Zero Carbon Fund Portfolio
The Zero Carbon Fund is the first fund from Zero Carbon Capital, raised in the fist half of 2020 and currently making investments. We will invest in and work with 10 amazing companies through Q3 2021.
Stealth Co. H1 2021, Seed
Technology: This company is building a next-generation protein engineering platform. Their first application is a breakthrough approach to recycling plastic.
Value: The production of plastics is highly energy intensive and reliant on fossil-fuel inputs. Radical improvements in recycling will reduce the need for carbon-intensive processes and reduce pollution in our oceans that reduce their capacity as a carbon sink.
Phycobloom H2 2020, Pre-Seed
Technology: Phycobloom is using synthetic biology to create novel strains of algae that will use atmospheric CO2 to create affordable and sustainable hydrocarbons without the need for expensive centrifuge and drying processes.
Value: The high energy density requirement of aviation means a likely need hydro-carbon based fuel for some time. Creating carbon neutral and affordable alternatives to fossil fuels is a key enabler in the net-zero world.
Latest News: ZCF leads pre-seed round in Phcobloom
Ionate H2 2020, Pre-Seed
Technology: Ionate's Smart Hybrid Transformers target flexibility and resilience at strategic points of the electricity system replacing traditional transformers and removing the need for expensive makeshift devices to increase the ability for the grid to absorb renewables.
Value: Our electric grids are based on out of date assumptions about synchronous, dispatcahble energy delivered from a small number of generators. As we green the grid we will need to improve its electrical smarts to handle this new profile of generation.
Angel Portfolio
Prior to the Zero Carbon Fund we made several investments in climate-related startups as angels in the UK and USA. Our angel portfolio has a current unrealised valuation multiple of 2.3x based on most recent funding rounds. You can see a small selection of our angel investments below.
Lilac Solutions H2 2017, Pre-Seed
Technology: Lilac has developed a new ion exchange technology for lithium extraction which cuts capital and operating costs, accelerates project startup, boosts lithium recovery, and unlocks new resources.
Value: Increasing the supply of battery grade lithium available at a reasonable price will be required to meet the forecasted EV demand levels.
Latest News: $20M Series A led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Rebound Technologies H1 2017, Seed
Technology: Rebound’s IcePoint® supercharges industrial freezers. Using a proprietary freeze point suppression cycle designed around a natural refrigerant, the technology integrates into legacy refrigeration systems at cold storage or food processing facilities, and deploys bursts of on-demand, high capacity, low temperature cooling – using 35% less electricity than legacy, ammonia-based systems and 55% less electricity than thermal or chemical batteries.
Value: The food ‘cold chain’ uses approximately 17% of global electrical consumption, and is growing rapidly with demand for refrigerated and frozen foods. Rebound’s technology could mitigate up to 681 MMT of GHG emissions by 2050, equivalent to 144 million cars.
Latest News: $5M Series A led by Skyview Ventures and the Clean Energy Venture Group.
E-Zn H2 2019, Seed
Technology: E-Zn's zinc-based reactor technology system has the potential to provide long-duration, low-cost grid-scale energy storage. Electricity is turned into physically free zinc material.
Value: Increasing renewable energy sources on the electrical grid will require grid-scale storage to help smooth supply, respond to peaks in demand and maintain safe voltage and power levels.
Latest News: E-Zn's oversubscribed $3.4m CAD seed round was led by Energy Foundry and the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund. They have also won multiple awards and grants, including $1.6m from Breakthrough Energy Canada.
Gravitricity H2 2019, Seed
Technology: Gravitricity’s system suspends heavy weights down deep shafts using winches and cables, and raises and lowers them to store and release gravitational potential energy. The system has a long design life, rapid response time, high efficiency and levelised costs of storage well below lithium ion batteries.
Value: As a greater proportion of the grid’s electricity comes from intermittent sources , we have a need for grid-scale energy storage. Gravitricity’s system is competitive with the current dominant solution, pumped hydropower, on cost and performance, but can be located more flexibly. With its rapid response time, it is particularly suitable for frequency regulation applications.
Treau H2 2018, Seed
Technology: Room air conditioner and heat pump that is twice as efficient and more accessible, that uses refrigerants with massively lower global warming potential.
Value: Space heating and cooling is responsible for 10% of total US primary energy use, and releases refrigerants with high global warming potential. As emerging markets achieve greater income levels, emissions will accelerate. Refrigerant management was chosen as the #1 solution by the Drawdown team.
MicroByre H1 2019, Seed
Technology: Building a platform for rapid domestication of novel bacteria strains, genetically modifying them to perform useful tasks more efficiently, for example – creating biodegradable plastic feedstocks from organic waste, making jet fuel from wastewater, making fertiliser using the nitrogen in the air.
Value: Microbiological chemistries are already deployed broadly in industry. MicroByre can improve the economics and reduce GHG emissions by better understanding what is producing the bacteria’s behaviour and optimising it to be more efficient.