🥦 Word of the Day: Syzygy
(079) Definition: Celestial alignment and/or a cool climate tech startup
Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
We’re going to leave this section blank this week to encourage you to spend more time flipping through the Top Deals of the Week Section! Especially because we took last week off for TG, there are tons of really exciting companies to check out.
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
Swell Energy, a startup building virtual power plants (they aid in transmission and load shifting on the grid), raised a $120M round led by SoftBank and Greenbacker Capital (BW)
Syzygy Plasmonics, a five-year-old Houston startup that is developing all-electric reactor systems that eliminate fossil-based combustion from chemical manufacturing, raised a $76 million Series C round led by Carbon Direct Capital (RU)
Dandelion Energy, a five-year-old startup based in Mount Kisco, N.Y., that helps homeowners tap into geothermal energy sources, raised a $70 million Series B1 round co-led by LENX and NGP ETP (BBG)
Modern Milkman, a four-year-old startup based in Manchester, UK, that operates a grocery delivery service with a focus on reducing plastic waste, raised a $60 million Series C round. Insight Partners and ETF Partners were the co-leads (FB)
Carbon fiber recycling startup Fairmat raised a $35M Series A led by Temasek and CNP (TC)
Plant-based food brand Huel raised a $24M round at a $560M valuation led by Highland Europe (TC)
Treecard, a two-year-old London startup that offers consumers a wooden debit card that guarantees that trees are planted as users spend, raised a $23 million Series A round led by Valar Ventures (EUS)
Cambridge GaN Devices, a six-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that designs and develops energy-efficient GaN-based energy power devices, raised a $19 million Series B round co-led by Parkwalk Advisors and BGF (EW)
Freight Farms, a ten-year-old Boston startup that manufactures vertical hydroponic farms in shipping containers, raised a $17.5 million Series B3 round co-led by Aliaxis SA and Ospraie Ag Science (FF)
Solid oxide fuel cell startup Upstart Power raised a $17M Series C led by ITOCHU (BW)
OroraTech, a four-year-old Munich startup that says it is using thermal-infrared data intelligence to provide actionable insights into the state of the earth’s climate, raised an additional $15.6 million Series A extension led by Edaphon (EUS)
French-based pulsed power startup I-ROX raised $12M from Breakthrough Energy Ventures Europe (PRN)
CleanFiber, a startup turning cardboard boxes into insulation nets, raised a $10M round from AXA IM Alts (TC)
FigBytes, an eight-year-old Ottawa-based maker of an environmental, social, governance (ESG) platform for strategy, data, reporting and stakeholder engagement, has raised $10 million in funding from earlier backer Quantum Innovation Fund (FB)
Earth Force Technologies, a San Francisco startup that is developing technology to help onsite knowledge workers fight forest fires, raised an $8.6 million seed round led by Alley Robotics Ventures (EFT)
Range Energy, a one-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that is developing commercial truck trailers powered by electricity, raised a $8 million seed round from UP Partners, R7, and Yamaha Motor Ventures (FN)
Dat Bike, a Vietnamese e-bike startup, raised an $8M round led by Jungle Ventures (TC)
Energy and maritime intelligence startup SynMax raised a $6M seed round led by Skylar Capital (BW)
Fennel, a one-year-old startup whose app arms investors with ESG data and information about upcoming corporate elections, raised a $5 million from individual investors (BN)
Stony Creek Colors, a manufacturer of natural indigo dye, raised a $4.8M Series B-2 led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Levi Strauss & Co (PRN)
Metaspectral, a four-year-old Vancouver startup that uses hyperspectral imagery to analyze plastic waste, raised a $4.7 million seed round. Investors included SOMA Capital (TC)
Anode Labs, a startup building a Web3 platform offering tokenized incentives for individuals and SMBs to connect their energy storage assets, raised a $4.2M round led by Lerer Hippeau and Lattice (BW)
RailVision, a startup aiming to lower fuel costs and emissions in the railway industry, raised a $4M seed round led by Trucks Venture Capital (BW)
Buzz Solutions, a five-year-old Palo Alto startup that uses AI to improve the maintenance of energy infrastructure, raised a $3.3 million round led by GoPoint Ventures (FS)
Bright Biotech, a three-year-old startup based in Manchester, UK, that is developing plant-based growth factor technology, which the company says can help significantly reduce the cost of producing cultured meat, raised a $3.2 million seed round led by Food Lab (FML)
Carbon Reform, a startup building modular carbon removal tech, raised a $3M seed round led by Azolla Ventures (PRN)
Rouvia, a one-year-old Berlin startup that helps logistics companies reduce emissions linked to truck deliveries by suggesting rail or barge transport alternatives that might be greener, raised $3 million co-led by Cavalry Ventures and Dynamo Ventures (TEU)
Smartphone re-commerce startup Badili raised a $2.1M pre-seed round from Venture Catalysts, V&RAfrica, Grenfell Holdings, and others (TC)
Natron Energy, a ten-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, Ca., that says its sodium-ion batteries have the potential to help United Airlines electrify its airport ground equipment and operations at the gate, raised an undisclosed amount from United Airlines Ventures (N)
Green Theory
Pan-frying our next Pandemic
Sitting down for a holiday meal last week, half of those in the US would have been content with no turkey at all. Still, hosts spent over $1 billion on slain birds for their dinner tables, holding their breath for comments of dry- or tenderness. Perhaps if turkey meat cost more, fewer would be compelled to serve it to disinterested guests. Instead, tens of millions of turkeys are sacrificed for one day of gratitude.
Is the low price of US meat supercharging its place in our diets? Ezra Klein Interviews Leah Garcés to answer this very question. First, they explain that a price is meant to indicate all of the costs associated with bringing a product to market, and that hidden costs (those not included in the price) are called negative externalities. A negative externality pushes the cost (financial, physical, or otherwise) on to others, so people who didn’t make the decision to purchase still pay a price of their own (pretty unfair). The host goes on: “[M]eat is full of externalities. We’ve made meat cheap by offloading its cost onto animals, onto the environment and onto each other.”
Let’s unpack those costs. To start, the costs to each other—the costs other human beings bear for our consumption of meat—ought to resonate with anyone, not just environmentalists or animal lovers. Of chief concern, farmed land animals (of which 99% are raised or killed in factory farms) in the US gobble up 70% of medically important antibiotics. These medicines aren’t used to treat infected animals, but to prevent the outbreak of disease, as packing young, stressed-out animals in with their excrement often inspires. When we carelessly dose these antibiotics, diseases’ resistance goes up, and today over 30,000 people in the US die of strains of treatable diseases that have developed this resistance to antibiotics already. As the host clarifies: “the government … tracks viruses of particular concern. And if you go and look at it, it’s just avian flu, avian flu, avian flu, swine flu, swine flu, avian flu, swine flu.” All it takes is one pesky pathogen to slip by our defenses and dominate the globe. Big meat might send medicine back 100 years, eliminating the usefulness of one of our most important inventions.
Maybe you’re not convinced that meat eaters should pay for the looming threat of another pandemic at the grocery store. What about the very real spray of feces being aired out over communities every day? Beyond the devastation to the Gulf of Mexico, and the over 1 million people who die from agricultural air pollution each year, people living near factory farm pork operations deal with swine excrement on “clothing lines, on their mailboxes, even inside their homes,” Garcés reveals. Lawyers and activists tried to get Smithfield, a large pork producer, to pay for damages in some North Carolina communities, and though they won a settlement that was later reduced, lawmakers took an extraordinary step to keep these kinds of lawsuits from impacting meat prices. Klein summarizes: “the legal system tried to put … the amount of pain [Smithfield is] causing these communities … in the price. They have to pay a legal fee … lose lawsuits. And [Smithfield] had enough power to pass a law saying, nope, that is not going to be allowed.” Even attempts to rightsize meat’s price face staunch opposition from powerful meat interests.
Quantifying all costs that US factory farms exact on society presents a challenge. Still, there’s no doubt that between direct subsidies, taxpayer-funded inhumane slaughter, and risks to human health, the artificially low cost of meat props up more meat production than the market ought to sustain. Unlike other challenges in the struggle to reverse or slow climate change, abstaining from factory farmed meat can be done multiple times a day, at every meal opportunity. And for those who believe their independent actions don’t make a difference, remember that eating is a social activity, and we are social creatures. That turkey that half of your dinner guests didn’t desire, or that half-eaten burger that ends up in the trash, all send signals to the meat industry that people really did want all of that meat, because we keep paying for it, even if we’re not paying enough, today.
The Closer
"Playtime," day 44 of "75 Days of Art" / Coastal wolf pups play tirelessly for hours on end, an essential time for learning the physical and social skills that will assist their survival as they grow older. This pair, only months old, tussled over an eagle feather they had discovered along a riverbank in the intertidal zone of British Columbia's vast, rugged coastline. -Paul Nicklen
Wow thank you for the data about turkey and meat consumption. I was very happy with portobello mushroom mole for Thanksgiving this year!