November Week 3, 2023: In this weekly 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
GHG Capture, Use, and Storage
1. Carbon Crusher
Founded: 2016 – Copenhagen, DK
Founders: Haakon Brunell and Hans Arne Flåto
Elevator Pitch: They are crushing roads in need of maintenance, reusing the old road materials, replacing heavy oil with carbon binding lignin. This is both a cheaper, more durable and net carbon negative method, removing ~1.5 tonnes CO2 from the atmosphere from every 100 feet of road.
Problem they solve: The world is covered with more than ~40 million miles (70 million km) of roads connecting people and keeping our society moving. Building and maintaining these roads are also a source of 400 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, while they at the same time suffer from huge refurbishment lag. They tackle both of these problems, refurbishing roads in a faster, cheaper and more durable way – and increasing circularity and absorbing carbon.
Impact: They recycle the road on the spot and use a lignin-based binder which binds carbon in the road, instead of heavy oil. This makes their method reduce carbon emissions of ~3.5 ton per 100 feet of road relative to traditional methods, and remove ~1.5 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
Stage: Seed.
Interested in Carbon Crusher?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch, see here.
Energy use in Industry and Buildings
2. Carbonauten
Founded: 2017 – Giengen, DE
Founder: Torsten Becker
Elevator Pitch: To drive the decarbonization of industry, carbonauten has developed a system that reduces emissions and costs. The central element is the development and production of innovative, CO2-negative materials. carbonauten NET Materials® (Negative Emission Technology). They consist of a combination of technically specified biocarbons with various binders, have better properties and are cheaper than conventional materials.
Attractive by-products are base-load renewable energy (heat, electricity, hydrogen) and environmentally friendly platform biochemicals and CO2 certificates.
Problem they solve: Conventional materials often contribute to high CO2 emissions and are increasingly financially burdensome. Carbonauten addresses this by offering an alternative in the form of NET Materials®, which are not only CO2-negative but also superior and more cost-effective than their traditional counterparts.
Impact: By replacing more polluting materials, these products offer a way to drastically reduce industrial CO2 emissions. The process of creating these materials also generates renewable energy and valuable biochemicals, contributing further to environmental sustainability.
Stage: Seed.
Interested in Carbonauten?
If you are interested in learning more, see here.
Cross-cutting enablers
3. Bedrock Ocean
Founded: 2019 – Brooklyn, NY, USA
Founders: Anthony DiMare and Charles Chiau
Elevator Pitch: They are a vertically-integrated ocean exploration company developing proprietary robotics and software to quickly and cheaply explore the entirety of the Earth’s oceans on a scale not possible with today’s technology. They offer subsea survey services (Hydro, Geo, UXO, etc.) as well as paired cloud & local software to effectively store, process and make sense of your organization’s subsea data.
Problem they solve: Understanding our oceans is critical for more accurate climate models, improved weather predictions, ocean safety, submarine communications infrastructure, and sustainable ocean exploration.
Impact: Bedrock is committed to providing the world with a free, publicly available map of our world’s oceans, over 50x more detailed than the current best public map available. Bedrock is redesigning the marine survey experience from the ground up to pave the way for detailed mapping and interpretation of seafloor data.
Stage: Series A.
Want to learn more about Bedrock Ocean?
To learn more about their technology or get in touch see here.
Energy use in Transport
4. Brill Power
Founded: 2016 – Oxford, UK
Founders: Christoph Birkl and Adrien Bizeray
Problem they solve: The fundamental issue with Lithium-ion battery cells is that they lose their energy and power capabilities over time and at different rates. Standard battery designs result in battery packs being limited by their weakest cell. This wastes the potential of fully functioning cells within a pack. Resulting in shorter lifespans and reduced performance for battery packs in all applications.
Impact: Brill Power harnesses the potential in novel battery management systems to improve the performance and reduce the costs of ownership of stationary & motive power batteries as an enabling and sustainable technology for society.
Stage: Series A.
Interested in Brill Power?
To learn more about this company, see here.
Cross-cutting enablers
5. Level Nine
Founded: 2023 – Berlin, DE
Founders: Emily Sheridan and Seadna Quigley
Elevator Pitch: Combining biomimicry with supramolecular chemistry and AI-powered design, Level Nine works at the intersection of a range of cutting-edge scientific areas to develop the next generation in sustainable catalysts for industrial biomanufacturing.
Problem they solve: The industrial biomanufacturing sector faces the critical challenge of improving efficiency and sustainability while maintaining production standards. Traditional catalysts used in chemical processes often rely on environmentally harmful methods and materials. Level Nine Labs addresses this by harnessing the power of biomimicry, the specificity of supramolecular chemistry, and AI’s predictive prowess to create catalysts that are not only more effective but also environmentally friendly.
Impact: At Level Nine they are on a mission to unlock the potential of industrial biomanufacturing to achieve a sustainable, fossil-free chemicals industry. They believe that this is one the most important challenges of the century, but one that will lead to incredibly exciting possibilities.
Stage: Early Stage.
Interested in Level Nine?
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.
