GreenTech

For all its promise, the current state of solid-waste recycling leaves a lot to be desired. Plastic waste is among the worst: It represents about 12% of solid waste in the U.S., but only about 4.5% of what gets recycled. There are plenty of reasons why we’re terrible at recycling plastics. For one, not all

Alternative meat, seafood, and dairy products are all the rage in startup land, with countless companies raising bucketloads of cash and showcasing their first products throughout 2022. There are two broad categories within the meat-substitute space specifically: plant-based foods that strive to mimic the texture, look, and feel of real meat, and “lab-grown” cultivated meat that’s

Today, the electrical grid works because utilities have a time-tested playbook. They may not know exactly when you do your laundry, but they generally know washers and dryers run more in the evenings or on weekends. Air conditioners wind up when temperatures soar, and more lights click on during the dark winter months. But in

ULUU believes the solution to the plastic crisis lies in the world’s oceans. The Australian startup uses seaweed to create a plastic alternative and is planning to launch its first products in the next 12 to 24 months. Today ULUU announced it has raised $8 million AUD (about $5.3 million USD) led by Main Sequence

Packaging is a trillion-dollar-per-year industry that, by and large, has some sustainability challenges. Impacked is a B2B company that’s bringing green tech to the forefront for everything from jars, tubes and pouches to bottles. The company raised a $2.5 million seed funding round led by TenOneTen Ventures, taking its total funding raised to $3.3 million.

BasiGo will begin assembling electric buses in Kenya from next month, ramping up its production of public transport vehicles (PSVs) as it targets to deliver 100 units by end of next year. The startup plans to deliver 15 of the 100 buses, manufactured using parts from China’s EV maker BYD Automotive, in January next year,

Cleantech startup Airly wants to help communities around the world improve air quality with affordable sensors and software that provides actionable insights. Based in London and Krakow, the startup announced today it has raised $5.5 million. The round was led by firstminute capital and Pi Labs, with participation from returning investors like the Sir Richard

California voters shot down a plan to make electric vehicles more affordable for some residents, dealing a blow to Lyft and the EV industry alike. Proposition 30 would have taxed residents making more than $2 million a year to subsidize electric cars and public charging stations as well as funded wildfire prevention programs. Even with

Californians seem to be voting against a proposal on the midterm election ballot that would tax the wealthiest Californians to help pay for electric vehicle tax incentives and EV charging infrastructure in the state. With about 53% of the state’s votes counted, Proposition 30 was losing 57.3% to 42.7%, according to California’s Secretary of State. California

Excess inventory, including returned items, from e-commerce, logistics and retail companies often ends up being disposed. Manila-based Humble Sustainability is a circular economy startup that wants to keep it out of the Philippines’ landfills. Since its launch, it has processed more than 150,000 items like clothing, consumer electronics and household appliances that are either resold

Ten years after a cap-and-trade scheme championed in part by John Kerry was unceremoniously killed by one of his colleagues across the aisle, the former senator turned climate envoy is once again pitching the policy as a solution to climate change. As an idea, cap and trade isn’t bad! It works by having governments cap

Spinning out of top U.K. universities Cambridge University and UCL, Carbon Re just raised £4.2 million ($4.8 million) in a bid to tackle the gigatonnes of carbon emissions spewing forth from the traditional thorn-in-climate-change-side cement industry. The company says it is building state-of-the-art AI to decarbonize energy-intensive industries. It claims that its “Delta Zero AI”

As rumors rumbled that the U.S. Federal Reserve would hike rates once more — and when it followed through earlier this week — another round of layoffs hit the tech sector. Stripe, Opendoor, Chime, Zillow, Cerebral, Brex, and of course Twitter, among others, have already cut or are about to eliminate thousands of jobs. That’s

A lot of problems worth solving aren’t ones that you can solve in a year or two or even 10. For founders and investors alike, such long timelines can seem daunting. But for Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of battery tech startup Sila, hard tech problems are also some of the most tantalizing. “It’s always

A lot of things might spring to mind when you hear “fashion,” but taking care of the planet generally isn’t on that list. Smartex just raised a couple of bolts’ worth of cash, sowing up a round of funding to bring smart tech to fabric manufacturing. The hope is to be able to detect textile

Kicking things off with a big funding round for AMP Robotics this week for a couple of reasons, but when push comes to shove, it comes down to something really simple: There are a lot of great reasons to be bullish on automation and there are a lot of equally great reasons to be bullish

Bruvi‘s B-pods take a novel approach that (probably correctly) assumes consumers are too lazy to return their aluminium pods to the manufacturer (looking at you, Nespresso), and too clumsy to do the pre-processing needed to properly dispose of other pods. So the company instead assumes that the pods go to a landfill, and designed them

Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon is doubling down on a startup that is racing to bring solar modules to rooftops in India. SolarSquare said on Thursday it has raised $13 million in a Series A funding round led by Lowercarbon and Elevation Capital, just months after securing its seed financing. Existing backers Good Capital, Rainmatter, Better Capital

At an AI-focused press event today in New York, Google announced that it’s bringing its AI-powered wildfire detection system to the U.S. Canada, Mexico and parts of Australia. It’s one of several “AI for good” efforts the company detailed this morning, which also included Google’s efforts to expand flood forecasting to more regions around the

A prolific investor in climate-tech companies in Canada is back with a second fund for “low-carbon technologies” — only this time the firm plans to pump less money into the scene, over a longer period of time. The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) came out with a new, $400 million climate-tech fund on Wednesday,

Samsara Eco, an Australian startup that uses enzyme-based technology to break down plastic into its core molecules, announced today it has raised $54 million AUD (about $34.7 million USD) in Series A funding. The company is planning to build its first plastic recycling facility in Melbourne later this year, with the target of full-scale production

Indonesia wants to direct the blockchain craze toward greener use. The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Metaverse Green Exchange (MVGX), a Singaporean startup that specializes in digital exchange technology. The intended collaboration centers around IDX’s emission trading scheme that is slated to launch in 2025, and MVGX’s job is

With a glitzy vision of tackling some of “the biggest planetary challenges,” Third Nature is out to raise $35 million for its first VC fund, TechCrunch has learned. Third Nature has secured at least $2.8 million so far, per a regulatory filing. It joins a wave of relatively new, environmentally focused funds that are driving

The best way to remove plastics from the ecosystem is to make sure they never get there in the first place, and Cruz Foam is well on its way to replacing some of the worst ones out there with its naturally-derived and compostable alternative — and the company just landed an $18M series A to

Meet Neoplants, a French startup that is designing genetically modified houseplants so that they can absorb air pollutants. The startup’s first plant, the Neo P1, works hand in hand with the company’s own microbiome located in the soil near the plant roots. Neoplants targets specifically a group of indoor air pollutants that can’t be efficiently

Cutting your own carbon footprint isn’t easy, even for the most motivated person. Tracking, tallying, investigating, researching. For Sanchali Pal, though, that was part of the fun. Pal, who had been working in international development, wanted to start trimming her footprint. “I started building an Excel spreadsheet of the carbon emissions in my life, starting

2050 is an important year for climate tech, with the Paris Agreement calling for emissions to reach net zero by then. In a conversation with GenZero’s Frederick Teo for SOSV’s Climate Tech Summit, we talked about realistic paths to hitting that goal and how startups can tackle what Teo called one of the most existentialist

Many consumers and companies want to reduce their impact on the environment but may not know where to start or how to sustain the necessary changes. Tom Ferrier, the founder of Greener, an Australian cleantech startup, wants to help. He argues that sustainability and climate action doesn’t need to be complicated. His startup is geared

I get a lot of pitch deck submissions for this TechCrunch Pitch Deck Teardown series from people who are raising friend and family rounds, and I mostly pass on them. Often, these decks aren’t very good, but it’s important to remember that they don’t have to be. For a small round (say $200,000 or below),

While hydrogen is still relatively niched as a fuel for electric vehicles, a startup in China is jumping ahead to embrace it for autonomous driving scenarios. WeRide, one of the most funded robotaxi operators in China with investors including Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, said Tuesday it is joining hands with Hyundai to launch a “self-driving hydrogen-powered vehicle