Issue #30 (Forested Foods, Harvest Thermal, Kent)
Forested Foods works with smallholder farmers on forest grown food products (e.g. honey), Harvest Thermal improves home heating and water heating efficiency, and Kent creates compostable clothing
Featured Companies
Forested Foods
Forested Foods is an agroforestry venture for regeneratively-grown forest products (i.e. bee products, spices, herbs, gums, and resins). Starting in Ethiopia, where the Founder Ariana has resided for 7+ years, they aggregate and unlock the production potential of forest farmers that global companies typically struggle to access. Since launching in 2019, they've been backed by Yale University, World Economic Forum, and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. For their bootstrapped pilot (2019-2020), they built and launched Maryiza, their first global supply chain of forest honey from "hive-to-table" which has garnered attention from Bon Appétit and The New York Times.
Within the past year, they have created employment for 15 teammates (60% women), built a contract farming model that supports the livelihoods of 1,000+ smallholder farmers in Ethiopia's Southwestern Afromontane Region, and built a factory in Addis Ababa with capacity to fulfill both retail-packaged and wholesale ingredients honey orders.
Founder: Ariana Day Yuen
HQ: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Delaware, USA; Singapore, Singapore
Stage: Pre-Seed
Company Ask: Introductions to corporate partnerships/buyers, retailers, distributors in the specialty and/or regenerative space.
Harvest Thermal
Harvest Thermal is a developer of efficient, all-electric hot water, heating and cooling systems for the residential market. Heating and hot water represent 2/3 of home energy use and the majority of home emissions. Harvest Thermal's hardware, cloud-enabled software system leverages the power of advanced analytics and machine learning to reduce carbon emissions (up to 90%) and save on customer bills (up to 40%) while supporting a strong, resilient and clean electricity grid. The Harvest Pod™, the system's brain and flow control center, manages a single heat pump and operates the hot water tank as a thermal battery providing steady, comfortable heating and hot water whenever needed. Harvest Thermal started rolling out their first commercial deployments in February 2022, including in partnership with Peninsula Clean Energy.
Co-Founder and CEO: Jane Melia
HQ: Berkeley, CA, USA
Stage: Seed
Company Ask: Hiring and looking for talent with lived experience in the communities they serve and who are on the front lines of climate change.
Kent
KENT creates compostable clothing, a new category of circular fashion that eliminates landfill waste and addresses climate change. They are working to solve a number of issues that surround the fashion industry, such as the fact that only 1% of clothing is recycled, or that wearing synthetic fabrics can leach chemicals into skin causing irritation and infections. They use Bio-Elastic technology and have also launched the industry’s first clothing compost take-back program last year. KENT has been featured in Vogue, Elle, Refinery29, and The Financial Times, and recently launched with Madewell. Stacy Grace, Founder and CEO, is a Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, a thought leader in circular design, and has 10 years experience working hand in hand with brands like Timberland, Lib, and TOMS.
Founder & CEO: Stacy Grace
HQ: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Stage: Seed
Company Ask: Hiring a Head of Operations, as well as seeking insight for customer and consumer development.