This week in NatureTech #30

To celebrate our 5,000 subscribers we have teamed up with our friends at Earthly to launch a month long ‘Refer-to-Plant’ scheme. If you can refer two people to the newsletter we will fund the planting of 10 Mangroves by local communities in Maroalika, Madagascar. Simply share the newsletter by copying the links below to social media / Email / group chats.

🐘 Long read (2 mins)

The state of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Startups

Last week we provided some insights on the current state of the CDR landscape.

We had a wave of requests to publish the startups involved in our analyses. So here they are… all 500+ Carbon Dioxide Removal startups we could find. The full database contains:

• Name

• Tagging by type of CDR

• Websites

• HQ location

• Last Fundraising round / amount

Did we miss any? Let us know!

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

💼 Big business:

• edie’s new report examines the role between business and biodiversity, outlining key challenges, opportunities, and frameworks that will change how a corporate acts on nature. (Read more)

🏦 Finance:

• Despite overall assets within the biodiversity fund universe growing in 2024, many established funds suffered from significant outflows. Overall, assets in biodiversity funds hit around $1.56 billion with five new funds in the market. This is up from $1.41 billion last year. (Read more)

• COP16 President Susana Muhamad has proposed a compromise to break the deadlock on financing at the resuming UN biodiversity negotiations next week(Read more)

• The UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has signed two global partnerships aimed at advancing nature-related disclosures among financial institutions(Read more)

💻️ Tech:

• Two Australian environmental startups have teamed up to scale artificial intelligence (AI) and environmental DNA-powered biodiversity monitoring, aiming to support nature markets and reporting frameworks (Read more)

📖 Research:

• New study by the RSPB and the University of Cambridge suggests that where renewable energy projects are managed to deliver nature benefits they can result in more biodiversity than arable farming-dominated landscapes. (Read more)

• Reintroduced wolves could control red deer populations, aiding in CO2 storage and helping native woodlands recover. (Read more)

• Rules being drawn up by the International Maritime Organisation could see almost a third of global shipping running on biofuels in 2030, with negative implications for land use, deforestation and climate change, warns T&E. (Read more)

📝 Policy:

• The U.S. paper and pulp industry is lobbying President Donald Trump's administration to ask the EU to declare the United States deforestation-free, a step that could make it easier for exporters to meet the bloc's new environmental rules. (Read more)

• Brazilian environmental agents seized the equivalent of more than 5,000 truckloads of timber in an operation state to tackle illegal logging (Read more) 

• The EU Commission is supporting the development of two separate methodologies for measuring biodiversity across wetlands and forests, as part of its efforts to lay the foundations for nature credit markets within the bloc (Read more)

🎣 Deals

🇺🇸 Chestnut Carbon raised $160M (Series B) for their nature-based carbon removal developer Source

🇧🇪 Fyteko raised $13.5M (Series B) for their developing and producing advanced plant biostimulants Source

🇸🇪 Agteria Biotech raised $6.2M (Seed) for their solutions to combat methane emissions in the agricultural sector Source

🇮🇱 IBI-Ag raised $6.1M (Series A) for their biological solutions for insect control in crops Source

🇩🇪 The Landbanking Group raised $4.9M (Seed) for their measuring, monitoring, and trading natural capital assetsSource

🇳🇱 Collie raised $3.6M (Seed) for their Automated Animal Management for dairy cows Source

🇩🇪 Kynda Biotech raised $3.1M (Seed) for their low-cost automatic bioreactors for in-house biomass fermentationSource

🇩🇪 Phaeosynt raised $1.8M (Seed) for their production of vegan antibodies Source

🇳🇱 Proba raised $1M (Seed) for their supply chain decarbonisation platform Source

20+ Startups are raising in our network this year - Including those below - get in touch to hear more:

• Rhizocore is raising a £5m Seed round. Rhizocore collects, selects and delivers elite strains of local ectomycorrhizal fungi to tree planting operations to increase tree growth rates, tree survival and newly planted forests' resilience to drought and disease. [email protected]

• Patrick at Neoplants is raising a Series A extension round to accelerate the GTM of their B2C products in the US, and continue their bioengineering efforts to create plants that remove GHG from the atmosphere. They'd love to get in touch with series A/B Climate Investors. [email protected]

• Stephen at Net Zero Capital Advisors is helping California-based Blue Planet Systems raise to mineralise CO2 to produce synthetic limestone. Builders Vision, a FOAK climate infrastructure investor group, is leading a $5m Convertible bridge round, and is sharing extensive diligence with interested parties. [email protected]

• Daniel at Gentian is raising a $3Mn Seed for their world leading habitat mapping software, powered by AI and remote sensing. [email protected]  

🎣 What we’ve been reading this week

💭 Little Bytes

📊Read: A scientist has discovered 16 new species of grasshoppers in the thorny scrubs of U.S. and Mexican deserts conservation (Read more)

🎞️  Watch: How carbon finance is seeding new hope for northern forests (Read more)

💬 Research: The global consensus stresses urgency in addressing threats from invasive alien species, as highlighted by a 2023 IPBES report. (Read more)

📆 Events

🇸🇬 Annual FinTech Summit, 26th February 2025 (Attend)

🇳🇱 EV Charging Infrastructure Forum, 28th February 2025 (Attend)

🇺🇸 MIT Energy Conference, 3rd March 2025 (Attend)

🇺🇸 Breakthrough to Deployment, 3rd March 2025 (Attend)

🇬🇧 Sustainability LIVE Net Zero, 5th March 2025 (Attend)

🇦🇹 World Sustainable Energy Days, 5th March 2025 (Attend)

🇺🇸 SXSW Conference 2025, 7th March 2025 (Attend)

🇺🇸 Future Leaders Climate Summit 2024, 9th March 2025 (Attend)

🇺🇸 International Conference on Climate, Environment and Biosciences ICCEB, 10th March 2025 (Attend)

🇬🇧 Economist Impact Energy Transition Summit, 10th March 2025 (Attend)

💼 Jobs

Start-up:

• Multiple roles, Planet A Foods, Germany (Apply)

• Multiple roles, Revalue Nature (Apply)

• Multiple Roles, Ulysses, USA (Apply)

• Software Engineer, Cecil, Australia (Apply)

• Backend Engineer, Landbanking Group, Germany (Apply)

• Sales Development Representative, Arbonics, Remote (Apply)

• Multiple roles, Space Intelligence, Edinburgh (Apply)

• Commercial Director, Space for Good, UK (Apply)

• Back End Engineer, Credit Nature, UK (Apply)

• Director of Nature Based Solutions, Sylvera, UK (Apply)

Corporate:

• Climate, Nature and Social Risk Modelling Vice President, JP Morgan, London (Apply)

• Biodiversity Specialist, FAO, USA (Apply)

• Nature-Based Solutions, Subject Matter Expert, Ramboll, USA, (Apply)

• Biodiversity and Natural Capital Unit, Inter-American Development Bank (Apply)