⚡ Issue #53: Energy Storage, Impact Reporting, Reddit for Things
See you in Boston next week + News from Mycocyle, Wildgrid, and Climatize
Welcome back!
ClimateRaise showcases early-stage climate startups led by all women and non-binary founders, and connects them with investors and climate ecosystem partners through warm introductions.
How it works:
🔎 We find vetted, actively raising women-led climate startups.
📝 Our biweekly newsletter then highlights a diverse selection of those startups.
🔗 We introduce investors, ecosystem partners and fellow founders to the featured founders.
📩 Submit companies, opportunities and resources (or say hi!) for the newsletter here.
Featured companies
*Featured companies are actively raising.
Vessyl
#️⃣ Energy, Battery storage
Vessyll is a clean energy battery storage device manufactured in the USA. The company wants to enable communities and businesses to never lose power, save money on electrical costs and use clean energy devices as innovative additions to or replacement of fossil fuel energy sources.
They are deploying their energy storage device to a Native American tribe in northern California to backup the tribe’s Casino data center, a first step in supporting the tribe to become energy-independent. The founders launched Vessyll leveraging non-dilutive funding, including the Award of MN Employment and Economic Development grant they won.
Co-Founder & CEO: Zahra Hargens Iliff
HQ: St Paul, MN
Current funding stage: Pre-Seed
Asks: They are looking for partnerships or mentoring opportunities with companies familiar with manufacturing, clean energy, batteries and supply chain.
Lucky Sweater
#️⃣ Recommerce
Lucky Sweater is an app for sustainable fashion and handmade item enthusiasts to share advice, express their style, and trade their favorite items—all in welcoming and joyful community spaces. The team’s vision is to disrupt and grow the secondhand market by going beyond transactions.
They have strong engagement metrics, including a 35%+ retention over 120 days, 10,000+ pieces of advice given, 6,000+ items traded, and a 260+% growth in Q1. CEO/Co-founder Carley Lake brings community and global product scaling expertise from her work at Uber and Uber Eats, while CTO/Co-founder Tanya Dastyar, a former Microsoft product lead, excels in building engaging products. They are supported by Precursor Ventures and Amasia.
Co-Founder & CEO: Carley Lake
Co-Founder & COO: Tanya Dastyar
HQ: Washington D.C.
Current funding stage: Pre-Seed
Asks: They are looking for ways to promote their app. Any journalists, media, or content creator connections are always appreciated to get the word out about Lucky Sweater and the joy of sharing your favorite things with your communities (vs. buying new things)! Please request an introduction below if you can be helpful to the team.
Physis Investment
#️⃣ Impact Reporting
Physis helps institutional investors and advisors build and report on sustainable portfolios. Their platform allows users to screen down an investment universe, create model portfolios and report the impact in seconds. 86% of investors want to see the impact of their investments on the planet, they do not have the capability to access these data. While many companies build ESG scoring methodologies, Physis built a technology to provide real raw data such as emissions produced, women employed, waste recycled, and more. They enable users to deploy capital into truly impactful portfolios based on tangible impact metrics.
Physis has covered 14,000 companies and 335,000 funds with a look-through analysis. Physis has won numerous awards and industry recognition, including the top 5 women-led fintech company by Visa.
Co-Founder & CEO: Stefania Di Bartolomeo
HQ: Boston, MA
Current funding stage: Seed
Asks: They would love introductions to asset managers, wealth managers, family offices, or registered investment advisors. Please request an introduction if you’re able to help.
ICYMI - They are still raising
Sustainable performance materials, PDA Ecolab, led by Lance Johnson and Gillian Gover
Consumer sustainability platform Brightly, led by Laura Wittig
Gamification-driven employee engagement SaaS company, Sustainacy, led by Selina Sinning
Request an introduction to the companies by filling this form.
Resources for founders
📣 ClimateRaise founder community asks & celebrations
Mycocycle, Inc., a ClimateRaise feature company, announced $2.2M in seed funding to scale its nature-inspired solution that leverages fungi to transform industrial waste into new raw materials. Some of the investors introduced to the team via ClimateRaise participated in the round - we are proud to be part of the Mycocycle journey! Learn more.
Climatize launched a new app that enables anyone to invest and start contributing to renewable energy projects from as little as $5. Climatize will offer a selection of projects such as solar, energy efficiency and EV charging stations. The platform provides direct access to invest in these projects and help mitigate the impact of climate change. It’s transparent, available to everyone and you can see the potential impact of your investments.
Wildgrid, a female-founded climate tech company, launched a free, FUN, home electrification tool. If you’ve been wanting to electrify your home, but waiting for a TurboTax-like product to hold your hand through it and not boil your eyeballs with terrible UI, this is IT! To celebrate the launch, the first 200 sign ups get $200 towards the home energy project of their choice. Try it out at www.wildgridhome.com.
Check out Cemvita’s CEO TED Talk: Microbes are the Tiny but Mighty Heroes of Energy Transition
Our friend and supporter Peter Nocchiero teamed up with True Ventures to help startups and growth stage companies define and implement a climate strategy with an existing product and go-to-market strategy. Check out their guide here.
📅 ClimateRaise Events
We just hosted our *first ever* ClimateRaise meetup during SF Climate Week! We know a lot of you had FOMO, so we're bringing ClimateRaise to Boston next 🥳Come hang out with fellow female founders, investors, and ecosystem supporters for an evening of casual conversation and drinks. We're chatting with some potential partners to make this event bigger and better, but for now it will be a casual meetup at Aeronaut in Somerville. Sign up here.
🫶 Networks
Next month, StartOut is hosting their annual Equity Summit. As a reminder the Summit is a free, one-day virtual conference bringing together over 700 national thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, ecosystem builders, community leaders, and DEI advocates to address the state of the startup ecosystem.
Out in Energy is hosting a moderated discussion with Raffi Freedman-Gurspan on Tuesday, May 23 from 6:00 – 8:15 PM ET. During this event, Ms. Freedman-Gurspan will discuss her role in speaking on behalf of the Department of Transportation regarding their historic efforts to decarbonize the transportation sector and advance our public transit system, as well as her groundbreaking experience as a transgender trailblazer in the White House. Ms. Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender person to serve as a White House staffer. Register to attend in-person at the EPRI headquarters in DC or virtually here.
Vevolution, the global vegan investment platform, is hosting a pitch event for impact investors to discover the startups who are disrupting Foodtech, Cellular Agriculture, and Next-Gen Materials. Companies pitching include women-led startups and range from pre-seed to series B.
🤑 Funding
Climate Justice for Migrants & Communities of Color is an investment readiness program that will support startups building inclusive solutions for immigrants, refugees, and communities of color disproportionately impacted by climate change in the US.
🔍 Opportunities
Equity Leadership for White Men: Breaking the Mold provides transformative experiences for white men to become more impactful partners in building inclusive workplaces and communities. Learn more.
📚 What we’re reading this week
The practice of self care, by Activate here.
“We’re making our term sheet public. Here’s why.” from Pale blue dot here.
Thanks for reading!
~Charlotte and the ClimateRaise Team
ClimateRaise resources
📅 Check out our (new) event calendar.
📚 Read our past issues.
💡 Consult the list of previously featured companies.
🤝 Request warm introductions to featured companies.
💽 Request access to the 500+ climate tech ecosystem players database.
🙋 Forward this email to a founder to get them featured.
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