Issue #16 Material Evolution, Gaiascope, Sylvatex, and Climate Cabinet
Meet the best women-led climate tech companies.
ClimateRaise is a newsletter for our network that showcases early-stage climate startups led by women founders, and connects them with climate ecosystem partners. The newsletter is short and to the point. We want to provide you with useful information, not flood your inbox with yet another lengthy publication.
How it works:
🔎 We find great, vetted, women-led climate startups.
📝 Our biweekly newsletter then highlights a diverse selection of those startups, and gives you the opportunity to opt-in for 1:1 introductions to the featured founders.
🔗 We’ll get opt in and then connect you with those founders ASAP!
Featured Companies
Material Evolution
Material Evolution Co-founders Elizabeth Gilligan (CEO) and Kieran Gilligan (COO). Photo Credit: Material Evolution
Material Evolution transforms the chemistry of cement, making concrete that fits into the manufacturing process.Their first product eliminates the need for cement in any concrete mix. It is made from 95% waste using their algorithm technology. Their concrete is 10x stronger and 5x more durable and reduces carbon consumption by 85%. In the last 6 months they filed three provisional patents, received a $1.7M grant from the UK Government, delivered products to new customers, created a manufacturing partnership to sell 100,000 tons of our material, and grew the team by 50%. Material Evolution is a Techstars alumni.
Founder & CEO: Elizabeth Gilligan
HQ: London, UK
Stage: Pre-Seed
Company Ask: They are currently hiring seven new team members including a scientist, engineers, and machine learning experts. Email info@materialevolution.co.uk for more details.
Gaiascope
Gaiascope Founders Jessica Stiles and Lauren Kuntz, with Lead Engineer Preethi Vaidyanathan. Photo Credit: Gaiascope
Gaiascope ('Gaia') helps energy companies with software built to make the electric grid easier to understand and profit from. Gaia's software is a turnkey solution aimed at providing the most accurate, probabilistic, nodal price forecasts across timescales, enabled by (1) highly compute-efficient, modular, speedy code, (2) differentiated data, and (3) a practical approach to physical modeling and machine learning that values transparency over 'black boxes'. These price forecasts enable Gaia to offer advice on client needs such as day-ahead bidding and optimal timing of dispatch. The Gaia team is also working to expand their forecasts to enable optimal siting and hedging of assets based on projected long-term market dynamics. Gaia graduated from Y Combinator (S19) and was recently included in Forbes list of top startups using AI to tackle climate change. In addition, to prove its software works Gaia actively participates as a market participant using its own price forecasts, and has generated >20% returns so far in 2021.
Founders: Lauren Kuntz, CEO and Jessica Stiles, COO
HQ: Boston
Stage: Seed
Company Ask: If you are interested in learning more about the Gaiascope nodal price forecasting software, please don't hesitate to reach out: founders@gaia-scope.com.
Sylvatex
Sylvatex (or SVX) is a company dedicated to commercializing sustainable chemistry solutions that massively reduce the U.S. and potentially global greenhouse gas emissions. SVX has developed a low-cost, low-carbon, high-impact, and easy-to-implement alternative diesel fuel (ADF) technology. They are able to use this technology to aid in lowering the cost of EV materials through optimizing the cathode manufacturing process, which leads to increased throughput, lowered costs, and sustainability improvements through lowered utility requirements.
SVX has obtained non-dilutive financing through various competitive awards and governmental grants with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and were nominated as a global finalist to compete in the World Materials Forum Start-Up Challenge. Over the last year they have been aggressively working with industry to expedite the production of their materials and also commercialize into the chemicals market with a number of LOIs, and NDAs.
Founder and CEO: Virginia Klausmeier
HQ: San Francisco
Stage: Series A
Company Ask: The team is looking for input and help with customer development as well as a marketing/communications plan that helps grow their company. As they work towards commercialization, being introduced to potential customers would be very helpful. They are always looking to grow their network and look to help others in their development as well.
Special Bonus Climate Nonprofit
Climate Cabinet Education
Climate Cabinet Education makes local climate change data and policy solutions actionable for local advocates and policymakers on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Addressing the climate crisis equitably will require decades of sustained action at every level of government. They’re building infrastructure to fill key resource gaps and facilitate ongoing, coordinated action.
An example of their work includes working side-by-side with grassroots partners at Texas Rising to create the Texas Environmental Justice Explorer, visualizing the unequal impact of pollution across underserved communities in Texas. The map creates a “Cumulative Environmental Justice Risk Score” for every county and census tract in Texas, based on socioeconomic factors, health outcomes, and environmental quality data. It prints fact sheets and allows users to share stories. The map is being used this year in Texas Rising’s leadership development, civic engagement, and advocacy trainings and events - with thousands of young activists (in-person and digitally).
Climate Cabinet Education is a 501c3 nonprofit. If you're interested in learning more about Climate Cabinet Action (separate organization, 501c4) please let us know requesting an introduction below.
Founder and Executive Director: Caroline Spears
HQ: San Francisco
Stage: Nonprofit
Company Ask: They are always looking for podcast, media, and interview opportunities, as well as startup advice, and job boards to post on.
Do you know a great climate start-up with a female founder? Forward this newsletter to them, so they can fill out our founder survey and be featured in future newsletters.
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