🌎 How founders are raising in 2026 #311
CTVC and Elemental Impact surveyed 100+ founders. This is what they said
Happy Tuesday!
Before fall term begins, a refresher on the summer syllabus, starting with H1'26 investment trends and what else we covered during summer school.
In deals, $136m for lithium battery manufacturers in England; $125m for reusable launch vehicles in Spain; and $46m for an embedded electricity platform in Texas.
In other news, DOE gets new powers over foreign-made grid equipment, solar overtakes coal in China, and Google adds a third long-duration storage vendor.
ICYMI, our guide to NY Climate Week climate tech and capital events is live. Check it out and submit your events.
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Welcome back. Labor Day's behind us, the inbox is full again, and New York Climate Week starts in two (!) weeks. Before your climate tech fall term begins, here's a refresher on the summer syllabus.
Our H1’26 investment trends tracked climate tech funding, which rose 55% to $26bn compared to H1'25. It was the best H1 since 2022: H1'26 VC investment was 55% higher than H1'25, but the concentration in deals continued. Low-carbon data centers made up 34% of the half's investment, with a large portion coming from just two deals: DayOne ($4.5bn) and NScale ($2bn). Download it here.
Our Q3 Data Center Outlook found that data center capex is climbing on component prices, rather than on higher compute demand. Spend growth has been the market's proxy for demand growth all year, but they’re decoupling. Get the report here.
We broke down four papers on data centers and electricity affordability, the question utilities and regulators will spend the rest of the year arguing about.
Over in our sister newsletter on the moves and motives behind the load growth era, Powerstack, we looked at the data center backlash reaching the ballot, with local siting fights turning into an electoral variable ahead of the midterms. Subscribe here.
Micro-reactor funding went macro this summer, passing SMRs for the first time. Small reactors are buzzy and claim to get to a data center campus faster than a gigawatt-scale build, and the funding is following the timeline.
Our second LDES leaderboard landed, where non-lithium storage found its buyer in data centers after years of waiting on utility procurement.
The EU's cap and trade-offs covered the biggest ETS overhaul yet, easing the near-term squeeze on heavy industry and making the carbon market a direct buyer of permanent removals for the first time.
Our offtake report with HSBC launched, tracking how corporate demand gets FOAK projects financed and built. Plus, a handbook on structuring FOAK offtake, and a ranking of the corporates doing it.
And we asked how you were doing, and you answered! We published the 2026 Founder Survey with Elemental Impact, showing how 100+ climate tech founders are financing and running their companies right now.
It’s all crunch time for New York Climate Week, starting September 21. Our NYCW 2026 guide and event tracker is live, so get your schedules sorted ASAP. See you then!
And we're recruiting for the fall! Come join Currence as a Founding Customer Success Manager, Marketing Intern, or Senior Account Executive.
🔋 Nexeon, an Abingdon, England-based lithium battery manufacturer, raised $136m in Series D funding from National Wealth Fund (UKIB), Honda Xcelerator Ventures, and Korea Development Bank.
🚀 PLD Space, an Elche, Spain-based launch vehicle maker, raised $125m in Series C funding from COFIDES, Mitsubishi Electric, Endeavor Catalyst, and MCH.
🔆 Light (PoweredbyLight), an Austin, TX-based embedded electricity and VPP platform, raised $46m in Series A funding from Matrix Partners, Activate Capital Partners, BoxGroup, Gigascale Capital, MCJ, Mischief, and Spark Capital.
🌱 Odyssey Energy Solutions, a Boulder, CO-based renewables developer in emerging markets, raised $27m in Series A funding from Abstract Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Broadscale Group, Equal Ventures, FJ Labs, and other investors.
🔌 Octave Energy, a Mechelen, Belgium-based energy storage and management systems provider, raised $12m in Series A funding from SPDG, BNP Paribas Fortis, Imec.istart, and KBC.
🍝 Foorban, a Milan, Italy-based developer of smart office food solutions, raised $8.4m in Seed funding from Impact Partners.
🧂 Molten Salt Solutions, a Santa Fe, NM-based developer of isotopically-enriched lithium technology, raised $7m in Seed funding from Dolby Family Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Future Ventures, Gaingels, True Ventures, and Vanedge Capital.
🤖 Jaipur Robotics, a Lugano, Switzerland-based developer of AI for waste facility automation, raised $5m in Seed funding from EquityPitcher Ventures and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF).
💧 Ki Hydrogen, a London, England-based green hydrogen and carbon producer, raised $5m in Seed funding from HICO Investment Group, BURGEST 2007 SL, Desai Ventures, GiTV, Innovate UK, and Triple Impact Ventures.
🚗 Zenergize, a Gurgaon, India-based indigenous EV charger manufacturer, raised $4m in Seed funding from Giraffe Studios and other investors.
🌮 MOA Foodtech, a Pamplona, Spain-based alternative protein producer, raised $4m in Series A funding from European Innovation Council (EIC), Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial (CDTI), and Swanlaab.
🔩 Beff, a Tokyo, Japan-based virtual battery factory developer, raised $3m in Series A funding from Genesia Ventures and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.
☀️ Aditya Birla Renewables, a Mumbai, India-based developer and operator of renewable energy projects, secured $1.6bn in Debt funding from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
💨 Ren-Gas, an Espoo, Finland-based developer of sustainable e-methane production projects, secured $789m in Debt funding from European Investment Bank (EIB).
🔋 Aukera Energy, a Brussels, Belgium-based renewable energy platform, raised $535m in Debt funding from EIG Global Energy Partners (EIG).
⚛️ Kyoto Fusioneering, a Tokyo, Japan-based nuclear fusion equipment provider, raised $57m in Debt funding from Bank of Kyoto, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
🌱 Odyssey Energy Solutions, a Boulder, CO-based renewables developer in emerging markets, raised $47m in Debt funding from BIO Belgium, British International Investment (BII), Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund, and Facility for Energy Inclusion (FEI).
🌏 Vena Energy India, the Indian renewable-energy platform of Singapore-based Vena Group, was acquired by Inox Clean Energy at an implied valuation of $627m.
💧 Geopura, a Newcastle, England-based hydrogen-based zero-emission fuels maker, was acquired by Ballard Power Systems at an implied valuation of $372m.
🍃 EnBW Sverige, a Falkenberg, Sweden-based developer and operator of wind and solar farms, was acquired by Eurowind Energy for an undisclosed amount.
🔌 Sonnen, a Wildpoldsried, Germany-based residential smart energy storage provider, was acquired by TIVEN for an undisclosed amount.
📶 Uplight, a Boulder, CO-based grid-interactive customer energy platform, was acquired by Octopus Energy and Schneider Electric for an undisclosed amount.
⚡ Warmset, a Montecchio Maggiore-Alte Ceccato, Italy-based manufacturer of electric radiant floor heating, was acquired by ESA NanoTech for an undisclosed amount.
💰 Auxxo, a Berlin, Germany-based venture capital firm focused on backing female co-founded startups, closed $38m for its second fund, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund II, against an original target of €50m.
🦾 RunwayVC (RunwayFBU), a Fornebu, Norway-based venture capital firm focused on Nordic industrial AI, robotics, and automation startups, closed $46m in a first close of its second fund, RunwayVC Fund II.
This is a sample of deals available for Currence clients. Can’t get enough deals?
⚡ Trump signed EO 14420, declaring a national emergency over foreign-made equipment in the US bulk-power system. DOE can now prohibit or condition transactions tied to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea across transmission lines over 69kV, substations, generation, utility-scale batteries, inverters, transformers, and other related hardware and software. However, this does not include facilities used in the local distribution of power. [Link]
This is the inverter ban from last month expanded to the whole transmission and storage stack. Transformers and utility-scale batteries are both are heavily imported from China. It is still unclear about whether this will bring manufacturers to the US or make the energy buildout slower and pricier.
☀️ Solar overtook coal as China's largest source of installed power capacity for the first time, at 1,288GW versus coal's 1,285GW at the end of July. [Link]
Capacity, not generation, coal still produces far more electricity given capacity factors. But the crossover comes the same week Sinopec called peak oil demand.
🔋 Google, MN8 Energy, and Eos Energy signed a deal for 70MW of short-duration storage plus 10MW of long-duration zinc storage, a roughly $55m order. Latitude Media also has a take on how the AI boom has impacted US battery storage so far. [Link, Link]
A boost for Eos, the most established US non-lithium battery maker, and Google's third LDES vendor after Form and Energy Dome. Meanwhile, short-duration storage is doing great. The bigger shift is storage being valued as a capacity asset, driven by data center demand.
⛽ Two more low-carbon methanol offtakes landed in Europe. Emvolon, which converts landfill and wastewater biogas into methanol using repurposed combustion engines, signed a 7-year deal with Freepoint Commodities, adding to ~70,000t/yr of existing MoUs. And European Energy agreed to supply Shell with e-methanol from its Kasso facility. [Link, Link]
Buyers are contracting ahead of IMO rules. IMO member states have adjourned the Net-Zero Framework vote once already and a September working group ended divided again. But signing 7-year methanol supply before the fuel standard exists is a bet that whoever holds contracted volume when it lands helps set the price.
☢️ PJM pulled Oklo's Meta-backed hybrid campus in Ohio from the interconnection queue over voltage ride-through, and Oklo has filed an emergency FERC complaint. The campus pairs 150MW of nuclear with 300MW of fuel cells and 300MW of gas. [Link]
Oklo's argument is that PJM applied an inverter ride-through test to a project that is 450MW synchronous. A FERC ruling here would set the precedent for how mixed-technology projects get tested, impacting the many hybrid campuses sitting in the queue.
📈 IPO watch: Holtec is targeting a valuation of up to $10.2bn in its Nasdaq listing, offering 50m shares at $15-18 to raise as much as $900m under the ticker HNUC. [Link]
💨 Switzerland marked its commercial BECCS debut with its first CO2 shipment to Denmark for storage, the first cross-border BECCS transaction of its kind in Europe. [Link]
💡 Google Carbon Removal and Superpollutant Elimination R&D Awards: Unrestricted research funding of up to $500K per project for work on carbon dioxide removal and high-impact climate pollutants (methane, N₂O, F-gases). Open to businesses focussed on advancing research or innovation; funds disbursed by year-end. Apply by September 25.
📅 Climate Week NYC 2026: 1,000+ events across the city alongside the UNGA, with the Opening Ceremony September 21. Join thousands at the biggest climate week in the nation to celebrate success stories and continue pushing the needle on sustainability. September 20–27, New York City. Check out our guide here.
📅 Greentown Labs Climatetech Summit: Greentown opens its Houston incubator for its annual gathering of founders, investors, corporates, and policymakers, with startup showcases and industry panels on the energy transformation. At Greentown Houston on September 16.
US Enterprise Sales Director @Eztia
Founding Customer Success Manager, Marketing Intern, Senior Account Executive @Currence
Investor, Early Stage Team @Lowercarbon Capital
Program Director, Superhot Rock Geothermal @CATF
Founding Chief Technology Officer @ Telluscope
Director of Growth & Giving @Elemental Impact
📩 Feel free to send us deals, announcements, or anything else at [email protected]. Have a great week ahead!
CTVC and Elemental Impact surveyed 100+ founders. This is what they said
We asked 100+ climate tech founders how they're raising in 2026. Here's what they said.
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