Recent Deals – 19 September 2023

Turning urine into crop bio stimulants; circular wood-based packaging materials; power efficient augmented reality vehicle HUDs – find Recent Deals worth looking at here:

Agriculture & Food

Toopi Organics  (2019) develop urine-based crop bio-stimulants. Toopi Organics intends to collect and convert more than 2 million litres of human urine into crop bio stimulants by 2027, reducing the need for mineral fertilizers.

Toopi Organics’ successful Series A funding round raised $17.2M.

The funding will go towards expanding Toopi Organics’ collection operations, developing three new products and building two new industrial sites.

Energy & Power

Verkor (2020) is a producer of low-carbon batteries for electric vehicles and stationary storage. This gigafactory contributes to the ongoing efforts in Europe towards domestic battery manufacturing for electric mobility and energy storage.

Verkor secured $907M in funding to support the development in of a gigafactory in Dunkirk.

Verkor has also received additional funding from the French government through ADEME to support this endeavour.

Materials & Chemicals

Paptic (2015) is a developer of bio-based, sustainable packaging material to replace plastic and paper bags. Paptic is a sustainable packaging material made of renewable wood fibres.

Paptic secured Series A funding of $24M to accelerate the industrial scaling of Paptic’s foam-based manufacturing technology.

The funding will also be used to benefit its global customer base and support its commitments to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

Resources & Environment

Ascend Elements (2015) (formerly Battery Resourcers) is a provider of lithium-ion battery cycling services.

Ascend Elements raised $542M to build the United States’ first commercial-scale, NMC cathode precursor (pCAM) and cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing facility in Kentucky. The Department of Energy has also granted Ascend Elements $480M to support the construction of this factory.

This equity financing is reported to be one of the largest cleantech private placements in the U.S. to date, and one of the top 10 equity private placements thus far in 2023.

Transportation & Logistics

Envisics (2018) is a developer of a dynamic holography platform for enhanced vehicle dashboards, reducing energy use in dashboards by 50%. Envisic’s augmented reality Head-Up displays (ARHUD) are 50% more power efficient than conventional HUDs.

Envisics raised $50M Series C funding to support continued technological development, with investments from Van Tuyl Companies and M&G Investments.

Enabling Technologies

Open Cosmos (2015) is a provider of turnkey, end-to-end solutions, enabling space mission services. Through their technology, Open Cosmos satellites can measure GHG emissions, provide data on global temperature trends, monitor polar ice caps, sea levels, and ocean currents.

Open Cosmos’ Series B funding round raised $50M in funding that will be put towards accelerating its growth, delivery and international market expansion plans.