Next month's Plastic Free July is an eco-friendly initiative encouraging people to reduce their reliance on single-use plastic disposables, reduce plastic pollution, and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis- during July and beyond.
Along with community programs and global initiatives, there are startups and scaleups enabling tech solutions to reduce single-use plastics and pollution through the development of bio-based plastics.
What is bio-plastic? A bio-based plastic is made from renewable resources instead of fossil fuels. Examples of renewable carbon resources include corn, potatoes, rice, soy, sugarcane, wheat, and vegetable oil. Important to note, a bio-based plastic can be partly or entirely bio-based.
Overview of the eco-system: The bio-based plastics ecosystem is relatively small and early stage with a combined enterprise value of $5b. Companies in late stage funding rounds make up a little over half of the ecosystem's combined value, at $2.8b.
Notable startups include Japan’s chemicals major Mitsubishi Chemical and California-based Origin Materials, which are collaborating to develop sustainable high performance carbon black materials for the tire industry from wood biomass. Another, Magical Mushroom puts agricultural waste to work by combining it with mycelium, which is the root structure of mushrooms. It creates a material that is biodegradable, durable and comparable in price to traditional packaging derived from fossil fuels like polystyrene.
The bottom line: Initiatives like Plastic Free July speak to global movements encouraging consumers and businesses to change practices. Hopefully, more projects like this will drive adoption of tech solutions to move away from single-use plastics.
The bio-based plastics landscape is reaching new heights with continuing growth. Don't miss out on the startups and scaleups shaping and innovating bio-based plastics by clicking the button below. 👇
📊 Climate tech stocks are surviving, if not quite thriving. Climate tech stocks are much more volatile than the market as a whole. Many of the companies in the EIP Climate Tech Index are smaller, which can mean more ups and downs. - protocol
🇬🇧 British startup Newcleo secured a €300M investment to develop the design and construction of a new generation of nuclear reactors capable of reducing uranium waste production and recycling excess into fuel.
🇺🇸 Electric Hydrogen (EH2) raised $198M financing to support their efforts in making cost competitive fossil-free hydrogen. The funding will support the scale-up of EH2’s high throughput electrolyzer technology and the manufacturing and deployment of demonstration projects to produce fossil-free hydrogen at large scale for industrial and infrastructure applications.
🇺🇸 Zap Energy has raised $160M in Series C funding. The Seattle-based company is building an affordable, compact, scalable fusion reactor with the potential for a much faster path to commercially viable fusion, without using magnets.
Other promising impact deals:
🇭🇰 Cell-based seafood producer Avant Meats has secured $10.8M in a Series A funding round led by S2G Ventures. Avant Meats uses state-of-the-art cultivation processes that are sustainable and scalable to produce authentic and nutritious fish products.
🇺🇸 Banyan, an investment facilitator and accelerator for sustainable infrastructure (solar, wind, and more) headquartered in San Francisco, has raised $8.2M in a Series A funding round led by VoLo Earth Ventures. The funding round will enable Banyan to further scale its go-to market engine, as well as enhancing the support it’s able to offer to existing customers.
🇺🇸 Symbrosia, a Hawai’i-based startup developing a seaweed feed additive that reduces livestock methane emissions, raised a $7M Series A funding round.
🪴 Symbrosia is developing an integrated platform to grow red macroalgae, as a livestock feed supplement at commercial scale. The seaweed confers health benefits to cattle and increases productivity while also eliminating over 90% of methane emissions.
🚨 The most valuable sustainable energy companies don't have to have the highest Startup Signal. For example, Tesla Motors (44) is the most valuable electric car manufacturer, but has a lower signal than NIO (63).
Job opportunities
🇩🇪 Vaayu, a German B2B software company that helps retailers track and cut their carbon emissions in real-time, is hiring a Climate Science Lead and 33 other roles.
🇫🇷 DualSun, a French hybrid solar panel company that provides both electricity (photovoltaic) and hot (thermal) water for buildings, is looking to hire a Product Designer and 10 other roles.
🇳🇱 At Dealroom.co, we are hiring a Sales Engineer, an Account Executive and 7 other roles.
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