GreenTech

There’s an idea floating in the ether (or at least in my ether) that there’s enough sunny federal land in Nevada to power the entire United States with solar. Some very rough back-of-the-envelope math suggests it’s possible, requiring just over 11% of Nevada’s federal land. None of that includes room for batteries for storage or

Gia Schneider raised $65 million on the road to unlock distributed hydro resources. In July 2021 Libby Wayman from Breakthrough Energy Ventures led Natel Energy’s $20 million Series B, and on June 8, 2022, the two industry leaders are speaking on TechCrunch Live. We’ll take a look at Natel Energy’s early pitch deck, and hear

Bosch’s venture arm just announced its fifth fund, saying it’s on the lookout for startups with the “potential to improve quality of life and conserve natural resources.” The new, $295 million (€250 million) investment vehicle ups the stakes from Bosch VC‘s prior fund by about $53 million, yet the German firm’s global focus on deep

For most of the last decade, Americans largely ignored electric vehicles. Some brands sold decent numbers, like the Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf, but they were largely targeted at thrifty commuters or EV diehards. Others, like the Ford Focus Electric, were intended only to comply with laws that mandated a small number of EV sales.

Novoloop, a plastic upcycling startup, said Wednesday it has raised a $10 million Series A extension round co-led by South Korean chemical firm Hanwha Solutions and Taizo Son’s Mistletoe. This follows a first raise of $11 million in February and brings the Series A to $21 million and its total funding to $24 million. Other

While going to great lengths to promote itself as an environmentally conscious tech firm, Apple joined several industry associations that are “fighting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project. As recently as 2020, the company was an active member of several “business groups that seek to

Want to bring inflation to heel? There’s no single, simple fix, of course, or we would have done it already. But a good place to start would be weaning the economy off gasoline and diesel. Prices for fossil fuels are through the roof. Gas prices are up over 75% since last year, and diesel is

Bacterial secretions might dye your future wardrobe, and that’d be an improvement. That’s because textiles usually get their hues from toxic chemicals, and the resulting wastewater—laden with dyes, acids and formaldehyde—destroys rivers, such as those surrounding Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Wastewater treatment, when it happens, is just one of the energy-intensive (read: carbon-spewing)

Humble Bee Bio is on a mission to create a biodegradable alternative to plastics by synthesizing the biology of bees. While the New Zealand-based company is still at an early stage — it’s about halfway through its proof of concept — if Humble Bee is successful, its bioplastics are likely to make it into the

Planet FWD, a carbon-assessment startup founded by Zume Pizza co-founder Julia Collins, grabbed another cash infusion in the way of 10 million Series A dollars to continue developing technology so that the $1.5 trillion consumer products industry can more accurately measure and reduce their carbon footprint. We profiled Collins’ journey from pizza to climate-friendly food

Singularity Energy, a SaaS platform that reports on carbon emissions for the electricity grid, has closed a $4.5 million seed round led by Spero Ventures and Energy Impact Partners and joined by existing investors, including Third Sphere and J Ventures.  Singularity, based in Somerville, Massachusetts, provides detailed information about the carbon intensity on the grid

The startup says most companies’ carbon footprint math is bogus Tim De Chant 7 hours When Wenbo Shi started Singularity Energy, a carbon intelligence platform that today raised a $4.5 million seed round, he never thought he would focus the company on a greenhouse gas. But one conversation with a customer changed the way he

Chrysler’s new EV will create a new category, drawing upon lessons learned from designing the brand’s minivan, according to chief design officer Ralph Gilles. “Chrysler was one of those brands that was honestly on the OR table, and we decided to reinvest in it big time,” Gilles said at the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility conference last

ChargeLab, a Toronto-based startup that builds software to operate and optimize electric vehicle charging equipment for fleets and commercial customers, has raised a $15 million Series A round. The round was led by King River Capital and notably includes participation from strategic investor ABB E-Mobility, a spinoff of technology company ABB that focuses on electric

Jiajun Zhu, co-founder and CEO of autonomous robot company Nuro, joined TechCrunch onstage during TC Sessions: Mobility on Wednesday to discuss how the startup aims to revolutionize commercial autonomous delivery. The company is most well-known for its cute self-driving delivery vehicles, which operate on roads, not sidewalks, and are purpose-built to carry pizzas and packages

How was your first day at TC Sessions: Mobility 2022? We hope you’re fully caffeinated and ready to roll because day two is packed with groundbreaking tech, opportunities galore and more top-notch programming. Finish your coffee, peruse the event agenda and plan your day. We took the liberty of highlighting just some of the presentations

Attention Mobility enthusiasts! It’s been 3 long years since our last in-person mobility event, but the day has finally come. Welcome to Day One of TC Sessions: Mobility 2022! Get ready for two days of programming dedicated to taking a deeper dive into the future of transportation and to meet the people who are shaping

Construction as an industry has evolved with civilization through the ages. But today, it’s one of the few industries that have one foot firmly planted in the past, even as the other tries to step into the future. Construction’s digital transformation journey is only just beginning, and the sector offers a ton of space for

Mercedes-Benz announced today that Sila’s energy-dense silicon anode is slated for an extended-range version of the electric G-Class that’s due out in 2025. Sila said that its silicon anode material can boost energy density by 20% to 40% over existing cells, enabling a longer range from battery packs that occupy the same physical space. That

Electric vehicle volumes are soaring in the U.S. — with registrations up 60% in the first quarter of the year — even as the country’s auto market contracted 18% as continued parts shortages constrained inventories. Between January and March, U.S. consumers registered 158,689 EVs, according to Experian. With EV volumes rising and automakers selling fewer

Startup Carbon Clean announced earlier this week that it raised $150 million in a Series C that provides it with a sizable war chest to continue the development of its modular carbon capture system. Carbon Clean has won its share of admirers, most recently Chevron, which led the round, and BloombergNEF, which named it a BNEF

Almost exactly a year ago, we interviewed Revel founder and CEO Frank Reig when it was on the cusp of expanding into multiple business lines beyond its original scope of providing shared electric mopeds. Today, we’re taking a second look to see how far the startup has come, and the distance it has to cover

It appears battery startup SES’ investors are quite happy with its first earnings report. The company went public in February via a SPAC merger, and to no one’s surprise, reported a loss. And its investors don’t seem to mind. Its shares, while still trading below its SPAC merger price, were up 16.7% at $6.15 at the

To date, Blueland, fresh off its $20 million fundraise back in February, has mostly been focusing on home cleaning products. Today, the innovative cleaning company launches a new product that helps you be as clean as your house, embracing the same “hey, let’s not ship water if we can avoid it” model as its domestic

South Korean startup Seadronix wants to reduce the issue of marine accidents, 75% of which are caused by human error, according to a 2019 Allianz safety and shipping report. The company just secured a $5.8 million Series A extension to scale its AI-based ship berthing monitoring and navigation systems to help cargo ships navigate safely

Who knows what secrets await in the hearts of plants? Brightseed has found a couple of them, anyway, using an AI-based analysis method and will be bringing its first products to market soon with the help of a $68 million B round. Brightseed’s thesis is simply that there are almost certainly some very helpful and

We’re less than two weeks away from kicking off TC Sessions: Mobility 2022. Our first in-person mobility event since 2019 — holy cats! — takes place on May 18-19 in San Mateo, California, followed by an online event on May 20.  Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with hundreds of your peers and hear about,

For the better part of a decade, VC firms and growth equity funds have plowed nearly $42 billion into battery technology startups across almost 1,700 deals, according to an analysis by PitchBook and TechCrunch. What’s more, about 75% of the investments in that period happened in the last two years alone. Venture capital firms aren’t

Okra Solar walked away with the trophy and a giant check at our 2019 Shenzhen Hardware Battlefield event. It’s a moment happily eternalized in a new press release announcing the renewable energy startup’s $2.1 million new round (it’s a nice photo. I used it on this post, too). Clearly we’re not the only ones who

Battery technology company Sila announced the purchase of a new facility in Washington state that will see its next-generation battery chemistry in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles by the end of 2026, according to the company. The 600,000-square-foot factory in Moses Lake, Washington, will start producing automotive-scale quantities of Sila’s battery tech by the