The Saturday Morning Newsletter #61
It Takes A Village To Go To The Moon, Proactively Addressing Wildfires, and $23M for Fermented Fungi
This Week I’m Tracking: 12 developments across the sectors shaping our future
Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights
Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.
New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored overlooked threats in space - catch up here.
Let’s dive in.
#1: Wild Bioscience
Description: Wild Bioscience is a developer of climate-resilient crops.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Wild Bioscience recently raised $60M in venture capital funding. Wild Bioscience is a spinout from Oxford University working to improve the portion of each plant leaf that can photosynthesize, increasing yields sustainably. This technology uses a gene found in wild plants, dismissing claims about GMO influences.
#2: MATR Foods
Description: MATR Foods is making fermented plant-based meat alternatives.
Why Is This Company Interesting? MATR Foods recently raised $23.2M in venture capital funding. MATR employs a unique approach to create their plant based meat alternative products: fermentated fungi to enrich plant ingredients and make them imitate meat better. They claim the method creates a richer, deeper texture which better mimics meat than current solutions.
#3: Allye Energy
Description: Allye Energy is a developer of smart battery systems.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Allye Energy recently raised $2.5M in venture capital funding. Allye is developing a portable battery capable of being towed on a trailer and deployed remotely where demand is. Their modular design allows for deployment of one or multiple unites, adapting to the intensity of demand over time.
#4: SenseNet
Description: SenseNet is a wildfire sensing startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? SenseNet recently raised $14M in venture capital funding. SenseNet is developing a software that integrates cameras, sensors, and satellites to provide early detection of wildfires. As wildfires continue to become more popular, solutions to proactively address and prevent them in early stages have become critical.
Description: HotGreen Solutions is a developer of ultra-efficient heat pumps.
Why Is This Company Interesting? HotGreen Solutions recently raised $1.2M in venture capital funding. HotGreen is developing a high-temperature, ultra-low carbon heat pump. Their goal is to finally create a heat pump that can be mass commercialized across the globe, a feat many have tried but no one has succeeded in yet.
Energies Media: Wind Energy May Surpass Solar in Europe in the Future
I came into this article hoping for a cool analytical read with some interesting graphs to support the conclusions, but it’s primarily built on generalizations and anecdotes. Renewables across the board have gained significant ground in Europe and are projected to continue doing so for the foreseeable future; however, it’s still unclear what trends would push wind energy to outpace solar adoption.
Reuters: Oklo Receives $2B Investment For US Nuclear Fuel Development
Oklo signed an agreement with newcleo this week to develop advanced fuel fabrication and manufacturing infrastructure in the US. This will include multiple projects regulated by the NRC to promote transatlantic cooperation and enhance energy security. Other European technology developers are considering co-investing in these projects.
The New York Times: How China Raced Ahead of the US in Nuclear Power
In the recent period, the US has built one reactor, while China has built 13 with plans to build 33 more. China is quickly becoming the global leader in nuclear power in addition to its dominance of solar energy and electric vehicles. The trick? They’ve overcome the construction delays and cost overruns consistently plaguing Western efforts to expand nuclear power.
The New York Times: With SpaceX Behind Schedule, NASA Will Seek More Moon Lander Ideas
The NASA acting administrator announced the agency was looking for an alternative option to carry astronauts to the moon amid SpaceX’s delays. This opens the door to Blue Origin and other prominent space companies to provide services to beat the Chinese to the moon.
Pitchbook: VCs Spread Competing AI Investments
Venture capitalists are pretty sure AI is the next big thing, but they aren’t exactly sure which one, so they’re taking bets on a couple of the big players. The graphic in this article depicts just how many funds are simultaneously investing in these companies as they all compete to win market share in this dominating industry.
Cornerstone Research: Nobel Laureates Highlight IP’s Value In Sustained Economic Growth
Aghion and Howitt were recognized recently, with their work highlighting how intellectual property is essential for incentivizing innovation by providing inventors with protections and temporary monopolies (20 years) to recover their investments. Their research emphasizes a positive correlation between patent activity and per capita GDP growth (remember, correlation does not always equal causation). Nevertheless, this is still powerful news as it directionally supports what original lawmakers saw when drafting IP laws.
Tokamak Energy: Plasma is Way Better in Color
If you are a huge science nerd like me, this one is for you.
Tokamak released a video this week of the inside of their nuclear fusion reactor and the plasma working inside of it. And it’s super cool.
To be clear, this is not real time, this is probably 0.1-0.5 seconds worth of footage that’s been slowed down a ton.
I liked this explanation from Reddit of the mechanics:
The image shows visible light emitted from the plasma’s edge, where temperatures are lower. The core of the plasma is too hot to emit visible light.
One of the most recognisable features is the bright pink glow from deuterium gas injection, visible in the upper left of the image. A pure hydrogen plasma, or any of its isotopes – deuterium or tritium – typically produces a light shade of pink, as it emits wavelengths of both red and blue light.
In the upper right, lithium granules are introduced using our newly installed Impurity Powder Dropper (IPD). As these sand-sized grains fall into the plasma, they emit crimson-red light when neutral lithium is excited in the cooler outer regions.
As the lithium penetrates deeper into the hotter, denser plasma, the atoms lose an electron and become singly ionised lithium (Li⁺). Once ionised, Li⁺ emits greenish-yellow light and begins to follow the confining magnetic field lines, visible in the footage as greenish-yellow streaks tracing the field around the tokamak.
It’s wild to think that these technologies exist in the world around us and that this will undoubtedly play a huge role in our future.
That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.
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Drew Jackson
Founder & Writer
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