Top Climate Startups 2023

Pachama is a leading climate-tech company harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as computer vision and satellites to drive funding to effective reforestation and conservation projects that sequester carbon, enhance biodiversity and enrich local communities around the world. Through a tech-verified marketplace that counts as customer the likes of Amazon, Airbnb, Netflix and Nespresso, the company drives capital to forests in Brazil, Mexico, India, the USA and beyond. The company is backed by top investors such as Bill Gates' BEV, Chis Sacca's LowerCarbon, Amazon Climate Pledge among others. The company is fully remote and driven by a strong sense of purpose.

We're building a device that captures a semi-truck’s carbon emissions directly from the tailpipe. We'll sell the CO2 to end-users, and share that revenue with our customers, so our device will create a new revenue stream for our customers while reducing their emissions.

The first apparel & footwear Carbon Management Platform.

AirMyne is building machines to capture & remove carbon dioxide from ambient atmospheric air so it can be utilized or sequestered downstream. Our team is based in Berkeley, CA.

We design, develop and manufacture sustainable battery solutions.

Enerjazz is building a battery swapping network (like gasoline stations) for 2M+ commercial electric vehicles in India. We make batteries affordable for EV owners and enable them to earn 80% more. Every rickshaw in India will be electric (8M) because of the government not renewing licenses for gas-powered rickshaws. The charging infrastructure does not exist at home for rickshaw owners. The only way for a professional electric rickshaw driver to be profitable is to swap batteries - overnight charging is not sufficient.

Impossible mining is building underwater robotics vehicles which collect battery metals from the seabed without harming the environment. We have $500M+ in off-take LoI’s and have signed a partnership with a global offshore logistics company which holds a seabed mining exploration permit. We have also built the 1st PoC underwater robotic arm. Polymetallic nodules are rocks which are rich in critical battery metals. Specially nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. These metals are the the most expensive part of EVs.

Birch Biosciences engineers enzymes for plastic recycling using synthetic biology and machine learning. Our enzymes function as high performance “molecular scissors” that efficiently break down plastic polymers into chemical building blocks that can be used to manufacture high quality recycled plastic products. Today, plastic manufacturing is unsustainable and a major driver of climate change. Birch Biosciences is developing an economical end-to-end plastic recycling process that reduces carbon emissions by 70% and enables a circular plastic economy.

ALT TEX is a Toronto-based biomaterials startup that has developed the world’s first biodegradable and carbon neutral fabric, engineered from the world’s largest landfill contributor - food waste. Polyester alone makes up 60% of the $2.5 trillion fashion industry and is the biggest blocker preventing brands from meeting sustainability mandates. The patent-pending ALT TEX fermentation technology creates a polyester alternative that works with the existing infrastructure to supply a sustainable, high performance and cost competitive polyester replacement to fashion brands, at scale. The product solves key problems for fashion brands, consumers, and the environment: (1) Fashion brands: ALT TEX sells fabric to fashion brands, allowing them to differentiate via sustainable options (sustainable fashion growing 11% CAGR) and hit sustainability targets, without sacrificing performance or changing their current supply chain. (2) Consumer: The ALT TEX fabric is projected to be half the price vs. other specialized sustainable alternatives (due to low-cost input and scalability), meaning greater accessibility. (3) Environment: A single shirt produced with ALT TEX fabric can divert 1 kg of food waste from landfills, 9 kg of carbon emissions from the air, and 4 g of micro-plastics from our waterways. Co-founders Myra and Avneet have worked together managing teams and projects for six years, with backgrounds in serial entrepreneurship, corporate sales at Fortune 500 companies, textile manufacturing and biochemistry. To date, ALT TEX has created their first fabric prototype that’s 70% stronger than cotton, secured $1M in LOIs and raised $2.3M.

Public benefit company on a mission to fight climate change by genetically enhancing CO2 capture and storage in plants.

We are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry by replacing fuel with solar panels. Solar-powered cargo ships have the potential to eliminate 2.2% of global CO2 production, while simultaneously cutting shipping costs by 50-75% depending on route. We are making a boat that is both greener and cheaper.

BuyPower is the modern bill payment platform for Africans. We make it easy for individuals to pay their energy bills, businesses to pay international vendors, and lenders to make smarter lending decisions using our proprietary Energy Data Service. Our mission is to simplify bill payment and empower African SMBs to prioritize their financial health.

Holy Grail removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to contribute to the long-term sustainability of humans and other species on Earth

We’re building a SaaS tool that enables companies in highly polluting industries to track their supply chain carbon emissions so they can mitigate risks from incoming carbon taxes and government penalties.

Alga Biosciences is a fast-moving startup focused on transforming the agricultural industry. Our mission is to make an immediate, dramatic impact on global methane emissions produced by enteric fermentation in partnership with the cattle industry. We believe in leveraging biology to tackle the world’s biggest problems.

Boundary Layer Technologies is building the next generation of water mobility, starting with a ultra-performances electric foiling water craft called Valo. Valo flies 2ft above the water at 58mph, in silence, with no waves or emissions, and will be the most exhilarating thing on the water.

We are crushing roads in need of maintenance, reusing the old road materials, replacing heavy oil with carbon binding lignin. This is both a cheaper, more durable and net carbon negative method, removing ~1.5 tonnes CO2 from the atmosphere from every 100 feet of road. We offer Crushing As A Service (CRAAS) to public and private road owners and refurbishers, and are already gaining international traction. Using satellite imagery, we will monitor road status and potential, and will offer additional tech and bio enhancements to make all roads green and a solution to the climate crisis. We are building the road to a carbon negative future.

Our technology enables li-ion batteries to charge extremely fast while retaining long cycle life using smart control algorithms.

Abatable is a carbon offsetting procurement platform which connects companies with carbon project developers of high quality carbon offsets. Abatable facilitates procurement decisions by offering third party quality assessments of projects and by standardizing multi-year purchase agreements and an automated RFP platform. The team has extensive experience advising institutional investors on nature-based carbon removal and impact investment portfolios and is backed by leading investors like YCombinator, BlueBear Capital and Global Founders Capital.

Nira is a map tool, built for renewable energy developers, that shows available capacity at every interconnection point on the electrical grid. Customers like AES and Cypress Creek use Nira to find the most profitable points on the grid to site new projects.

Ferveret develops liquid cooling solutions inspired by nuclear power plant cooling. We save data centers 96% in cooling costs, 68% on capital costs, and reduce their carbon footprint by 40% while increasing chip performance by 2X. Today, about 40% of the electricity used in these facilities is wasted on cooling. Our technology eliminates this wasted energy.

We build engines that have the potential to slash 33% or worldwide CO2 emissions - cost-effectively. First, we help food and mining companies cut both their heat costs *and* CO2 emissions by replacing gas-fired steam boilers with our proprietary high temperature heat pumps. Our heat pumps make up to 3x more heat with the same amount of electricity, even at up to 1000°F. Once the heat pump market is mature, we will address the seasonal energy storage market. Our storage units are based on the exact same proprietary engine we use for our heat pumps. They work with solar and wind, and replace lithium-ion batteries, fossil-fired power plants, CO2 capture and storage, and fuel procurement, with a cheaper, sustainable and more reliable alternative, which can be sited anywhere. The first opportunity is a high-margin market worth 3% of worldwide CO2. The second is a much bigger market worth 30% of worldwide CO2. By the time all cars become electric, it will be even more. Our key is we are building the first Stirling engine to reach 86% of the Carnot efficiency, compared to 64% for the state of the art. We do all that while significantly decreasing costs, and increasing reliability. Please see Airthium's website for more information.

Minimum lets you calculate, report on, and reduce the carbon emissions of your business, whether you're a corporate or an investment fund.

PowerX AI powered sensors create proprietary data to save corporations 30% or more in energy, water and emissions. 

Heimdal builds machines that permanently capture and store atmospheric CO2. Congress has passed legislation (IRA) guaranteeing a price of $180/tCO2 removed via Direct Air Capture until 2032. We are building technology that profitably captures CO2 with this tax credit, right here in the United States.

Solar power is the #1 source of new energy in the world. Raptor Maps is a fast-growing, MIT-born startup that builds software to manage the solar lifecycle. We are deployed across 45 countries and 200+ million solar panels. Our software enables the solar industry to scale. We're headquartered at Greentown Labs, the largest cleantech incubator in the US and also support fully remote employees.

SunFarmer provides affordable solar energy for hospitals, schools, businesses, and farms in developing countries. In many parts of the world, electricity is unavailable, unstable, or extremely expensive. Yet reliable electricity is critical for high quality healthcare, modern education, economic development, and improved agricultural productivity. Learn more at sunfarmer.org

Maple Materials, Inc. (Richmond, California) develops a low-cost electrolysis process to split carbon dioxide into graphite and oxygen. Due to several unique features of our production process and product, we have potential to produce battery-grade graphite anode material one-third the cost of current graphite anode materials. When powered by renewables, this process has the potential to be carbon negative.

HyLight builds and operates autonomous airships for long range monitoring. We focus on detecting methane leaks on pipelines and defects on power lines. Our innovation, the HyLighter, is a crossover between drone and airship technology. Like a drone, it is easily controllable and transportable. And, like an airship, it is extremely energy-efficient, enabling it to fly for up to 10 hours at slow speed (22mph) for optimal data collection which represents a range of 220miles. Today, energy infrastructure operators struggle with conducting inspections that are simultaneously: massive and precise. HyLight offers a solution to precisely detect issues on the infrastructure at an industrial scale, and all of this without emitting GHGs. We are 4 co-founders experienced in hardware and energy companies with Masters in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science and Business from the best Engineering and Business School in France. We have developed 5 different flying aircrafts and are preparing a 20k$ pilot program with Enedis, the largest power line companies in Europe. We also have LOIs with energy infrastructure operators worth over $3.5M.

Verdn is a climate-impact API for companies and their end-customers. With Verdn, companies direct a portion of sales towards ecosystem restoration projects (like tree planting, ocean-plastic cleanup, and coral planting), carried out by vetted NGO partners. After each sale, we send the end-customer a tracking dashboard where they can engage with updates about their positive impact. Our mission is to Ctrl+Z global ecosystem collapse by making sustainability profitable. We have planted 1,500,000 trees, recovered 400,000 kg of ocean-bound plastic and 150 m2 of coral reef, and have over 100+ paying customers that are seeing a 10x boost in engagement.

With Wren, anyone can offset their carbon footprint by supporting credible nature, industry, and policy projects. We also show users how they can reduce their carbon footprint. We make it easy for anyone to turn climate confusion into climate action.

Seabound builds carbon capture equipment for ships. We're the only way for existing ships to reduce up to 95% of CO2 emissions and meet new global regulations.

The mining industry drills narrow holes in the ground called drillholes to identify how much gold is in a ground at any spot. These holes are expensive so the industry uses statistical interpolation to predict what's in between these holes. Stratum replaces these traditional methods by utilizing deep learning to better predict both where to best drill and how much gold is in between these holes. This technology is not limited to gold and has been demonstrated to work on other metals, including base metals like copper. Based on Stratum's current pilots, our technology is projected to create ~10M in annual value for the average mine.

Phase Biolabs makes carbon negative solvents and electro-fuels from carbon dioxide (CO2) using fermentation. You can read more about what we are building in our Hacker News article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30557288 Phase Biolabs is also supported by Bill Gate's Breakthrough Energy Foundation via their Innovator Fellowship program.

Glow Energy is a mission-driven company dedicated to making the built environment more sustainable. Our software empowers rental property owners to transform their buildings into Virtual Power Plants that drive sustainability and financial benefits for tenants, property owners, and clean energy infrastructure developers.

Pina Earth is building a suite of digital tools for data collection, monitoring, and certification of forest carbon projects. EU forests are at high risk due to climate change. With Pina Earth, forest owners can start high-quality carbon projects on their properties and use the new income stream to prepare their forests for a changing climate. Founded only last year, the startup already has active pilot projects on over 1,000 hectare (∼2,500 acres) in Germany. The founders met at CDTM and joined their expertise in sustainability science, software engineering, and machine learning to help EU forests.

Combining nanotechnology with fundamental chemical engineering principles to accelerate the renewable energy revolution.

Elyos Energy helps companies save cost and reduce carbon emissions by shifting electricity consumption outside of peak demand. We connect to smart thermostats, HVAC systems, batteries and EV chargers to automatically lower consumption during peak times. Electrification is at the core of the UK’s net zero strategy. However, with the increase of renewable energy as a mix of the electricity supply, comes an intermittent and more volatile balance between supply and demand. With the mass adoption of EVs, the increasingly urgent demand for air conditioning and electrification of heat, overall electricity demand is outpacing the transformation of the grid. Elyos Energy is helping to solve the problem of supply and demand with energy flexibility at scale, starting with the 1.6 million commercial buildings in the UK. Our SaaS platform enables large commercial buildings to leverage their distributed energy resources (smart thermostats, HVAC systems, solar, battery) to reduce strain on the grid at hours of peak demand and lower their energy costs. We connect to a range of APIs from smart thermostats, HVAC systems, solar, battery etc. to automate measures of energy consumption reduction and opt-in to national grid demand response events where customers can earn money for energy reduction. By shifting 10% of peak time consumption, we save companies 15% on their electricity bill and reduce their CO2 emissions by 7%. Elyos Energy is leveraging energy flexibility, at mass-market scale to enable electrification of the energy system.

Noya is radically reducing the upfront capital costs and installation time required to perform direct air capture. We're doing this by retrofitting existing pieces of industrial equipment like cooling towers and turning them into CO2 capture machines.

Paces is software for renewable developers to identify the best places to build their projects. Renewable development is growing quickly but 80% of US renewable projects fail because they are built in the wrong places, costing $17B per year. Paces solves this by modeling grid, permitting, and environmental due diligence risks to identify the best places for renewable projects. Paces even integrates location based incentives, like those in the recently passed $370B US Climate Bill.

We help explorers discover mineral deposits required to meet the demand of the sustainable energy transition. Our stack includes an AI system and Drilling Hardware. AI predicts the location of new deposits using satellite and geophysical data, and is trained on hundreds of millions of data points from known deposits. Drilling hardware speeds up the on-the-ground data collection by 4X and reduces costs by 2X due to high mobility, increased uptime, integrated mud filtration, and waste removal features. We form alliances with explorers like Legacy minerals, Kincora Copper and Rarex to help them find new deposits in exchange for 3% mining royalties (revenue share from the operating mine).

Today, water supplies are more scarce than ever before, requiring water utilities to operate more efficiently than anyone thought possible. That’s where we come in. Like water, the flow of data from water utilities is both measurable and manageable. Valor helps utilities transform complicated data into simple solutions that can make a big difference. Some call it advanced water utility analytics. We call it all in a day’s work.