Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
YC’s Request for Climate Tech Startups (YC)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
Autonomous electric yard truck startup Outrider raised a $73M Series C led by FM Capital (TC)
Summit Nanotech, a five-year-old Calgary startup that claims to extract high-quality lithium from brine solution faster and in a more sustainable fashion than traditional methods, just raised a $50 million Series A2 round co-led by Evok Innovations and BDC Capital (SN)
Robotic mowing startup Scythe raised a $42M Series B led by Energy Impact Partners (TC)
Noon Energy, a five-year-old Palo Alto startup that is developing high density carbon-oxygen batteries, raised a $28 million Series A round co-led by Clean Energy Ventures and Aramco Ventures (TC)
EarthOptics, a five-year-old startup based in Raleigh, NC, that uses ground-based sensors, satellites, physical soil samples, machine learning models, and agronomic expertise to help farmers and ranchers make data-driven decisions about their land, raised a $27.6 million round. Conti Ventures was the deal lead (T)
Ecozen, a 13-year-old, Pune, India-based outfit that’s providing solar-powered irrigation and cold chain storage solutions, has raised $25 million in combined equity and debt capital. Nuveen and Dare Ventures led the equity portion (AF)
Ampeco, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based startup that has been building out an EV charging management platform startup in Europe and plans to drive into North American, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by BMW iVentures (TC)
Rumin8, a two-year-old Perth, Australia climate tech startup that is designing compounds to reduce methane emissions in agriculture, raised a $12 million seed round led by Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures (R)
SunRoof, a 10-year-old Stockholm startup that builds solar roofs that generate electricity without having to use traditional top-mounted photovoltaic modules, raised a $14.6 million round. Investors included World Fund (EUS)
EV charging management platform Ampeco raised a $13M Series A led by BMW iVentures (TC)
Wasted, a three-year-old startup based in Burlington, VT, that is redesigning porta-potties to ensure that they are more environmentally friendly, raised a $7.5 million round co-led by Collaborative Fund and Divergent Capital (TC)
ECL, a startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that says it's designing hydrogen-powered data centers that consume no local resources and operate with zero emissions at extremely low noise levels, raised a $7 million seed round. Molex Ventures and Hypewise Ventures co-led the transaction. SiliconANGLE has more here.
Wayout, a five-year-old Stockholm startup that is developing container-sized water treatment facilities, raised a $6.5 million Series A round led by Climentum Capital (TEU)
The ISH Company, a plant based seafood company, raised $5M in seed funding led by ACCELR8 (PRN)
Entocycle, a 6.5-year-old, London-based insect farming tech company, raised €5 million in Series A funding. Climentum Capital led the round (E)
WattCarbon, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based energy decarbonization company, has raised a $4.5 million seed round led by True Ventures. (WC)
GoodVision, a six-year-old London startup that uses AI to help municipalities control traffic and reduce congestion levels, raised a $2.9 million round led by Lead Ventures (TEU)
Tyba, an Oakland, Ca.-based startup whose platform helps energy firms model the way they use and store solar power, raised a $2.25 million seed round co-led by Powerhouse Ventures and Wireframe Ventures, with participation from Lorimer Ventures, MKT1 Capital, and Virta Ventures. More here.
Green Theory
Airing Out Dryers
A heap of fresh laundry, clean and hot from the dryer, brings delight on a cold morning. Though drying machines offer us a conveniently low downtime for our clothes, and a fleeting moment of heat, the damages to the fibers, and beyond, are irreversible. A dryer gives the illusion of more time to use the clothes you love, and instead cuts their lifespan dramatically, leaving you less time overall. What’s the greenest cleanest way to clean one’s clothes in 2023? A low-tech solution has been gracing humanity for perhaps as long as clothing itself.
Letting Clothes Last
Without even considering the potential emissions from energy use, or the cost in utility bills, the very need to acquire more clothing to replace damaged articles from machine drying presents a taxing expense in materials and money. Everyday use of clothing shouldn’t degrade it so fast, and yet about 20 dryer cycles will cut tensile strength in half. Line drying, on the other hand, preserves clothing’s integrity, especially for blends of materials with slightly different reactions to heat.
![](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%2Fe9f0434f-7658-45d8-bfc2-d7a1f07a7cfb_1280x1707.jpeg)
Low-temperature cycles do about half the torment of regular ones, and yet the mechanical agitation and forced airflow in a dry environment still cause most of the breakdown of clothes. What’s worse, shrinking is just as common on low-temperature cycles, to the shock of journalists. The dryer simply vanquishes the fibers’ intended structures.
The Hidden Burns of Hot Laundry
On average, each person in the US spends $66 in drying per year, typically over $100 for the average Californian. If not running on clean energy, ditching one’s dryer can save over one ton of emissions per year for a household, as the third or fourth largest appliance demand of electricity consumption in many homes.
Even for those lavishing in cheap, clean energy, other ravages of hot laundry abound. A single warm wash can unleash over half a million fibers, contributing to microplastics in nearby water. Washing on cold helps, and reduces the energy used in washing. Still, experts recommend washing some laundry on warm or hot, if you’re able. Regardless, ditching drying is far more crucial to clothes’ longevity.
More Than Clothes On the Line
Is getting to wear your clothes a day faster worth burning down your home? 1 in 25 home structure fire responses in the US are due to dryer incidents, totaling nearly 15,000 per year. Line drying can protect more than just the clothes on our backs, but the roofs over our heads.
![](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%2F8d900a9b-c8f1-4ac3-88f7-01263a4215ad_640x427.jpeg)
Cold Wash, Line Dry, Happy Clothes
Going easier on our clothes offers the joy of them feeling better, fading less, and lasting longer. If you’re not convinced, run an experiment and pick a favorite item or two to spare from the dryer each time you condemn another basketful to its gradual march toward disintegration.
Outside the US, dryers are vanishingly less popular. In cold weather climates, freeze-drying clothes offers a nifty solution for saving energy in long winters, or for homes or communities without drying machines. Pre-industrial society knew how to get clothing dry, all we have to do is keep the line of hanging clothes connected from then to now.
The Closer
“In 2017, I led a team of filmmakers to Antarctica to celebrate the beauty of the continent and assess the risks posed by humans to its ecosystems. Within the first few days, we came across a dead humpback whale with a massive gash on its back. It was clear that it had been hit by a ship. In fact, thousands of whales die every year from ship strikes.”