 – New York, USA
Founders:
Ludvig Suneson and Pontus Abrahamsson
Elevator Pitch:
We are building the future of regenerative agriculture.
Problem they solve:
Regenerative farming practices are still too expensive to scale because the marginal cost for crop diversification is too high. Growing a diversified set of crops is essential to nourish the soil and to fight weeds and pests without conventional spraying. But for each crop you add to your production, the cost for crop planning, team admin, sales and regulatory reporting grows
exponentially.
Impact:
We are developing the worlds first AI-powered crop planner that will revolutionize your ability to optimize your crop plan and maximize your yields. Once configured, all you have to do is to is to press a button to automatically generate a crop plan that is optimized for your harvest forecast, greenhouses, fields, high-tunnels, crop specifications, weather data, historic planting, inputs, and soil tests.
Stage:
Pre-Seed
Want to learn more about Holo?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Cross-cutting enablers
Founded:
2022 – London, UK
Leadership:
Jon Pillow, Robert Forrest, Nic Stirk, and Dr Jonathan Bean
Elevator Pitch:
Accelerating change to net-zero materials
Problem they solve:
The importance of advanced materials is critical as we move to net-zero, yet their social, environmental and economic costs are high and significant performance improvements are essential. Finding next-generation materials that are more accessible, less damaging and more effective through traditional methods requires decades of research which is too slow for our imminent needs.
Impact:
Materials Nexus is a deep-tech start-up on a mission to discover new materials that significantly reduce the environment, economical and social cost of items critical to our lives. Our ground-breaking AI-enabled software transforms the way new materials are discovered and designed. Using rapid automated processes and advanced quantum calculations we work with partners to reduce global CO2e emissions and accelerate the discovery of next-gen materials from decades to months.
Stage:
Seed
Interested in Materials Nexus?
To learn more about this company, see here
Energy use in Industry and Buildings
5. NLine Energy
Founded:
2010 – Hood River, Oregon, USA
Founder:
Matthew Swindle
Elevator Pitch:
We recover wasted energy and turn it into clean, renewable power.
Problem they solve:
Wasted energy found in water transmission and distribution systems. We identify the most profitable kilowatts for our customers.
Impact:
Our engineers deliver a payback, starting with efficient and effective design through commissioning, remote monitoring and maintenance. NLine Energy has you covered from cradle to grave. We seek to illuminate the unseen opportunities that use existing infrastructure and generate clean power from wasted energy. We revel in the development process, motivated to create a bespoke, elegant solutions for tough problems. At our core, our goal has always been to deliver robust and reliable projects that save our customers money.
Stage:
Series A
Interested in NLine?
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.
