Climate Community in Connecticut
...and 10 new ways to invest in climate!
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📖 read time - 4 min
As you know, we have been working towards concrete ways to democratize climate impact investment. We launched our first product last week 🎉, which we announced in the Climate Investing Community Slack, and have had tremendous response so far! For those of you on our waitlist, stay tuned - you’ll be hearing from us soon. But if you really can’t wait to learn what's under the hood, send us a note.
Climate Community in Connecticut
Written by Nisha Desai, Founder of Intention
Last week, I traveled to New Haven, CT for an alumni gathering at Yale University. The wonderful thing about visiting a university, particularly one that has its own School of The Environment, is the wide range of initiatives that are being developed to address climate change. I was pleased to learn that the Yale Divinity School just broke ground on a Living Village project, an ambitious residence hall that is expected to give back more to the environment than it takes in the form of a net positive carbon, energy, and water footprint. While I am proud of my alma mater for its leadership in deploying climate solutions in its facilities, I was most excited to uncover the cleantech innovations that are coming out of the Yale ecosystem.
In a historic industrial manufacturing building, now converted to a mixed use office campus, I had the chance to tour the labs of Protein Evolution with cofounder Connor Lynn. Protein Evolution is a startup tackling the problem of recycling plastic waste. Connor explained how his company uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to sort through millions of enzymes to find the best ones to break down polyester waste, one of the more common forms of plastic. Rather than the common practice of downcycling, Protein Evolution’s technology successfully produces materials that are indistinguishable from virgin inputs into the polyester manufacturing process, but with a far lower carbon footprint. I look forward to hearing more about this company as they scale up their technology!
The Connecticut Department of Economic Development, the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven and Yale University are all supporters of ClimateHaven, a brand new incubator that had its grand opening in mid November. So that’s where I went to meet with two more startups. James Licato and Claire Chouinard of Catala are working on catalytic membranes to decarbonize industrial water treatment. Their first application is in treating the wastewater that is produced during offshore oil and gas operations. I also met Perry Bakas of Oxylus Energy. Oxylus has developed a proprietary catalyst and electrolyzer technology that transforms captured carbon into renewable methanol in the first-known one-step electrolytic reduction method. The single step process promises to be one of the cheapest ways to produce renewable methanol, which can then be upgraded into sustainable aviation fuel.
While at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, I met Jinqiang Ning and Wenbo Xiang, the cofounders of Evident Battery. Evident Battery delivers a comprehensive, automated, non destructive solution for testing electric vehicle battery packs. Their technology answers the question of “how much life is left in the battery” and could be an interesting component of any business model that needs a more accurate way to estimate the future value of an EV (for example, for EV leasing). Last week, the team filed for their first patent application, and they are already in discussions with a number of potential automotive service providers about partnering.
These were just a sampling of the companies coming out of the Yale/Connecticut climate ecosystem. It’s exciting to see these climate clusters developing all over the world. Meanwhile, we look forward to seeing how these companies grow and create the climate impact that we’re all looking for.
🛜 Climate Investing Community events
Follow our events calendar on Lu.ma! Recent and upcoming CIC events:
Nov 16: Monthly Office Hours - Climate Smart 401(k)/403(b)s (hosted by @Breene Murphy)
Nov 28: Sustainable Finance Group Discussion (hosted by CIC member @Katelyn Kriesel)
📈 New ways to invest in climate
Newly announced investing opportunities this month. Selection based on company description but impact not assessed. Not investing advice.
Auburn Energy Junction (debt note, 6.75% interest): Bringing electric vehicle charging infrastructure to underserved California communities.
Azolla (SAFE, $5M valuation): Turning emissions into carbon negative textiles.
BlocPower Energy Services (debt note, 7.25% interest): Invest to help us transform buildings and create smarter, greener, healthier communities for all.
Carbon Counts (SAFE, $28M valuation): EverForest™—a mobile game that plants trees in the real world!
Garden for Wildlife (common stock, $25M valuation cap): Making it easier for people to buy native plants.
Good Agriculture (pre-seed): AI-powered farm business management platform that helps regenerative farmers spend less time on back-office activities.
Li3 Group (common stock, $39M valuation): Li3 Group Digitizes Battery Metals Mining Assets for Electric Vehicles, Power Storage, Green Energy, and Emerging Technologies.
Sirocco Energy (common stock, $9M valuation): Unique wind turbine technology for urban environments capable of saving up to 80% of electricity costs.
Vvolt (common stock, $13M valuation): Direct-to-consumer e-micro mobility company.
Whooshh (common stock, unclear valuation): Fish passage solutions for existing dams, increasing hydropower efficiency by up to 10% worldwide.
👇 see you in the comments section 👇
What’re you investing in this week? Let the community know!