Tipping points

Hiya,

Thanks for your patience while I got this one over the line. Had a wonderful past two weeks of hosting visitors in town (and events, like DERVOS, which was excellent), I needed some R&R. Pithy one as a result, too.

ONE STORY IN A SENTENCE AND A CHART

• Crude oil prices are falling again, a highly negative signal for the global economy and a strong disincentive and counter to the prospects of “drill, baby, drill” in the U.S. Link.

NEWS, DATA, AND HEADLINES

• Australian tropical rainforest trees may have become the first such forest in the world to switch from being a carbon sink to an emissions source, at least for a period of time, as tree trunks and branches (reportedly) may have become net emitters over the past 25 years due to increasingly extreme temperatures and drier conditions. Lots of disclaimers on my end as this stuff (i.e., science) is always really hard to pin down and subject to change and debate. Link.

• The International Maritime Organization postponed a vote on the world's first global carbon pricing scheme for shipping following U.S. pressure, with President Trump threatening non-compliance and calling it a "Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping." Sighs. Link.

• The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office announced a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to an American Electric Power subsidiary to upgrade and rebuild about 5,000 miles of transmission lines across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. Not all on the sustainability is lost at the DOE’s LPO, apparently. Link.

• JPMorgan Chase announced plans to invest $10 billion into mineral production and infrastructure for artificial intelligence and other strategic industries. Link.

• Americans bought a record 438,500 electric cars and trucks in Q3 2024, comprising 11% of all new car sales and eclipsing the previous high of 8.7%, as drivers rushed to claim federal incentives before they expired September 30. Probably safe to expect some not-so-great quarterly sales now that federal incentives are no more. Link.

• Amazon tripled its small modular reactor plans in Washington, unveiling renderings of a 960 MW Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Richland that will install up to 12 of X-energy's 80-megawatt reactors in three phases throughout the 2030s. Link.

• The U.S. Army unveiled its new Janus program, which aims to supply military bases with microreactors (< 20 megawatts) owned and operated by private companies by 2028. Link.

• Chinese turbine manufacturer Ming Yang announced plans to invest over $2 billion in a new Scottish offshore wind factory, pending U.K. government approval. Link.

• Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by a record 3.5 parts per million to 424 ppm in 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957, raising concerns that natural carbon sinks may be beginning to fail. Link.

• Utah Governor Spencer Cox criticized the Bureau of Land Management's cancellation of the nation's largest solar project, the 6.2-gigawatt Esmeralda 7 in Nevada, stating "This is how we lose the AI/energy arms race with China." Link.

• New Zealand weakened its 2050 methane target for livestock and farm sources to 12-24% reduction from 2017 levels, down from 24-47% previously, sparking criticism from scientists who warned it sets a dangerous precedent for other major dairy exporters. Link.

CURATED DEALS

Larger funding rounds:

• Ecorobotix, based out of Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, raised €90 million (~$104 million) in Series D funding led by Highland Europe for its AI-powered ultra-high precision spraying systems that can help reduce the use of plant protection products. The European Circular Bioeconomy Fund and McWin Capital Partners also participated. Link.

• Wild Bioscience, based out of Oxford, U.K., raised €51 million (~$59.2 million) in Series A funding for its AI-driven crop breeding platform for climate-resilient varieties. Ellison Institute of Technology led, with participation from Oxford Science Enterprises and Braavos Capital. Link.

• Corvus Energy, based out of Bergen, Norway, raised €51.7 million (~$60 million) in Series E funding led by Morgan Stanley with participation from Just Climate and J. Lauritzen for its marine batteries and hydrogen fuel cell systems. Link.

• Starship Technologies, based out of San Francisco, raised $50 million in Series C funding from Plural, Coefficient Capital, Karma Ventures, Latitude, Skaala, and others to make autonomous delivery robots. Link.

Medium-sized funding rounds:

• Enspired, based out of Vienna, Austria, raised over €40 million (~$46.4 million) in Series B funding led by Future Energy Ventures for its AI-driven optimization platform for battery energy storage systems. Link.

• Stand Insurance, based out of San Francisco, raised $35 million in Series B funding from Eclipse, Equal Ventures, Inspired Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital for its climate insurance business. Link.

• Prisma Photonics, based out of Tel Aviv, raised $30 million in a growth round led by Protego Ventures for its AI-powered fiber-sensing platform that monitors critical infrastructure. Link.

• 011h, based out of Barcelona, raised €20 million (~$23.2 million) in equity funding led by Ship2B Ventures and CDTI for its modular and sustainable building platform. Link.

• Daylight, based out of Austin, Texas, raised $15 million led by Framework Ventures, plus a $60 million project finance facility, to build a decentralized energy network for home solar and batteries. Link.

Smaller funding rounds:

• Bees & Bears, based out of Berlin, raised €5 million (~$5.8 million) in seed funding from Extantia and Contrarian Ventures, plus a whopping €500 million (~$580 million) debt facility, to run its embedded-finance solutions for distributed energy resources. Link.

• Liquid Wind, based out of Gothenburg, received €3.6 million (~$4.2 million) in grant funding from the Swedish Energy Agency to advance pre-engineering for one of Europe's largest eMethanol plants targeting 100,000 tons annually. Link.

• Sonic Fire Tech, based out of Rocky River, Ohio, raised $3.5 million in seed funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and Third Sphere for its acoustic fire suppression systems that use infrasound to extinguish wildfires. Link.

• GEVI, based out of Pontedera, Italy, raised €2.7 million (~$3.1 million) in seed funding led by 360 Capital for its AI-powered micro wind turbines with self-adjusting blades that optimize performance in real time. Link.

• Delta Green, based out of Prague, raised €2 million (~$2.3 million) from Credo Ventures and others to expand its virtual power plant platform built around residential energy. Link.

Not saying how much rounds:

• Gourmey, a French lab-grown duck and foie gras company, acquired Vital Meat, a French cultured chicken lab, to form PARIMA, a new entity that will produce cell-based animal products, including, you guessed it, cultivated duck and chicken. Interesting to see consolidation amidst category creation here. Link.

Funds:

• FORWARD.one, based out of Amstelveen in the Netherlands, launched its third fund with €200 million (~$232 million) to invest in early-stage industrial technology startups across Europe and, more specifically, the Nordics. Link.

• Maia Ventures, based out of Milan, Italy, launched its first €55 million (~$64 million) AgriFoodTech fund backed by the European Investment Fund. Link.

Have a wonderful week,

— Nick