Climate News | TechCrunch

Axle Energy’s sprint to decarbonize the grid lights up with $9M seed led by Accel

Natasha Lomas — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 07:01:00 +0000

Axle Energy is a B2B, back-end infrastructure business focused on connecting flexible assets, such as electric vehicles and home batteries, to energy markets that aren't otherwise available for consumers to dip into.

Leaf helps farms decipher the troves of data they generate

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:03:34 +0000

Farms produce a lot of data. From machines to irrigation systems, farms generate a lot of information that could be helpful to both them and the companies that serve them. Traditionally this data has been siloed across different formats, making it hard to read and build off of. Leaf is trying to change that. New […]

Applied Carbon’s farm robot turns plant waste into biochar to capture CO2

Tim De Chant — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

The startup has raised $21.5 million to build more of its machines and deploy them throughout the U.S.

Bill Gates-backed Type One Energy lands massive seed extension to commercialize fusion power

Tim De Chant — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

The startup is betting it can bring its fusion technology to market at a breakneck pace by leaning heavily on partners.

Energy tech startup Greenely grabs €8M to reach more households and support Europe’s energy transition

Natasha Lomas — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

The energy transition is a marathon, not a sprint. But opportunities for acceleration are growing. Swedish startup Greenely* has just spotted one. It’s closing an €8 million Series A funding round to expand its energy management platform into neighbouring Nordic countries (so around $8.7M at current exchange rates). The energy tech startup is serving around […]

GM-backed Addionics aims to make lithium-ion batteries cheaper with wavy foil

Tim De Chant — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 11:00:00 +0000

The startup has developed a way to create copper and aluminum foils that are laced with tiny holes and riddled with undulating peaks and valleys.

Micropep taps tiny proteins to make pesticides safer

Tim De Chant, Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 13:00:21 +0000

Farmers have got to do something about pests. But nobody really likes the idea of using more chemical pesticides. Thomas Laurent’s company, Micropep, thinks the answer might already be in the plants themselves. Micropep is exploring how naturally occurring compounds known as micropeptides might work as an entirely new class of pesticides. If the startup […]

Terradepth wants to map the rest of the ocean floor

Rebecca Szkutak, Tim De Chant — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 20:53:47 +0000

After hearing that a U.S. Navy submarine ran into an underwater mountain, Joe Wolfel was surprised to find out just how little both government and commercial organizations knew about the ocean floor. It stuck with him throughout his time in the Navy and years later he launched a company to try to fix it. Wolfel […]

Farmblox puts the control into farmers’ hands with its AI-powered sensor-reading platform

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:11:03 +0000

Nathan Rosenberg, the founder of farm automation platform Farmblox, said if there is one thing to know about trying to sell technology to farmers, it’s that you can’t tell them what to do. “[Farmers] are multigenerational,” Rosenberg told TechCrunch. “It is not a profession, it’s more a community, a way of life, and you need […]

Tracking the EV battery factory construction boom across North America

Rebecca Bellan — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 13:31:20 +0000

A wave of automakers and battery makers — foreign and domestic — have pledged to produce North American–made batteries before 2030.

CrowdStrike chaos leads to grounded aircraft — and maybe an unusual weather effect

Tim De Chant — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:48:26 +0000

The IT outage may have an unexpected effect on the climate: clearer skies and maybe lower temperatures this evening

Without this company’s technology, future fusion power plants might never light up

Tim De Chant — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Marathon Fusion emerges from stealth with a plan to help fusion power plants extract tritium, a necessary fuel.

WHAM! Nuclear fusion experiment hits new record for magnet strength

Tim De Chant — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Strong magnets are essential for the type of fusion power being pursued by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and a number of other startups.

Mitti Labs aims to make rice farming less harmful to the climate, starting in India

Jagmeet Singh — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 04:30:11 +0000

Mitti Labs aims to transform rice farming in India and other South Asian markets by reducing methane emissions by 50% and water consumption by 30%.

A startup set out to fight climate change — it did it by helping plumbers

Mike Butcher — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:31:17 +0000

HERO Software has closed a €40 million Series B financing round, and plans to expand across Europe.

Fusion pioneer Commonwealth Fusion Systems is selling core magnet tech to the University of Wisconsin

Tim De Chant — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Fusion power may still be a few years away, but one startup is laying the groundwork for what it hopes will become a bustling sector of the economy.

NovoNutrients tweaks its bugs to turn CO2 into protein for people and pets

Tim De Chant — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:55:57 +0000

NovoNutrients has raised a $18 million Series A round from investors to build a pilot-scale facility to prove that its fermentation process works at scale.

Whataburger app becomes unlikely power outage map after Houston hurricane

Amanda Silberling — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:19:38 +0000

Fast-food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those people may remain without power for days as Houston anticipates a heat wave, with temperatures climbing into the mid-90s. Amid frustrations with the local utility […]

Byway is using AI to help travelers slow down and take the scenic route

Natasha Lomas — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast-forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing the close of an oversubscribed £5.04 million Series A round (around $6.4 million at current exchange rates). […]

Spain’s exposure to climate change helps Madrid-based VC Seaya close €300M climate tech fund

Mike Butcher — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 15:50:36 +0000

According to a recent Dealroom report on the Spanish tech ecosystem, the combined enterprise value of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023. In the latest confirmation of this upward trend, Madrid-based VC fund Seaya has closed Seaya Andromeda, an “Article 9” €300 million climate tech fund based out of Madrid. Article 9 refers to the EU’s Sustainable […]