#138 | Happy Holidays!
Understory newsletter on climate and sustainability tech
Happy holidays to our Understory community. Wishing you a restful and sustainable end to the year. We look forward to connecting again in the New Year!
📚 Worth Reading
Natural disasters, including wildfires, are becoming an increasingly prevalent issue. Changing climates have lengthened the wildfire season in many areas, due to warmer temperatures, longer dry seasons, and therefore drier soils and vegetation. Now, an estimated $285 billion is lost in the US alone to wildfire damage each year.
Robotics Cats mitigates the effects and frequency of wildfires using artificial intelligence to detect and prevent early-stage wildfires. The company’s technology platform provides monitoring, insights into response time, and improving detection accuracy.
Worth Reading: Robotics Cats - Fighting Fires with Tech
//
While many folks immediately think of trees when it comes to nature-based carbon sequestration, other natural items also sequester carbon. Soil actually sequesters 4x more carbon than trees, however less than 5% of the world’s available soil carbon is utilized for this purpose.
Seqana is a global carbon sequestration monitoring system focused on soil organic carbon. The company simplifies the monitoring, reporting, and verification process for soil organic carbon projects and makes these projects more accessible.
Worth Reading: Seqana: quantifying carbon in the soil
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
Fifth Wall raised a $866 million Fund III which is focused on proptech.
The 81 Collection raised an inaugural $41 venture fund which will focus on hard industries including sustainability.
Jetstream launched a $10 million fund that will invest in pre-seed startups in climate, sustainability and biodiversity.
Battery Ventures acquired fleet management company Vimcar for €135 million.
Svante, a carbon capture company for industrial use cases, raised a $318 million Series E round.
Manufacturing efficiency startup Guidewheel raised a $9 million Series A round.
Curb management tech company Automotus raised a $7.8 million Seed round.
Mad Capital, a fundraising platform for farmers transitioning to regenerative agriculture, raised a $4 million seed round.
Billion Bricks, a builttech company that reduces carbon emissions across the housing industry, raised a $2.5 million seed round.
Indonesian clean energy company Suryanesia raised a $2 million seed round.
💡 Startup Spotlight
Shellworks - creates sustainable packaging alternatives that are vegan and compostable.
🎧 Podcast
Revisit episodes of The Understory Podcast to hear more stories of innovation in climate and sustainability.
👀 Quick Hits
The EU will tax imports based on greenhouse gas emissions.
France has banned disposable packaging, plates and utensils at all fast food restaurants if customers are dining in.
⚙️ Jobs
Find and share your open positions on the Understory Slack channel.
🆕 ESG Intern at Platform.sh
🆕 Sustainability Manager (consulting) at Agendi
🆕 Program Operations Lead at Third Derivative
🆕 Co-Founder / Chief Marketing Officer at Climate Team
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
Manager of Sustainability & Strategy Execution at Ericsson
Investment Associate at Energize Ventures
Multiple positions at UtilityAPI
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.