Cleantech and climate-focused tech has seen a boost in the first quarter of 2024. This article looks at 10 companies who made the news over the past three months, from established firms and big funding rounds to those just starting out.
It has been an extremely strong quarter for sustainable-focused technologies if funding sheets are anything to go by. According to data from PitchBook released at the start of May, climate tech venture capital deals hit $2.8 billion (£2.24bn) in total deal value in the first quarter of 2024. This represents a 37.9% quarter-over-quarter growth, although noting a downturn of almost 19% year-on-year.
Whether you call it climate tech, cleantech, or anything else, it represents an extremely broad ecosystem. PitchBook centred its analysis around four pillars of the carbon and emissions tech landscape. The first is carbon tech itself, featuring well-known solutions ranging from direct air capture, to carbon accounting and analytics software, to biological carbon removal. This is followed by industry – mining and recycling, be they lithium batteries to polymers – built environment, and land use.
Yet there are other areas where tech-focused companies can make a difference. As Sustainability News has previously reported, the ‘S’ in ESG is frequently neglected. Capsule Cover, a B Corp certified, purpose-driven insurance firm, cited two companies in this space earlier this year as fellow B Corp holders; from recruitment software which targets unbiased – and therefore more diverse – hiring, to a wider portal providing guardrails for social value.
Here, Sustainability News outlines 10 of the most interesting companies who secured a funding round in the first quarter of 2024:
(Editor’s note: This is not a list of the 10 largest deals, but attempts to cover companies across a range of sustainability-focused technologies).
Ascend Elements
Ascend Elements, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of battery materials from discarded lithium-ion batteries, raised $162m in equity investments in February with primary investors including Just Climate, Clearvision Ventures and IRONGREY. The company is not exactly short of cash, having raised a significant $542m in a funding round back in September in what was described as one of 2023’s largest cleantech private equity placements.
The new funding round will help accelerate construction of an EV battery materials manufacturing facility, currently under construction in Kentucky. The building is set to become North America’s first sustainable cathode precursor (pCAM) manufacturing facility with a provisional opening date of early 2025.
CarbonCapture
CarbonCapture raised $80m in a series A round in March to help further its mission around direct air capture (DAC) technology – and gained several new strategic investors in the process. These included Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and Siemens Financial Services, with the lead investor being Prime Movers Lab.
The company is among those in the Shopify sustainability fund stable, as previously reported by Sustainability News. As part of this process, Shopify is a purchaser of carbon removal credits. CarbonCapture has to date pre-sold more than $26m in credits, with other customers including Alpbabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Stripe.
The funds will be used to further technology development, as well as field early installations of CarbonCapture’s modular DAC systems.
Crux Climate
Crux Climate, a sustainable finance technology company, raised $18.2m in a series A funding round in January, with the round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
The first use case for the New York-based company’s platform for sustainable finance revolves around transactions of the new transferable clean energy tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act. Among the stakeholders are project developers, tax credit buyers, and intermediaries from banks to tax advisors, who can use Crux’s software to manage transactions and access liquidity.
FINN
Munich-headquartered ‘car subscription’ provider FINN may not be the most obvious candidate for this list. Yet the company’s recent €100m (£86m) windfall, a series C funding round in January, signals a strategic change.
The company is looking to move towards a fully electric fleet, as well as establish the car subscription model – essentially greater flexibility than leasing with no down payment required – as a ‘significant driver of electric mobility.’ “To achieve international climate targets, the shift to electric mobility has to be significantly accelerated over the next few years,” said FINN CEO and co-founder Maximilian Wühr. “Our full-service and carefree subscription model is the perfect accelerant – for consumers and companies alike.”
Notably, the funding round was led by Planet First Partners, a growth equity sustainable investment platform.
Greenly
Carbon accounting platform Greenly secured $52m in series B funding in March, in a round led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures.
The funding will be used to support Greennly’s geographic expansion but also enhance its product set, from the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Builder, to Greenly Cloud, to Greenly Sustainable Procurement, which enables businesses to make more informed decisions about their carbon footprint. Greenly will also use the capital to invest in what it calls its Climate Academy, aiming to help organisations build in-house climate expertise across sectors.
The company said that this funding was ‘more than an investment’; it was ‘an endorsement of Greenly’s position as a global leader in carbon management’.
Iceberg Data Lab
Just making this list even though the announcement was made a few days into April, Iceberg Data Lab (IDL), a provider of climate and biodiversity data solutions for financial institutions, secured a series A round of $10m.
The company’s primary offering is a Corporate Biodiversity Footprint which enables precise biodiversity impact based on science-driven methodology encompassing the IPBES’ environmental pressures on biodiversity breakdown. The platform also allows for a full value chain analysis, with scope 3 upstream and downstream data, on top of operational data.
The round, which was led by Beringea, will help expand IDL’s presence globally, and invest in the latest technologies.
Insight M
Insight M secured one of the largest funding rounds of the quarter, announcing in February an initial closing of its series D round at $52 million, led by BlackRock. Not ringing a bell? Perhaps you will have known the company better as Kairos Aerospace; the rebrand was announced at the same time as the funding.
The company specialises in aerial methane detection for the energy industry, and uses its proprietary technology to capture methane emissions data on the assets of customers, along with the entire oil and gas basin.
Among the investors in Insight M is Climate Investment, backed by 12 of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.
Lohum
Representing the second battery recycling firm in this list, India-based Lohum secured funding of around $54m (Rs 450 crore) to represent a near $500m valuation, as reported by The Economic Times. Mumbai-based Singularity Growth Fund led the round, with chief investment officer Yash Kela noting that Lohum had ‘evolve[d] from just being a second-life company to a full-scale material manufacturer.’
The company appears not to be stopping there either; a report from April suggests that further funding of $100m is down the road.
Watershed
Watershed, a provider of ESG and climate reporting software, secured $100m in a series C funding round announced in February, led by Greenoaks. The company has strong heritage in the space, being named as a leader in sustainability management software by Forrester.
The company said the funding would be used to work with customers to ‘unlock decarbonisation at scale’, as well as look to expansion in the UK and Europe – ‘the frontier for the coming wave of climate compliance, starting with the CSRD’.
watttron
Sustainable packaging solutions provider watttron secured €12m in series B funding first reported at the end of March. The funding round was led by the Circular Innovation Fund and also included the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF).
The German company, based in Freital, has various offerings around thermoforming and sealing, as well as simulation software across a wide variety of product layouts, promising both predictable efficiency and sustainability.
The funding will be used to expand into the American and Asian markets, as well as further develop its technological capabilities, the company said. “We believe sustainable practices will shape the future of the packaging industry, and we are excited to contribute with the support of ECBF and the Circular Innovation Fund,” said Marcus Stein, watttron CEO.
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