- Two British climate tech companies have raised a collective £5.5 million, around $7 million.
- Carbon sequestration startup Concrete4Change and solar firm Metris Energy raised the funds last month.
- Business Insider got an exclusive look at the two pitch decks they used to get investors onside.
Two British climate tech companies have raised a collective £5.5 million, around $7 million, in early-stage funding to sequester CO2 in concrete and digitize solar management in real estate.
Nottingham-based Concrete4Change, founded in 2021, has developed a way to sequester carbon dioxide in concrete. It captures carbon and uses it to create a concrete additive. A mineralization process occurs when it is mixed with concrete, storing the CO2 permanently. It also makes the concrete 20% stronger, the company claims.
The process also reduces the amount of cement that's needed to make concrete. Cement accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
"Decarbonising cement is vital if we are to make meaningful progress in reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry," cofounder Dalraj Nijjar told Business Insider.
"Concrete4Change's novel approach to permanently mineralize CO2 in concrete will not only utilize the CO2 generated from cement production within concrete, but it will also make concrete a stronger and better material to build with."
Nijjar said the company was turning its team's deep expertise of "capture and concrete chemistry into a product that is scalable and compliments already established supply chains."
The fresh funds, which come from Zacua Ventures and Counteract, will be used to scale up out of the lab and into a pilot phase. Concrete manufacturers Goldbeck and Siam Cement Group also participated in the round.
Check out the 13-slide pitch deck below, and keep scrolling for Metris Energy:
Metris Energy has built an end-to-end platform for solar management in real estate
London-based Metris Energy, which just emerged from stealth, raised £2 million last month to help commercial property owners install and manage solar power.
Keeping the lights on, boiling the kettle, and heating homes takes a huge amount of energy, which is only as sustainable as the grid mix each day. Global renewable energy capacity needs to triple by 2030 to keep within the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperatures to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. Some 118 countries pledged to achieve this at COP28 last year.
The startup's end-to-end AI-driven platform helps real estate owners assess, install, and monetize solar energy, tackling traditionally complex and manual processes. Its features include projecting revenue and automating and digitizing energy contracts with tenants.
It is the brainchild of ex-Octopus Ventures investor Natasha Jones and serial founder William Whatley.
"We believe that by aligning financial incentives with environmental benefits, Metris holds the key to unlock scale adoption of solar in the commercial property segment," Jones said in a statement upon the funding announcement.
She noted that Metris Energy's mission is "to turn every building into a power plant" amid the decentralization of energy, where every building is able to generate its own power.
The pre-Seed funding, from Octopus Ventures and impact investor Aenu, will be used to roll out the product.
Check out the 11-slide pitch deck below: