Good Morning
The bad news is there was a big oil spill in Southern California last week. The good news is a few hours ago it was announced that the size of the spill is about a fifth of what was initially feared.
Check out these pictures to add some color to the event.
Top Deals of the Week
GoodLeap (formerly LoanPal) tops $1B in funding, led by Michael Dell and Laurence Tosi (WSJ)
The story: GoodLeap is a two-year-old, Bay Area-based solar financing company founded by a former top executive at Solar City. They provide finance options to homeowners and businesses owners, mostly through solar dealers and installers with which GoodLeap partners. The company is valued at over $12B.
Why we’re excited about it: Rooftop solar in many US markets will now pay for itself in 10-20 years. This financial fact makes the decision to go solar easy, unless you don't have the upfront capital to invest. That's why GoodLeap is so crucial to the distributed solar puzzle. While companies like Sunrun front the money and cover system installation and management for their customers, innovators such as GoodLeap simply plug in with the hungry solar dealers already knocking on doors.
CH4 Global raised $13M in Series A funding led by DCVC (BW)
The story: CH4 Global, a 2.5-year-old, Henderson, Nev.-based startup, uses seaweed as livestock feed to reduce methane emissions.
Why we’re excited about it: Cows get a lot of crap for farting a lot and creating noxious methane emissions. This livestock feed can reduce methane emissions by up to 90%. This is one of those rare solutions that align two traditionally warring factions - cattle ranchers and mainstream climate activists. We love surprise collabs. The more multilateralism the better.
Other Deals This Week
Pluton Biosciences, a startup focused on finding micro-organisms with specific use cases including carbon sequestration, raised a $6.6M seed round led by Better Ventures (TC)
FruitScout, a two-year-old, Yakima, Wa.-based startup whose app promises to help farmers anticipate (and improve) the yield of their fruit trees by, among other things, analyzing their buds, has raised $4 million in funding from Bowery Capital and TFX Capital. (BC)
WattBuy, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based startup that promises consumers actionable intelligence about their electricity usage, has raised $10 million in extended Series A funding led by SE Ventures, a venture fund backed by Schneider Electric. (AF).
Electric mobility startup Swft raised a $10M seed round from angel investors (TC)
Parade, a three-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based direct-to-consumer underwear brand that boasts sustainable fabrics, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Stripes. (RD)
One Actionable Item
Your individual actions matter because your actions influence others, but frankly, a $1-3T infrastructure bill matters more. So here’s the single most important action any American can take right now:
Right now, you - a statistically small player - have an opportunity to push on a very, very big lever. Your rep tracks # of calls to decide what to prioritize, so your call matters to every representative. The infrastructure bill has $73 billion proposed to update our electricity grid so that it will be ready for more renewable energy, which would be the most significant investment in a cleaner future in any of our lifetimes. Tell your friends!
Green Theory
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Would you guess that Kenyans use mobile payments at a rate 4x that of Americans? Kenya, without the complicated and burdensome credit card system prevalent in the US, largely skipped that step, and went straight to mobile.
Development economists call these outcomes “leapfrogging”. While the entrenched financial institutions in the Global North would have loved to explain and enforce an inferior solution, enterprising and creative Kenyans beat them to the punch. Why endure the trials of 50-year-old technology when you can skip straight to the cutting edge?
In Katharine Hayhoe’s new book, Saving Us, she explains how bringing access to electricity to the Global South need not come at the cost of staggering emissions escalation. Creating sustainable grids powered by renewable resources will improve quality of life and expand opportunities for the globe’s most marginalized. On the flip side, imposing a rapid proliferation of fossil fuel-burning systems will force a dependence on the Global North and few countries with large oil reserves. If you look at the 10 nations with the least access to electricity, per capita, over half lack any oil reserves at all. Further, we don’t have to look further than mobile payments to recognize how paternalistic and diminishing it is to suggest developing nations are incapable of beating the US to a clean grid.
Be on the lookout for sustainable leapfrogs in development, and for condescending admonishments, too.
The Closer
Mack was very lucky to rather randomly meet Jeremy Snyder in Brazil while he was studying great rivers for his Watson Fellowship. He’s now embarking on a “mini-Watson” along the Colorado River and sharing what he’s finding on IG. Super cool project; I’ve been learning a lot and you should check it out too!