📰 Hot off the press!

We’re delighted to share that Zero Carbon Capital has been featured in the Climate Change Business Journal! 🎉

The latest edition of Climate Change Business Journal Q4 2024: Climate Change Industry Overview 2024 explores key trends shaping the climate sector, and we’re honoured to be part of the conversation. Our very own Sarah Jones contributed insights on the evolution of climate tech VC, the challenges of scaling deeptech innovations, and the critical role of hard-science startups in decarbonisation.

A huge thank you to Laura Carranza and Grant Ferrier for including us in this important industry analysis.

We believe that bold, scientific innovation is essential to tackling the hardest decarbonisation challenges, and it’s fantastic to see this recognised.

If you’re interested in the future of climate tech investment, be sure to check out the feature to get the scoop on the emerging technologies and high impact sectors that ZCC is excited about!

https://lnkd.in/escPWryU
#ClimateTech #VentureCapital #Decarbonisation #DeepTech #NetZero #ClimateInnovation

📣 #Fundraising news!

🎉 We're thrilled to announce the completion of an oversubscribed $17M Series A round in ZCC portfolio company IONATE, led by UK deeptech investor AlbionVC and joined by new investors IQT (In-Q-Tel), JGC, Santander InnoVentures and Antares Ventures. Existing investors also participated in the round, including us here at Zero Carbon Capital, IQ Capital and Cycle Group.

We first invested in IONATE just over four years ago from the first Zero Carbon Fund. Back then, it was just founders Matthew, Roberto and Luca with an idea to revolutionise grid hardware in a way that could open up wasted capacity in the grid, enable greater penetration of renewable energy generation, and provide the data and controls needed for the self-balancing grid of tomorrow. We have loved seeing the development of the Hybrid Intelligent Transformer (HIT) idea from a computer model to a benchtop prototype to the huge utility-scale demo units going into the field today.

2025 will see IONATE putting multiple utility-scale #pilots into the field, starting with energy giant EDP. They will also be demonstrating applications for private customers from data centres to energy storage assets. We're so proud to have been a part of IONATE's journey so far, and can't wait to see what they achieve next.

Read more about why we invested: https://lnkd.in/emDXKYwS

Round announcement on IONATE's site: https://lnkd.in/eS4nwm7F

Article in Sifted: https://lnkd.in/ed-fw_wH

🧠 #Neurodiversity in #climatetech: a superpower or a challenge?

Great minds do not think alike...😶🌫️🙃🫠😬🤯

🧠 Last year ZCC's Pippa got to host a roundtable at The Drop with Robin Allenson to start a conversation around neurodiversity within the climate tech founder and funder community. It's estimated that ADHD and autism are both represented in entrepreneurs at levels approximately 5 times higher than the general population. It's likely that this is true for other forms of neurodiversity too, but quality stats are hard to come by.

🤔 So, with around 30% of entrepreneurs trying to deal with the challenges of ADHD alongside everything else they are doing, why are we not talking about this more?

Pippa wrote up some thoughts after the Ripple reflecting on the superpowers and issues of thinking differently, and what are the things she gets asked most often after being more open about having ADHD:
1) I think I might be neurodivergent. How can I tell?
2) I work with people I think might be neurodivergent. How can I best support them?

More here: https://lnkd.in/eGFNTE_G

If you relate to this subject at a personal level and would be interested in being a part of a neurodiverse climatetech community group, please PM Pippa (contact details on the link).

Congratulations to Level Nine for being selected as a finalist in the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge!

We met the team in 2023 and saw that they were solving a huge problem - enabling sustainable, low carbon alternatives to petrochemicals. Their breakthrough nanozyme technology efficiently converts complex biological feedstocks into biochemicals, avoiding the emissions associated with chemicals derived from oil & gas.

Emily Sheridan and Seadna Quigley are exceptional founders, devoted to improving the chemicals industry. Level Nine are pioneers in nanozyme development, with the scientific rigour to build something truly transformational.

Seadna and Emily - we wish you all the best for the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge Final!

https://lnkd.in/gAg_E5tJ

🚀 Due Diligence Disaster to Data Room Dream: ZCC's tips for founders

Over the years we’ve seen a lot of data rooms, and many of them would have benefitted from some more work before being shared with investors. From missing documents, to denied access, to careless errors and inconsistencies, we’ve seen it all. And while we have invested in companies where the ‘data room’ was an ad hoc set of email attachments dripped out over a few weeks in response to our requests, that's not ideal, and the brutal truth is that many investors are unlikely to give you the benefit of the doubt in this way. Putting any friction into the due diligence process risks creating a bad impression and causing it to end early.

The data room is an opportunity for you to impress your investor with your thoroughness and professionalism, and make this an easy decision for them. And, it IS important—don’t make the mistake of putting all your effort into a perfect pitch deck, and lining up the investor meetings and then having nothing to follow up with.

However, when we looked around the internet, there was precious little useful content about what early stage climate VCs would like to see in a data room, so we thought it was time to pull together some tips to help founders get the basics right: https://lnkd.in/ektDxJiE
#venturecapital #dataroom #climate #tech #investing