Heavier duty

Hey there,

Quick announcement to start: In case your NYC Climate Week schedule isn’t already stuffed to the gills, here’s one more fun invite. Louie Woodall of Climate Proof and I are hosting a happy hour to celebrate the ~end~ of Climate Week and, well, probably mostly hang out (we’ll all need a break)!

Please join us and sign up via the link below or via this link if the embed below doesn’t work for you. Look forward to meeting many of you there.

Second quick plug: I updated our ‘Hot Box’ with some other content I’ve been enjoying across the interwebs, some climate, sustainability, and energy-related, some simply stimulating in other veins. Check it out here! (and in case you don’t know what the ‘Hot Box’ is, well, a) check it out and b) it’s functionally a place for me to regularly share additional curated information that I think is worth your time in a non-email format.

Beyond that, here’s all that caught my eye in energy and sustainability circles last week:

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• It’s not just light-duty road transport, the electric semis are coming, too: In China, more heavy electric trucks were sold in H1 of this year than in all of 2024. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• China installed 256 GW of solar capacity in the first half of 2025, more than twice what the rest of the world combined installed (124 GW). It also drove 164% year-over-year growth in battery energy storage project registrations, adding 139.6 GWh of storage in July alone. Link. Link.

• Somewhat surprisingly, BYD reported a 30% drop in quarterly profit, its first decline in over three years, as price wars in China's EV market intensify. This profit turn down comes despite the company's robust overseas sales growth, including ~50% growth in markets like Brazil, Australia, and Europe. Link.

• Another one bites the dust: Natron Energy announced it is shutting down operations and won’t build its previously planned $1.4 billion sodium-ion battery factory in North Carolina, adding to the growing list of clean tech manufacturing cancellations in the United States. The company had raised more than $370 million, including a recent $55 million Series F-II round completed just five months ago in April. Building domestic manufacturing supply chains is hard! Link. Link.

• A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that the EPA can legally cancel $20 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants to nonprofits issued under the Inflation Reduction Act, though recipients can seek damages in federal claims court. Link.

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 450 workers, including 30 South Koreans with valid visas, at the Hyundai-LG battery plant construction site in Georgia, potentially disrupting the state's largest industrial investment project. South Korea's foreign ministry expressed concern that Korean nationals' rights "must not be unjustly violated" during U.S. law enforcement after the Georgia battery plant raid, with the consulate forming a legal team including Korean American lawyers. As of Sunday, South Korea and the U.S. appear to have reached a deal to at least release the detained workers…Still, so much for making American manufacturing great again… Link. Link. Link.

• Oil major ConocoPhillips announced plans to cut 25% of its 13,000-person workforce as CEO Ryan Lance admitted prioritizing acquisitions over cost control made the company less competitive. Layoffs will begin as early as November 10. Hard to read between the lines here, and I wouldn’t read this as a near-term signal that oil demand globally or in the U.S. will peak. But noteworthy nonetheless. Link.

• BlackRock lost a €14.5 billion (~$17 billion) mandate from Dutch pension fund PFZW over climate risk concerns, as European asset owners voice discontent with U.S. money managers’ retreat from net zero commitments. Goes to show not everyone is down with the retreat from net zero and climate commitments in the world of high finance. Link.

• Another week, another offshore wind project in peril: The Trump administration will reconsider permits for SouthCoast Wind in Massachusetts after halting the nearly-complete Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island, which prompted lawsuits from both states and developers Ørsted and Global Infrastructure Partners. Link.

• Waymo surpassed 2,000 autonomous vehicles in service after adding 500 in three months. So far, Tesla is only operating ~30 Robotaxis, but you can expect that number to scale quickly. Either way, the amount of autonomous rides Waymo is delivering with a relatively small fleet is remarkable. Link.

• Hitachi Energy will invest $457 million in a Virginia transformer factory, plus $500 million in other U.S. grid equipment, to address bottlenecks slowing grid expansion for data centers, renewable energy, and battery energy storage projects. Link.

• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to double gas turbine production capacity over two years as manufacturers navigate record demand from data centers. Link.

• Oklo, a Santa Clara, California-based small modular reactor developer that has the most publicly announced sales contracts of any SMR developer, announced plans to build a $1.68 billion nuclear fuel recycling facility in Tennessee to convert radioactive waste into reactor fuel. Link.

• Tennessee Valley Authority announced plans with ENTRA1 Energy to develop six NuScale small modular reactors totaling 6 GW, though it declined to share a development timeline. Link.

• Panasonic reopened its expanded €320 million (~$375 million) heat pump factory in Pilsen, Czech Republic, with capacity to produce 1.4 million units by 2030, making it the company's primary European R&D and production hub. Link.

• Honda unveiled new technologies, including bidirectional EV charging and energy management systems, at RE+ 25, demonstrating an Acura RSX prototype that can dispatch energy back to homes and grids during peak demand, with testing planned with Southern California Edison. Link.

• Internal carbon pricing adoption in corporates has grown significantly; 1,753 companies globally now have an internal carbon price, which represents an 89% increase since 2021. That figure includes half of the world's 500 largest companies, though many set prices too low to drive Paris Agreement-aligned emissions reductions. Link.

• Meanwhile, environmental shareholder resolutions at U.S. companies hit their lowest pass rate in six years, with zero new resolutions passing out of 110 proposed at Russell 3000 companies. Link.

• Russia and China signed a legally binding memorandum for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline to carry 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually through Mongolia, with existing pipeline deliveries increasing from 38 to 44 bcm per year. Read this as a potentially significant shakeup of geopolitical energy politics, with India also involved. Link.

• California legislators advanced three virtual power plant bills but stripped SB 541's most ambitious provisions, which would have required utilities to incorporate VPPs into grid investment plans. Link.

• Just 10 counties in Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin accounted for 93% of the rise in U.S. oil production between 2020 and 2024. Link.

• Here’s a fun diversion to end on: Scientists are studying the extent to which Adélie penguins in Antarctica generate ammonia gases (from their poop) at rates 1,000 times higher than background levels, which helps fuel cloud formation that can potentially help with local cooling effects by reflecting solar radiation. There’s a venture-backed geoengineering startup in there somewhere… Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds:

• Fermi America, based out of Amarillo, Texas, raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Macquarie Group and established a $250 million senior loan facility to develop a massive data center campus powered by natural gas, solar, wind, and nuclear power. Link.

• Avantium, based out of Amsterdam, raised €65 million (~$71 million) in a new share sale from VP Capital NV, Pieter Kooi Holding B.V., Navitas B.V., and the Dutch government to develop and commercialize its recyclable polymer derived from plant-based sources. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds:

• Orchard Robotics, based out of New York, raised $22 million in Series A funding co-led by Quiet Capital and Shine Capital for its fruit crop monitoring technology. Link.

• Fernride, an autonomous truck startup based out of Munich, raised €18 million (~$21 million) to fund expansion into defense applications. Link.

• Offgrid Energy Labs, based out of Noida, India, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Archean Chemicals for its zinc-bromine battery technology. Link.

• Xampla, based out of Cambridge, U.K., raised $14 million in Series A funding co-led by Emerald Technology Ventures, BGF, and Matterwave Ventures for its Morro plant-protein plastic alternatives. Link.

• Lizy, based out of Brussels, Belgium, raised €11.6 million ($13.6 million) in equity funding co-led by D'Ieteren, Alychlo, and NewAlpha Asset Management alongside €75 million ($87.8 million) in debt funding for its used EV leasing platform. Link.

• Finnish Food Factory, based out of Kouvola, Finland, raised €10 million (~$11.7 million) from Taaleri Bioindustry Fund I for its contract manufacturing business for plant-based dairy alternatives. Link.

Smaller funding rounds

• Plural, based out of San Francisco, raised $7.1 million in seed funding led by Paradigm for its blockchain-based energy asset tokenization platform, bringing its total funding to date to ~$10 million. Maven11, Volt Capital, and Neoclassic Capital also participated. Link.

• Hyperdrives, based out of Munich, raised an oversubscribed €3 million (~$3.5 million) in pre-seed funding led by Rethink Ventures to make high-performance electric drive systems. Link.

• Seabound, based out of London, raised £1.1 million (~$1.4 million) in U.K. government grant funding to build the world's first commercial-scale containerized carbon capture system, combining CO2 and air-pollutant capture for ships at the Port of Southampton. Link.

• RYE, based out of London, raised €1 million (~$1.2 million) pre-seed funding co-led by CapitalT and January Ventures for its energy intelligence software targeted at hospitality and other multi-site retail businesses. Link.

Not saying how much rounds

• Greenvoltis, based out of Sweden, closed a multi-million-dollar round led by DeepMind Capital for its real-time optimization platform for renewable and battery energy storage system operators and energy retailers. Link.

• Palmer Energy Technology Limited acquired Oxford University spin-out Brill Power, adding Brill Power’s cell-level energy management software to its battery energy storage system production capabilities. Link.

• Ayr Energy, based out of Houston, Texas, launched with seed funding from General Catalyst, claiming it already has over $250 million in contracts representing 10 GW of new power to manufacture power grid equipment. Link.

• EnergyHub, based out of Brooklyn, New York, acquired Bridge to Renewables in an all-cash deal to expand its virtual power plant capabilities with BTR’s EV charging software. EnergyHub also recently acquired Kapacity.io and Packetized Energy. Link.

Funds

• All Aboard Coalition, a new fund led by former TED chief Chris Anderson and backed by other titans of the climate tech venture scene (and venture scene in general), including Breakthrough Energy, DCVC, and Khosla Ventures, is raising $300 million to back later-stage climate tech startups addressing the "missing middle" financing gap. Link.

Podcasts

ICYMI it last week, I have not one, but three new podcasts featuring various stellar voices across the venture capital space. All the guests offered perspectives on the current moment for sustainability and energy-focused startups in 2025, as well as a wide range of other niche and nuanced subjects, ranging from methane moonshots to “demand-focused” adaptation ventures.

The most recent guests include John Tough, Managing Partner of Energize Capital, Johanna Wolfson, co-founder and General Partner at Azolla Ventures, and Darren Clifford, Founder and Managing Partner at the newly formed Adapt[us] Capital. You can listen to any and all of them here on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you normally listen.

One shot

Here’s another photo from my road trip last week that I quite like. Don’t show the president, given his aversion to windmills…

Peace,

— Nick