This is the first year we’ve created a List of climate compaines, with data on 2022 venture fundding provided by Refinitiv and Pitchbook. The Bay Area has been hailed a hotbed for the sector, with 217 funding deals occuring in the region in 2022. Climate tech funding totals have doubled year over year worldwide from $40 billion in 2021 to $70.1 billion in 2022. Here we highlight a several local climate startups with an elemental theme.
FIRE
Pano AI
CEO: Sonia Kastner
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 42
Total funding: $28 million
What it does: Develops a wildfire management platform that helps fire professionals detect threats and confirm fires. Pano Rapid Detect uses a high-resolution mountaintop camera that rotates 360 degrees to record a panoramic perspective on its surroundings. Each of Pano AI’s cameras have a range of 10 to 20 miles; the company estimates that it would take 5,000-10,000 devices to keep watch over the entire country.
CEO: Vince Romanin
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 59
Total funding: $30.55 million
What it does:Develops heat pump technology that uses R32, a next-generation refrigerant that more efficiently carries heat and has a lower environmental impact. The high-efficiency heat pump can be installed in homes without any special tools or skills. It is designed to lower the carbon footprit of heating and cooling your home.
EARTH
Living Carbon
CEO: Madeline Hall
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Hayward
Employees: 39
Total funding: $36.12 million
What it does: Genetically enhances trees to capture more carbon. The company says its “photosynthesis-enhanced hybrid” trees grow bigger and faster, while doing more to combat the effects of climate change compared with unmodified plants. The biotech fights climate change by improving the biomass accumulation in trees by up to 53%, which has the potential to capture approximately 27% more carbon.
Ionblox
CEO: Sujeet Kumar
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Fremont
Employees: 18
Total funding: $66 million
What it does:Develops batteries with lithium-ion cells that have pre-lithiated silicon dominant anodes. Ionblox says its batteries achieve up to 50% higher energy density, five times more power, and can charge to near full in 10 minutes. In conventional lithium-ion batteries, the anode is made of graphite, but the use of silicon in the anode provides a higher capacity for lithium storage, the company says, leading to an increase in the energy density, so more energy can be stored in a smaller size.
WIND
Heirloom Carbon
CEO: Shashank Samala
Founded: 2020
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 34
Total funding: $57.6 million
What it does: Builds direct air capture technology that permanently removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Its technology accelerates the natural ability of minerals to absorb CO2 from the air from years to days. Heirloom has the only operating Direct Air Capture facility in North America. Its customers include Microsoft, Stripe, Klarna and Shopify, which purchase carbon offset credits form Heirloom. It aims to pull 1 billion tons of CO2 from the air every year by 2035.
Aclima
CEO: Savida Herzl
Founded: 2007
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 81
Total funding: $66.49 million
What it does: Builds sensors that measure air quality, and provides analysis for governments and businesses to measure climate-related risks. The company partnered with Google Maps to scale real-time air quality mapping to more geographical regions, having started with California cities in its 2015 pilot program.
WATER
Wildtype
Co-founders: Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 70
Total funding: $139 million
What is does: Produces seafood, specifically sushi-grade salmon, through cultured fish cells to prevent reliance on salmon farming. The cell cultured meat industry is still awaiting FDA approval to sell its products, but Wildtype says its salmon is free of microplastics, mercury, parasites and other toxins found in wild and farmed salmon.
Artyc
CEO: Hannah Sieber
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: San Mateo
Employees: Seven
Funding: $3.41 million
What it does: Designs and manufacturers battery-powered, refrigerant-free alternatives to cold shipping and storage. Refrigerants are among the most potent GHGs — in California alone, they are estimated to account for 4% to 5% of total emissions. By electrifying cold shipping, the startup offers a more economical, higher precision, and zero-emissions option for biopharma and healthcare customers. The startup is a registered public benefit corporation.
