Carbon13 has invested in six new ventures through its accelerator Venture Launchpad.
The Cambridge-headquartered venture builder says each has demonstrated potential to reduce emissions by 10 million tonnes per year when at scale – Carbon13’s threshold for investing.
The ventures are also united by the cross-cutting theme of waste, leveraging technologies such as biochar-based polystyrene alternatives, smart wall HVAC systems, net-negative insect proteins, AI powered circular fashion and food waste management.
“All our ventures contribute to net zero, but tracking emissions tells just part of the story,” said Dr Nicky Dee, CEO & co-founder of Carbon13. “We can see other key benefits such as health from improving air quality and avoiding ecotoxicity and microplastics when discarded.
“Other companies will prompt new economic pathways as they disrupt the ‘normal’ way of doing things.”
Eslando is a pioneering startup tackling textile waste within the fashion industry. Its innovative solution leverages digital product passports (DPPs) and AI-powered sorting to empower fashion brands and waste management companies to efficiently recover materials at scale.
Carbon Cell is on a mission to make polystyrene trash a thing of the past, with a patent pending, non-toxic, compostable foam material made from carbon-negative biochar and natural binders.
Future By Insects combines microalgae and insect production to create a world-first carbon net-negative insect protein for animal feed, tackling the industry’s annual 2.5bn CO2e global emissions and pushing to a greener future.
Fermtech is a climate BioTech company from Oxford meeting the demand for affordable and sustainable protein ingredients. Its novel system converts side streams from the food industry, creating nutritious and flavourful products.
Anzen Climate Wall is a novel ductless indoor climate control system that performs space heating, cooling, and heat recovery ventilation within a single unit. Its decentralised wall-mounted unit reduces energy bills and improves indoor air quality.
Remy – formerly Taste Don’t Waste – leverages AI and automation to support busy households in reducing their food waste by 70%, and drastically improves corporate partners’ Scope 3 emissions reporting, commercial strategies, and waste mitigation efforts.
Each venture has received investment of £120,000, and four of the six teams have at least one female founder.
The Venture Launchpad runs in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs.