#116: 🌎💸 24 top-ranked climate tech ventures
4 bullets on climate, startups, productivity, leadership (2-min read)
Good morning, folks.
In today’s 2-minute read, we’ll cover these 4 nuggets below — as delightful as an unexpected meeting cancellation that frees up your summer afternoon to play hooky.
Climate Startups & Investment:
#1 — 🏆 Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies and its top climate tech companies
#2 — 🎖️ 100 tech startups, over 40% in climate, join the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers community
Productivity & Leadership:
#3 — 🧠 This app provides a “mental health gym” for your employees
#4 — 🍋 Leonardo da Vinci was a bastard. This was a key to his success.
Onward and upward,
Chris
P.S. Want more? Read 100+ prior newsletter issues here.
#1 — 🏆 Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies and its top climate tech companies.
Why might you care about this list?
Motivation for how your company can have a more positive impact on the world
Proof that climate tech is going mainstream
Inspiration for your company to be ON this list someday
Examples include these startups below (random order), plus other giants like Patagonia, Albermarle, and Schneider Electric:
Regrow Ag — “Rethinking farming”
Plenty — “Farming to new heights”
Ganni — “Eco-conscious fashion”
LanzaTech — “Carbon recycling”
Colossal Biosciences — “Reversing extinction”
Ample — “Fully charged, faster”
Aclima — “Mapping air pollution”
thredUP — “Slowing fast fashion”
Eviation Aircraft — “Electric flight”
Octopus Energy — “Finding efficiency”
ZeroAvia — “Cutting flight’s footprint”
#2 — 🎖️ 100 tech startups, over 40% in climate, join the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers community.
First, who gets onto this list?
The Technology Pioneers community is composed of early-stage companies from around the world that are involved in the design, development, and deployment of new technologies and innovations and are poised to have a significant impact on business and society.
So, it’s pretty sector agnostic.
However, 42% of the companies selected in North America (below in alphabetical order) fall into the climate or sustainability bucket.
This is even higher than the roughly 25% of all VC dollars that flow into climate tech.
Why such a high percentage?
Because of this mantra:
“Climate tech isn’t an industry. Instead, it affects almost all industries.”
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Boston Materials — “Developing a patented Z-axis Fiber™, a lightweight material that has an extraordinary ability to diffuse energy”
CarbonCapture — “Designing modular and upgradeable direct air capture systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently dispose of it underground”
ClimateAI — “Providing short and long-term insights into weather and climate impact by applying AI to climate-risk modeling”
e-Zinc — “Developing an electrochemical technology for storing energy in zinc, providing a low-cost, flexible, and long-duration energy storage solution”
Fork & Goode — “Creating cell-based pure animal proteins and fats that are clean, traceable and delicious”
Huue — “Using biotechnology to create a cost-effective, resource-efficient, and sustainable dyeing alternative”
KODE Labs — “Developing a smart building OS that organizes the data to make operations smarter, simpler, and more cost-effective”
Odyssey Energy Solutions — “Providing financiers and renewable energy project developers a data-driven software platform to aggregate and scale investment in distributed renewable energy”
Pano AI — “Using deep-learning AI and computer vision to automatically detect, verify and classify wildfire events in real-time”
Radiant Industries — “Developing a compact nuclear reactor with all equipment necessary to generate electricity in a mass-producible and easily transportable package”
Sublime Systems — “Developing technology that eliminates CO2 emissions from cement with a process that uses ambient temperature electrochemistry”
Sylvatex — “Developing a proprietary waterless process producing cathode active material (CAM) that uses fewer steps and less energy in battery production” (Hooray, Virginia! 👋)
UrbanFootprint — “Developing a comprehensive urban, climate and community resilience data system that provides insights to the institutions that are rebuilding, financing and insuring the world's physical and social infrastructure”
#3 — 🧠 This app provides a “mental health gym” for you and your employees.
“Your emotional fitness is as important as your physical fitness.”
So says the website of Coa, a “new online, therapist-led learning experience here to help you along your emotional fitness journey.”
Co-created by Dr. Emily Anhalt, a clinical psychologist, access is $49/mo and includes classes such as:
Emotionally Fit Leadership
Navigating Job Change
Confidence & Impostor Syndrome
You can also check out Coa via TechCrunch, Wired, or Psychology Today.
#4 — 🍋 Leonardo da Vinci was a bastard. That was a key to his success.
OK, why a lemon emoji?
Because Leonardo turned that lemon (“I’m a bastard!”) into lemonade (“I’m one of the most famous artists and investors of all time.”)
Here’s what I mean.
His father was a notary. In the late 15th century, this was like being a lawyer.
Sweet salary but a highly structured career path.
Had Leonardo been a son born in wedlock from his mom and dad, he would have likely ended up a notary.
But as a bastard, he was free to explore his curiosity.
And, well, the rest is history.
Get more on his life in the 3-part series in April and May from this podcast: How to Take Over the World
Wait, how is this odd history lesson relevant to us normal humans?
In the world of software, there are bugs (problems) and features (assets).
However, in this case, good ole’ Leo reminds us that our bugs can be our features; our “liabilities” can be our assets.
📓 Two final notes
(1) Tell a friend
If you enjoyed this newsletter, I’d really appreciate it if you sent it to a friend or two (or 20). 🙏
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(2) Fundraising for startups
If you’d like to learn how to raise capital for your climate tech startup, I’m teaching a short course about this in September. It’s taught live, online, with a cohort of peers.
That’s all, y’all.
Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.
Cheers,
Chris
The #1 climate CEO peer group in North America
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P.S. Want to learn how to invest in climate tech startups?
In 6 hours of live class, learn how my friend and climate tech VC investor, Yoann Berno, built a portfolio of 30 climate tech startups on track for a 5.3x return in 5 years.
Learn more about this short course here.
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(As evidenced by these photos, I’m an actual human. Not an AI. 🤫 I promise.)
