#68 Understory Newsletter: Big week for climate investment
Last week we saw massive venture capital inflows focused on climate investments. Check out all the fund launches and startup funding news below. We are certainly at a tipping point with significant investment coming into the space, but there's still a large gap versus what needs to be spent to meet various Corporate and the Paris Agreement commitments. Let's keep things going! 🚀
Two new Understory resources to highlight this week:
Learn more about ESG investing and Matter - a company powering sustainable investing by providing tools and insights to compare relative ESG performance.
Listen to our latest Podcast episode with AeroShield to learn more about builttech, energy efficiency, and developing new materials for the window industry.
📚 Worth Reading
The Guardian dissected the corporate net zero and other climate goals that major companies have released in recent years. (You can also check out Understory’s ‘Corporate In Action’ Report that details a subset of the corporate climate actions - company by company.)
The big takeaway? Companies that adopted science-based climate pledges reduced carbon emissions by 25% between 2015 and 2019. Companies are under much more scrutiny to be transparent about their goals and show progress towards achievement. The Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) helps companies calculate emissions targets aligned with the Paris Agreement, and many large companies are signing up.
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
TPG launched a $5.4 billion fund focused on climate investing with five sub-sectors: clean energy, enabling solutions, decarbonized transport, greening industrials, and agriculture and natural solutions.
Brookfield Asset Management raised an initial $7 billion of $12 billion in total for its impact fund. It will be the "largest fund focused on the global transition to a net-zero economy”.
BCG, the global consulting firm, launched its Green Ventures Fund dedicated to sustainability and climate.
Redwood Materials, a battery recycling firm, raised $700 million. Investors include T Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, Goldman Sachs, CPPIB, and Fidelity.
Choco raised a $100 Series B round. The company helps make the supply chain more efficient and sustainable for the restaurant industry.
Grover, a consumer tech rental company based in Berlin, raised a €60 million Series B round.
Protera, a Santiago and Paris-based startup that creates clean-label, sustainable proteins, raised a $10 million Series A round.
Algramo raised a $8.5 million Series A round. Algramo is a Chilean company that facilitates product refills to reduce plastic waste.
Diginex raised a $6 million Series A led by Fitch Ventures. We had Diginex on our podcast earlier this spring - you can check out the episode here.
💡 Startup Spotlight
Mimbly - a Swedish company that reduces water usage, energy consumption, and microplastics released by washing machines.
👀 Quick Hits
S&P reports that sustainability-linked loan issuance now outpaces green bonds and loans.
A group of 52 major investors have called on companies to disclose plans to cut their greenhouse gases, make a board director responsible for those actions and allow investors to vote annually on progress on the plan.
Why we should care about energy transmission, not just energy generation.
Big oil is also being affected by extreme weather caused by climate change.
Google launched low emission zones in Google Maps in Berlin to promote sustainable choices by consumers.
🎧 Podcast
AeroShield: a clear (and energy efficient) window to the future
Just Salad: Pioneering Zero Waste in Restaurants
A Good Company: mitigating mindless consumption
The Understory Podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.
⚙️ Jobs
Find and share your open positions on the Understory Slack channel.
Multiple Roles at Return Rabbit
Director of Social Impact at Minecraft / Microsoft
Open Innovation Sustainability Segment Lead at Accenture
Senior Project Manager, Sustainability at JLL
Vice President Research (Sustainability / ESG) at ING
Director, Circular Economy at Mitsubishi Chemical America
Global Sustainability Manager, Food Program at Google
Business Development Director at Act Analytics
Principal Product Manager for Sustainability at Amazon
Climatetech Financial Analyst at Climate Collective
Environmental Data Analyst at Arc’teryx
Multiple Roles at Rheaply
Brand Partnerships Manager at TerraCycle
Head of Sales at Lizee
Business Developer & Sales at Resortecs
Product manager and engineers at Topl
🗓 Events
September 15: Startups Driving Sustainability - September Showcase
Nominate a speaker or apply today to present at one of our showcases. We are currently working on exciting lineup for our fall events.
📧 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.
Until next week!