Climate Insider’s conversations with venture capital investors: Part 1.
Climate Insider spoke to two leading venture capital investment firms, 4impact Capital and Satgana, covering their perspective on the current climate tech landscape and noteworthy startups.
Investors from both firms emphasised the importance of climate data solutions for more efficient innovation processes. Climate tech areas that the investors particularly highlighted include geospatial sustainability, carbon removal and emissions reduction, sustainable manufacturing, industrial AI and blockchain for supply chain transparency. These sectors highlight the holistic definition and approach to climate tech, ranging from data-driven insights and emissions reducing technologies, to sustainable manufacturing and supply chain transparency.
Pauline Wink (4impact Capital)
Our team spoke with Pauline Wink, General Partner at 4impact Capital, venture capital fund based in The Hague. Pauline stressed the importance of startups focused on data insights: “Within our portfolio we believe companies such as Satelligence, Carbonfuture, Tvarit and Circularise have invented particularly powerful climate solutions. There are quick wins to achieve better data insights and subsequent decision making as the human brain is limited to taking into account only a few variables at a time.”
Satelligence, based in Utrecht, is a geospatial sustainability company trusted by industry giants like Cargill, Unilever, and IKEA. Specialising in curated and E&Y verified insights, Satelligence equips businesses with comprehensive data on deforestation, supply chains, and scope 3 emissions. Using radar and optical satellite imagery, the company helps clients, including growers, traders, manufacturers, and fund managers, monitor and address sustainability risks. Satelligence’s services aid in regulatory compliance, scope 3 emissions reduction, and the adoption of risk-based approaches for environmental challenges in supply chains.
Freiburg-based Carbonfuture is a provider of carbon removal solutions, offering products like Carbonfuture MRV+ and Carbonfuture Marketplace. Through a rigorous, data-driven approach, the company ensures quality in carbon removal initiatives. Carbonfuture supports projects, transforming them into certified carbon credits, providing corporate buyers access to high-quality portfolios.
Tvarit, Based in Frankfurt, Germany, is a Deep Tech software development company that specialises in TVARIT Industrial AI (TiA) Technology for sustainable manufacturing, particularly in foundries and metalworking. Their mission is to minimise energy losses and waste while maximising machine availability. Using patented technologies like “Hybrid AI” and “Transfer learning,” the company achieves rapid results, with an average of -30% less scrap and -20% less energy consumption within 2-3 months, ensuring a return on investment in under six months. The company has been recognized as the best AI company in Europe for “Best Smart Factory Startup” in 2020, with a track record of success in over 55 industrial projects.
Circularise, a Dutch software provider, leverages blockchain technology to drive supply chain transparency for a widespread circular economy. Their solution, incorporating ‘Smart Questioning’ encryption, facilitates product traceability, origin verification, and data validation such as certificates and carbon footprint. Utilising a public blockchain-based chain of custody, Circularise enables the secure sharing of sensitive product information without compromising data privacy.
Pauline had the following conclusive thoughts about all of these companies, “These companies have made it possible to seamlessly integrate into the decision making loop with smart digital technology, saving valuable resources and reducing emissions on a large scale, which is one of the main reasons why we are supporting them.”
Romain Diaz & Desirée Pettersson (Satgana)
Climate Insider also spoke to two investment professionals, Romain Diaz (Founder and CEO) and Desirée Pettersson (Investment Analyst) from Satgana, an early-stage climate tech venture capital firm based in Luxembourg City. When asked about noteworthy climate tech startups, they both mentioned startups they have invested in. Both startups develop AI and data driven climate tech solutions.
“First, our most recent investment in Nairobi-based Climate Tech startup Amini. Amini is targeting Africa’s environmental data scarcity problem and the lack of reliable and accurate data collection and intelligence infrastructure on the continent,” said Romain and Desirée. Amini deploys and utilises a constellation of IoT-integrated nano-satellites and combines it with pre-existing data sources to produce real-time low-cost data with unprecedented granularity down to the farm level, “thereby enabling the regeneration of natural capital at scale, sustainable supply chain management, and the implementation of climate adaptation measures.”
Secondly, Romain and Desirée mentioned Satgrana and YC-backed Orbio, based in San Francisco. Orbio is developing a technology using satellites and AI to monitor and reduce methane leaks from the energy sector. “We deem this solution to be particularly impactful considering that methane’s global warming potential in the atmosphere is 84x greater than that of CO2 on a 20-year timeframe,” They mentioned that even though methane contributes less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions, it constitutes one-third of the warming observed so far. “Considering that a major source of methane is coming from leaks, with no positive impact on the economy or society whatsoever, mitigating these represent low-hanging fruits to slow warming which is why we deem Orbio’s solution to be so impactful,” the two professionals concluded.
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