#137 | Biodiversity at COP15 + Startup Showcase Recording
Understory newsletter on climate and sustainability tech
Thank you to all of you that joined us at our December Startup Showcase earlier this week. Special shoutout to gener8tor and all the companies that presented! It was a great finale to our 2022 Startup Showcase lineup of climate innovators changing our world. If you missed the session, you can catch the recording here.
📚 Worth Reading
Nations are gathering in Canada to discuss biodiversity and preserving our fragile ecosystems at COP15. As we learned at last week’s showcase, understanding and promoting biodiversity is the next horizon of the sustainability transformation. World leaders will discuss everything from pollution to deforestation to declining animal populations and more. Some progress has already been made on these core topics.
Worth Reading:
Washington Post: Can the world agree on how to save its last wild animals?
WWF: EU leaders seal deal for groundbreaking law to stop deforestation
The Guardian: Three ways COP15 can help save a million species from extinction
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
Union Square Ventures raised a $200 million climate focused fund. This is its second climate fund.
Agtech firm Sound Agriculture raised $75 million in Series D funding.
Customcells, which develops and recycles lithium-ion batteries, raised a $63 million Series A round.
Energy storage solution company ZincFive raised a $54 million Series D round.
Black Sheep Foods, which makes plant-based meat raised a $12.3 million Series A round.
Archive, a platform that helps retailers launch resale programs, raised a $8 million funding round.
Varaha raised a $4 million seed round. The company supports the voluntary carbon markets with project development, monitoring, and and access solutions.
Gaia AI, a forest measurement platform, raised $3 million in pre-seed investment.
Proptech company Accacia raised a $2.5 million seed round of funding.
MeliBio, which creates honey without bees, raised $2.2 million in additional funding.
Congrats to Notpla for winning the $1.2 million Earthshot Prize. The company makes sustainable packaging out of seaweed.
💡 Startup Spotlight
Cabinet Health - reducing the plastic waste associated with prescription medicines and dietary supplements.
🌱 Startup Resources
Apply by Dec 16th: Newlab's Founder Fellowship
👀 Quick Hits
Salesforce will expand its Sustainability Cloud to include full ESG reporting solutions.
The London Stock Exchange launches a new market for carbon credits.
⚙️ Jobs
Find and share your open positions on the Understory Slack channel.
🆕 Environment Program Associate at Bloomberg Philanthropies
🆕 Sustainability Director, Net Zero Reduction Strategy at Meta
🆕 GM Sustainable Building Technology at Honeywell
🆕 Manager of Sustainability & Strategy Execution at Ericsson
🆕 Senior Manager of Innovation and Sustainability at Tropicana Brands Group
🆕 Sustainability Services Strategic Programs Lead at Lenovo
Analyst, Life Cycle Assessment at ClimeCo
Communications Lead at Brimstone
Director of Environmental Business at SAGANA
Manager of Sustainability & Strategy Execution at Ericsson
Investment Associate at Energize Ventures
Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sealed
Multiple positions at UtilityAPI
CoFounder at CapCO2 Solutions
Director, ESG at Warner Music Group
Multiple openings at Climate X
🗓 Events
Do you have any events to share? Post them in our Understory Slack community.
📧 Stay in Touch!
You don’t have to wait for our weekly newsletter for all the latest content. Join us on Slack or follow along on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter to see real-time updates.