Happy Friday
What we’re reading this week:
Carmakers bet on hybrids as shift to EVs slows (FT)
Biden admin. pressures CA to build more community solar (P)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
Financial management platform Altruist raised a $169M Series E at a $1.5B valuation led by ICONIQ Growth (BW)
Hysata, an Australian startup developing sustainable electrolyzers, raised a $111M Series B led by bp Ventures and Templewater (FN)
Meati Foods, an seven-year-old Boulder startup that produces plant-based meat alternatives using a proprietary ingredient derived from the root structure of mushrooms, raised a $100 million Series C-1 round led by Grosvenor Food & AgTech. TechCrunch has more here.
Battery recycling tech startup Li Industries raised a $36M Series B led by Bosch Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and LG Technology Ventures (PRN)
Stargate Hydrogen, a startup providing green hydrogen solutions, raised a ~$47M seed round led by UG Investments and IPCEI (FN)
Zanskar, a three-year-old Salt Lake City startup that is focused on discovering and developing geothermal resources using advanced technologies like AI to reduce risks and costs associated with geothermal development, raised a $30 million round led by Obvious Ventures. More here.
Rize, a Singaporean startup that uses data analysis to help rice farmers implement sustainable farming practices, raised a $14 million Series A round from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero, Temasek, and Wavemaker Impact. Viet Nam News has more here.
Pascal, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that is developing solid refrigerants for the HVAC industry that are designed to be environmentally friendly and more energy-efficient than traditional gaseous refrigerants, raised an $8 million seed round led by Engine Ventures. More here.
Carbon data visualization startup Electricity Maps raised a $5.4M round from Transition and Revent (TC)
Umgrauemeio, an eight-year-old Brazilian startup that uses AI and remote cameras to detect and manage forest fires, raised a $3.6 million round. Baraúna Investimentos, Indicator Capital, Yield Lab Latam, and Rural Ventures invested in the deal. More here.
Cultimate Foods, a two-year-old Berlin startup that creates a cell-cultivated premium fat ingredient for alternative meat producers, raised a $2.5 round million seed round. High-Tech Gründerfonds was the deal lead, with additional participation from Life Science Valley Wachstumsfonds, b.value AG, Kale United, and Big Idea Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
Green Theory
Designing your 1.5 acre farm
As a human citizen of planet earth, you might be surprised to learn you have a 1.5-acre farm, just for you!
If we add up all land dedicated to agriculture, and scale it down to a human level, it shows us the relative footprint of our different foods in a more comprehensible format.
While agricultural land per person has decreased over the last several decades, the size of each human’s personal farm, multiplied by the number of people, mean we use nearly half of all livable land for agriculture.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffd4596e8-e063-4c04-b4a2-22c05cb5cc4a_1848x1130.png)
When it comes to total land footprint, cows dominate a majority of our arable land on earth. In total, animal foods, including land for animal feed, makes up nearly 80% of our agricultural land, offering only 17% of the global calorie supply. A measly 17% of our agricultural land, meanwhile, provides the other 83% of our calories, in the form of legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits, and all other plant-based foods.
Your personal farm
For the average person on earth, your living space is about 215 square feet, or 20 square meters. Your allocation of global farming, however, takes up a whopping 65,000 square feet, or roughly 1.5 acres. How does it look?
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff363b7a8-f103-4b21-9d8e-44b074cbc1cb_1926x1810.png)
From overhead, you can see your dwelling with bright laminate flooring in the bottom-left corner (white above, grey below). Stretching to the north and east, your personal farm extends before you. You’ll find that even your personal chicken coop is larger than your living space!
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6894759f-67e9-4630-b95d-e01359d06481_1630x1224.png)
Improving your farm’s efficiency
As you peruse the slice of human agriculture allocated to you, you might be wondering: how much more room would I have if I skipped certain animal products? Crops for animals take up almost as much space as those grown for human consumption, and about one third of the extensive pasture lands would be suitable for crops, instead.
Indeed, the footprint of non-meat foods, and especially plant-based foods, is far smaller. A vegan diet would reduce your farm’s size by about 75%, for instance. We can comfortably achieve the same level of calories, and even the same level of protein, just from plants, with dramatically less land, not to mention other resources.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06f5a2a5-40a0-4b5d-b218-8d78c263cea6_1708x972.png)
Another lever, besides which foods we choose, is how much we waste them. This vector of agricultural impacts leads us to another key factor in getting more accurate with how your “personal farm” might look: not all regions consume foods the same ways.
For instance, the average North American demands more meat and wastes more food than the average person on most other continents.
Building your farm, one plate at a time
Every meal, we make a small impact in the shape of our little personal farm. For those of us in the US, the average personal farm is far larger than 1.5 acres, making the decisions even more consequential than the worldwide average model would indicate.
Nonetheless, seeing the human-level average of a world of farming choices helps put our complex and expansive global agricultural footprint into perspective.
As we continue to build more relatable and relevant models, we hope you enjoy this first humble attempt at visualizing the average human’s personal farm.
The Closer
Researchers at MIT CSAIL and Project CETI have used machine learning to decipher a form of sperm whale "alphabet." The groundbreaking study, published as "Contextual and Combinatorial Structure in Sperm Whale Vocalizations," represents a significant advancement in our comprehension of marine mammals' communication, according to Tech Crunch.