US startup Emrgy raises $18.4 million to optimize the country’s water infrastructure and develop renewable energy projects
Atlanta-based startup Emrgy has just raised $18.4 million with funding from Oval Park Capital, Fifth Wall, Blitzscaling Ventures, Overlay Capital and Veriten, to work towards decarbonizing water infrastructure. Its concept? To harness existing waterways and pipelines to produce low-cost renewable energy.
Emrgy relies on a patented modular turbine technology, which minimises disruptive construction and ensures continuous energy production as water flows through the existing hydraulic infrastructure. The startup markets this solution to agricultural, municipal and water supply off-takers. Several projects are already in development in western US, Europe, South Africa and New Zealand.
This fundraising will enable the company to deploy distributed hydropower projects and expand its development, operations and engineering teams. In addition, Emrgy will open its first production site in Aurora, Colorado this spring with an estimated capacity of 5 MW per month. The company plans to employ up to 30 engineers and operations specialists at the facility in 2023.
French startup Graneet raises an additional €8 million for its platform for construction industry SMEs
Just 18 months after a €2.4 million-seed round, Paris-based startup Graneet has just raised a further €8 million. Investors include the construction tech fund Axeleo Capital, as well as RAISE Sherpas via its philanthropic armPhiture, plus business angels Rodolphe Ardant (CEO & co-founder of Spendesk), Nicolas Dessaigne (co-founder of Algolia) and Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo (CRO of TravelPerk).
Since its launch in 2020, Graneet has been developing vertical SaaS software for the construction industry. A hundred construction SMEs are already using this solution to manage their activity and monitor their margins in real time. The startup is posting more than 15% monthly growth and is currently focusing on the French market, before considering expanding internationally in the long term.
Finnish startup Carbonaide raises €1.8 million to produce low-carbon cement
Finnish startup Carbonaide, a spin-out from the VTT Technical Research Centre – a research organisation from the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry, is developing a solution to reuse and store CO2, based on a carbonation method. Pilot runs have demonstrated that this technology is capable of reducing CO2 emissions of conventional concrete by 45%.
With its pilot unit and production chain fully operational, Carbonaide can currently mineralize up to five tonnes of CO2per day. In order to upscale, the startup has just received an €1.8 million-investment from industrial heavyweights Lakan Betoni and Vantaa Energy. This funding round was completed with public loans and in-kind contributions from Business Finland and other Finnish concrete companies.
With this funding, Carbonaide plans to integrate its technology into an automated production line at the precast concrete factory in Hollola, Finland. The company plans to quickly increase production of its low-carbon concrete products by 100-fold. Its aim is to open ten operational units in the Nordic region by 2026 and bind around 500 megatons of carbon dioxide annually by 2050 – which corresponds to 10-20% of the concrete market.
There is more…
British startup Greenworkx offers a solution to the skills shortage to tackle the energy transition – Techcrunch
French energy renovation pioneers Effy raises €22 million – Techcrunch
US bank Citi invests in ConTech Built platform – Businesswire
Carbons raises $30 million to develop its weeding robots – Techcrunch
