Top 10% of climate tech co's | $100M donation for space solar | “Mortality cost of carbon”
Plus, $4B for climate private equity with a Lord, 83 million deaths from climate change, $7.9B for farm tech, climate CEO interview in CCUS
List: Top 10% climate tech companies
That is, according to the global multi-stage investment venture capital firm SOSV.
They reviewed their 1,000+ investments across biotech, hard tech, mobile, and Asian tech to find their top 100 climate tech companies.
In aggregate, “the SOSV Climate Tech 100 have raised $1.85 billion from investors and have a market cap of $5.65 billion. The average company is four years old. SOSV has invested $89 million in these companies and was in most cases the first investor.”
As for how the 100 companies fell into various subsectors, they used five industry categories:
Food (50)
Manufacturing (28)
Transport (9)
Energy (7)
Building Systems (6)
Want more climate catnip?
Air Table: Capital raised and subsector for each firm
Deeper dive: Graphs on funding rounds, other climate tech investors, the role of PhD scientists and women founders (40% of total), and more
In case you missed it…
Global Warming Will Kill 83 Million People in the Next 80 Years (Bloomberg)
Potential cause — Extreme heat
By when? — 2100
Source — Columbia University’s Earth Institute
New metric — “Mortality cost of carbon”
And there’s more — This tally doesn’t include potential deaths from “rising seas, superstorms, crop failures or changing disease patterns affected by atmospheric warming”
Tipping the scales — Does anybody care more about getting a higher price on carbon now?
Why investors are raising climate tech funds at a torrid pace (Pitchbook)
Oh, graphs! — Global deal flow ($) in angel, seed, early VC, and late VC
Who’s who? — 10 notable new climate tech funds closed this year
$100M donation powers decade-long moonshot to create solar satellites that beam power to Earth (TechCrunch)
Research team — Caltech (see research and prototypes here)
Funder — Donald Bren, Chairman of Irvine Company (real estate)
Lesson — Make a lot of money and then give it to causes you care about
Contrary question — How much more impact could $100M have in deploying existing climate solutions on Earth?
Farm tech investing is accelerating faster than ever – New report (AgFunder News)
Amount of investment in 2020 — $7.9B (41% growth from 2019)
Hooray and what?! — Ynsect raised $222M in 2020 to build industrial farms for its mealworm-based food for animals, plants, and humans
General Atlantic raising $4 billion to invest in climate tech (Axios)
General who? — With $53B in assets, another of mainstream investors “finding climate”
Where’s the gold? — $3B from outside investors + $1B from existing managed accounts
Moody’s acquires RMS from DMGT for $2B (Mergers & Acquisitions)
Climate relevance? — RMS is a “global provider of climate and natural disaster risk modeling and analytics”
Coming to a theater near you — More climate risk captured in bond ratings
Can we reach net-zero by 2050? These 3 focus-points will help (World Economic Forum)
Big numbers — “$6 to 10T in global investments are needed in the next decade to mitigate climate change. This amounts to a cumulative 6-10 percent of annual global GDP.”
Who’s [supposed to be] paying? — 30% public, 70% private
India’s ReNew Power to list on Nasdaq following US$8B deal with US SPAC (PV Tech)
How high can they go? — That $8B valuation is just shy of First Solar at $10B
Why are they so hot? — 5GW of operational solar and wind projects in India
Climate Torch podcast: Scott Frazier, CEO of Carbon America
In our recent podcast episode, I talked with Entrepreneurs for Impact Climate Mastermind member Scott Frazier about Carbon America’s work as a carbon dioxide capture and sequestration “super developer” deploying existing off-the-shelf carbon removal technology while also developing its own proprietary next-generation, low-cost technology.
We also covered his career path from rocket scientist to serial energy entrepreneur, the need to be more audacious in our thinking and actions, how carbon capture project finance works, the importance of curiosity for entrepreneurial success, recommended book and podcasts, and a favorite quote (which also explains the kind of human being he is):
“Save the world and die anonymously doing so.”
Listen to the podcast, or read our summary transcript here.
To find 40+ more interviews with investor-backed climate CEOs and climate investors:
Check out our Climate Torch podcast here, and see how you can get involved to support the mission of these climate change innovators.
That’s all, folks.
Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.
— Chris
P.S. Are you thinking big enough? Probably not. (Me, neither.)
“You see things, and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say 'Why not?’”
George Bernard Shaw — Irish playwright, Nobel Prize winner, and 19th century vegetarian proponent (“veggie-what?”)
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Dr. Chris Wedding
Founder and Chief Catalyst, Entrepreneurs for Impact
Climate Masterminds for CXOs, Founders, Investors, and Project Developers
(private peer groups with 11 high performers per cohort)
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Ready to level up with 10 other climate champs?
Check out the next cohort of our Mastermind.
Application deadline: September 12.
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