Bio-oils for carbon sequestration; advanced compostable materials to replace plastic; and an ESG platform keeping the real estate sector accountable– Recent deals worth looking at:

Agriculture & Food

Uncommon (2017), previously known as Higher Steaks, is an alternative protein company creating cell-based meat products from cultivated pork. Its patent-pending technology uses induced pluripotent stem cells (iPScs) to indefinitely replicate different cell types, such as muscle and fat, without needing to go back to the original animal source.

The company has secured $30M in Series A funding along with announcing its rebrand as ‘Uncommon’.

The funding will be used to scale-up production and continue to pursue its business and product development plans. Uncommon noted that its technology could speed up the differentiation process between muscle and fat cells through its RNA-based process, and further lower the overall cost by reducing the amount of expensive proteins required to trigger stem cells to differentiate.

Energy & Power

Charm Industrial (2018) uses plant biomass to produce a stable, carbon-rich pyrolysis oil which is then pumped deep underground to capture CO2 permanently from the atmosphere. This technology can also be used in the production of green hydrogen. The idea is to create a carbon capture solution that is out of reach from wildfires, soil erosion and natural land-use changes.

The company has secured $100M in Series B financing to scale up R&D efforts for its bio-oil, to expand its engineering capabilities and transportation capacity to grow its operations.

The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Lowercarbon, Kinnevik, Exor Ventures, Thrive Capital and Elad Gil. The company also secured new deals with JPMorgan Chase and Frontier to remove 140,000 tons of CO2 through its bio-oil sequestration technology.

Materials & Chemicals

Ecovative Design (2007) manufactures and licenses its technology for a plant-based, home compostable material to replace petroleum-based plastics (especially expanded polystyrene, or EPS). The material is produced from plant parts that have no food or feed value, with use applications including packaging, building and consumer products, automotive, and structural composites.

The company has announced the close of its $30M Series E funding round by Viking Global, Standard Investments, FootPrint Coalition, and AiiM Partners.

Ecovative announced that $15M from this round will be reinvested into its MyForest Foods Co. subsidiary (2020) to grow its footprint across the eastern U.S., with the remaining $15M supporting its plans to scale its Forager.bio company into a global supplier of ecological textile and foam products.

Resources & Environment

Measurabl (2013) is a cloud-based ESG data management platform that develops software and web-based tools designed to streamline the process of sustainability reporting. The company’s tools use data import technology to provide analytics and targeted solutions to help customers understand and improve sustainability performance.

Measurabl has recently secured $93M in Series D funding co-led by Energy Impact Partners and Sway Ventures with participation from Moderne Ventures, Colliers, Suffolk Construction, Camber Creek, Salesforce Ventures, Building Ventures, Broadscale, Constellation Technology Ventures, Concrete Ventures, RET Ventures, WVV, and Lincoln Property Company.

The company, which currently offers insights into 16B square feet of real estate over the span of 93 countries, is pursuing expansion plans into international markets. The funding will be further used to consolidate ESG tools and services into a single all-in-one platform targeting the real-estate industry.

Transportation & Logistics

Weev (2019) is an EV charging point operator and end-to-end charging solution provider in Northern Ireland. The company aims to address the disproportionately low amount of EV chargepoints in Northern Ireland compared to the rest of the UK, which is at a staggering 20 public chargepoints per 100,000 people, while the UK averages 60 points per 100,000 people.

Weev has secured $62M in growth equity funding from Octopus Investments – part of Octopus Group – to address the long-term impact that a lack of chargepoints will have on the uptake of electric vehicles in Northern Ireland.

This investment will allow the company to undertake a significant expansion in both the size and scope of the EV rollout that was announced last year, with an aim to install and maintain a network of thousands of EV charging points within the next five years.

Enabling Technologies

Blackpoint (2014) focuses on cyber security defence, fortification and recovery products for high-value and mission-critical assets. The company has recently introduced a Managed Application Control solution to support management partners in reducing the risk of malware infiltration by ensuring that only authorized applications are running on selected devices. This technology is used across industries including energy, logistics, industrial management, space and defence.

Blackpoint has secured $190M in growth equity funding led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, with participation from Accel, Adelphi Capital Partners, Telecom Ventures, Pelican Ventures, and WP Global Partners.

The funding will go towards the development of its security technology and new applications to sit alongside its main Managed Detection and Response (MDR) technology, which detects and isolates threats at the earliest sign of a breach, and its Security Operations Center (SOC) service which offers 24/7 investigative services to detect suspicious activity and neutralize threats in real-time.