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If we want to move toward a world that meets everyone’s needs, we will need to get serious about the role of money on the left.
Cows are a significant source of methane emissions, primarily due to their unique digestive system. Milk and beef cows are ruminants, which means they have a specialized stomach chamber (called the rumen), which houses billions of microbes that facilitate the breakdown of fibrous plant material. The process is called “enteric fermentation,” and as these microbes work to digest the cellulose found in the cows’ diet, methane is produced as a byproduct. That’s a problem: The EPA identifies methane as being about 25 times more potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Alga Biosciences leaps to the rescue, creating a new feed for cows that dramatically reduces how much burping goes on.
“Enteric methanogenesis, also known as cattle burps — is the single biggest source of anthropogenic methane emissions in the world. During the digestive process of cows, sheep, goats and other ruminants, microbes in the stomach of these animals break down food into smaller components, such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats. As a byproduct of this process, methane is produced and released into the atmosphere when the animal belches,” explains Alex Brown, co-founder/CEO of Alga Biosciences in an interview with TechCrunch. “When we got into Y Combinator, we put all of our money at the time into academic live animal trials to test our product, and found that methane emissions from beef cattle were undetectable with our approach. This is the first time results of this magnitude have been observed in live animals.”
Reducing belching has a side effect beyond just the environment. Methane is full of energy, and Alga claims that roughly 12% of all the calories a cattleman feeds his cow end up being wasted in the form of methane burps. This is a massive hidden cost for farmers, and it poses a huge opportunity for re-directing those calories to meat and milk production. The theory goes that kelp-based feed additives provide a direct avenue to reduce anthropogenic methane emissions; it could also be a massive economic benefit for farmers.
The company raised a round led by Collaborative Fund, and the company now has raised a total of $4 million in funding. In addition to Collaborative, Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, Cool Climate Collective, Pioneer Fund, Overview Capital and others also participated. The company has also received a grant from USDA Climate Smart Commodities.
Caroline McKeon (co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer), Daria Balatsky (co-founder and Chief Technology Officer), Alex Brown (co-founder and CEO). Image credit: Alga.
“The best climate tech startups will build solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while being cheap, scalable and safe. We are thrilled that cattle farmers, like us, believe that Alga’s solution hits that trifecta,” said Tomas Alvarez Belon, investor at Collaborative Fund. “We are thrilled to support Alga Bio in this journey to create a methane-free world.”
The company is working on producing its feed additive for larger commercial pilots, and the company tells TechCrunch it can already produce at a scale of tens of thousands of head per day. There’s plenty of scale for growth; some sources estimate that there are around 1.5 billion cows in the world.
Alga Biosciences wants to help climate change, one bovine burp at a time by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch
In 2024, a number of new EU regulations are expected to come into force, which will tighten the obligation of electric vehicle manufacturers and resellers to recycle batteries at the end of their natural lifespan. German battery recycling startup Cylib leapt at the opportunity, raising a total of €11.6 million ($12.6 million) to build a recycling factory.
“For too long, battery recycling hasn’t been efficient enough for companies to take advantage of,” said co-founder and COO at Cylib, Gideon Schwich. “We need to create awareness with different stakeholders to ensure that battery recycling is given the attention it deserves to enable a circular economy in battery usage.”
The company says that over the next six to 12 months, it will be working to recycle the first batteries provided by its pilot partners — demonstrating that the company’s process is scalable, alongside the challenge of building out the supply chains and customer base.
“The goal of this fundraising was to accelerate the industrialization of our sustainable recycling process, which has been developed over years of research. We now want to scale the process to reach industrial levels, with plans to establish a cutting-edge recycling facility so it can serve more customers across Europe,” says co-founder and CEO at Cylib, Lilian Schwich in an interview with TechCrunch.
The lead investor of this round is World Fund, while previous investors include Vsquared Ventures and Speedinvest. For this round, 10x Founders also joined. The current round is an €8 million extension, taking the total amount raised for the company’s seed round to €11.6 million.
“World Fund provides a strong climate capability, deep tech knowledge and operational expertise with an extensive network. That is why we are also very excited that Dr. Mark Windeknecht is joining as an observer to the board,” says Schwich. “World Fund only invests in startup technologies that can save at least 100 megatonnes of CO2e annually by 2040. World Fund is also joined by 10x Founders, which brings a wealth of knowledge on the path of a founder and will help to build the company even stronger.”
The company is aiming to create the most efficient and sustainable recycling process for lithium batteries — like the ones used in electric vehicles. The company has created a process that means it can take end-of-life batteries, recover the resources and output new raw materials. The idea is to close the loop and ensure the mobility sector can run on electrified, regenerative energy. The company says it has a 90% recycling efficiency.
“By doing so, we can also make it possible to trace back all resources and ensure supply chain transparency, drastically lowering the environmental footprint of batteries and driving the decarbonization of mobility and transport forward,” says Lilian Schwich, pointing out that this reduces the need to mine additional lithium. “This will enable true green and circular mobility.”
Battery recycling startup Cylib recharges its coffers to go faster by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch
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