“Launching twelve more decarbonising and carbon capturing rockets to build what needs to be built”
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Carbon13 is delighted to announce that we have invested in 12 high-potential climatetech ventures from the latest cohort of our Venture Builder programme, bringing the total number of ventures launched and invested to 44 since 2021.
The latest batch of ventures range from retrofitting homes on land to robotics farming in the ocean, using technologies such as artificial intelligence, thermal batteries, and yeast.
These 12 ventures have each received £120,000 pre-seed investment, and now will go through the final phase of the Venture Builder, focusing on traction, their fundraising strategy, and their ability to maximise carbon emission mitigation.
They’ve been supported throughout by our partners EY, who continue to provide domain expertise across AI, Blockchain, hydrogen, carbon reporting and other areas.
The Carbon13 Approach
Each one of the ventures demonstrated to our Investment Committee the core Carbon13 tenets of strong startup building such as teaming and breakthrough innovation, but most importantly they demonstrated their potential to mitigate CO2e emissions by 10 million tonnes per year when at scale.
Carbon13 is the only venture builder laser focused on carbon and consequently Carbon13 only invests when ventures can mitigate a minimum net 10 million tonnes of CO2e per year at scale, this usually means addressing markets with a carbon potential of ~0.5 gigatonnes of CO2e per year by 2030.
Supporting founders to reach 10 Million
To hit the Carbon13 target, the Venture Builder ensures that these early stage ventures have the confidence to embed carbon thinking from day 1, which means tightly connecting the CO2e mitigation with their commercial proposition through building Carbon Intelligence.
The ventures’ founders built their carbon case through accessing support from our bank of carbon experts, access to the Carbon13 GHG Toolkit and – unlike other accelerator type programmes – they made a “Carbon Pitch”, a pitch based solely on their venture’s potential to reduce emissions. These took place just before their business pitches at our Community Input Days, attended by over 400 people across 2 days.
“Launching twelve more decarbonising and carbon capturing rockets to build what needs to be built is a proud achievement for the entire Carbon13 team.
Carbon13 was born out of the belief that we’ve got to try collectively as a species to reach Net Zero as soon as possible and each one of these founders has made a powerful choice to join that effort. Many have changed careers, lives and even countries, all to focus on solving the climate crisis. I am in awe of every one of them, and look forward to seeing thousands more founders joining the call in 2023.”
The Carbon13 Portfolio
The addition of these ventures brings the total Carbon13 stable to 44 ventures since 2021. 70% of our first three cohorts have already raised further investment. Notable ventures include Kita, the world’s first carbon removal insurance provider, Materials Nexus, a materials discovery platform that uses quantum computing, and Nium, a green hydrogen startup that replaces the Haber Bosch process.
All the 44 ventures received their investment from the Carbon13 SEIS Fund, which is supported by notable investors including ex-Dragon Nick Jenkins, Aron Gelbard (founder, Bloom and Wild), and Graham Hobson (founder, Photobox). Please click here to learn more about our Fund.
Meet the ventures:
These 12 startups have been founded by a total of 29 entrepreneurs who participated in Cohort 4 of the Venture Builder. They are drawn from all across the globe and a third have PhDs.
Aed Energy – Thermal batteries for energy storage and industrial decarbonisation.
Apleum – Biofuels from waste. Converting renewable energy and organic waste into liquid fuels.
Bravely Cultured – Exploiting novel marine yeast to produce sustainable food by precision fermentation.
Canefin – Directing more financing to decarbonise the UK economy.
Fidata – Accelerate Net Zero with Accurate Data for Financial Markets
Kestrix – Their hardware-enabled SaaS platform takes the guesswork out of retrofit planning – helping save retrofitters time, de-risk projects, and accelerate the decarbonisation of buildings.
Ki Hydrogen – Accelerating the green hydrogen transition through novel, deeptech solutions.
NatureBound – On a mission to regenerate the biodiversity that underpins our food system
Samudra – AI and robotics for ocean farming to create Blue Carbon at Scale.
SeedCulture – B2B solution to help organisations embed sustainability and climate action into their culture.
Unbound Energy – Installing solar with batteries for free in homes and businesses. Using AI to remotely control these distributed systems to maximize electricity savings and investor returns
Vundahaus – Industrialising the process of insulating homes. Their off-site manufactured wall system reduces installation time by 4x and avoids skilled trades – unlocking retrofit at scale.
Follow their progress
As all our founders know, startup life is climbing one hill to find the start of another. These ventures’ journeys have just begun – and you’re welcome to follow their progress. Join our community by signing up for our newsletter and be the first to hear news, job opportunities and invitations to the next Climate Innovation Showcase at the Cambridge Union.
Become a founder with Carbon13
Do you want to become a founder of a high growth climatetech venture? Applications are currently open for our next two Cohorts based in Cambridge and Berlin. Explore our programmes to find out how you too could join a cohort, find a brilliant cofounder, and build a venture capable of reducing emissions by millions of tonnes.
Press enquiries:
For more information please view our press release or contact Dominic Margetson, Director of Communications and Partnerships, dominic@carbonthirteen.com.