Climate Tech Canada #11 - Reader feedback edition!

Hey there,

Welcome to another issue! We have some big moves from battery recycler Li-Cycle, major shipment milestones in the EV space from Lion Electric and Delta-Q, and a profile on Friendlier, a new start-up aiming to solve single-use packing for restaurants. 

With 10 full issues under our belt and a lot of really encouraging feedback, I’m thinking about where to take this newsletter and how to make it more impactful. With that in mind, I’d love to get your input on what’s working and what you’d like to see in the future.

My ask: take 3 minutes to share your input in this survey. Your feedback will help inform future iterations of the newsletter, and help me make it even more valuable!

Funding and growth

Li-Cycle (Toronto, ON) secured $260M in funding from natural resources company Glencore. The investment builds on existing agreements between the companies, with Glencore supplying end-of-life materials to be recycled by Li-Cycle, and taking battery grade products from the recycling company. Li-Cycle also recently announced commercial agreements to be LG’s preferred lithium-ion battery recycling partner in North America. Learn more about Li-Cycle’s battery recycling business in this profile.

Swtch Energy (Toronto, ON) secured $12.7M in Series A financing led by Aligned Climate Capital and a $3.8M credit facility from SVB. The new funds will allow Swtch to expand its EV charging solutions into the United States.

VueReal (Waterloo, ON) closed a $18.7M Series B round led by Cycle Capital. VueReal’s micro printing platform enables the production of highly energy-efficient microLED displays.

Adra Inc. (Toronto, ON) and Evolved (Kitchener, ON) secured $149K and $75K respectively from Canadian Food Innovation Network and Ontario Genomics. Adra produces animal-free heme, a food ingredient that gives food the taste of meat, via fermentation, while Evolved is developing technology to produce cultivated meats from any livestock species

Terramera (Vancouver, BC) received $1M from BC’s Innovative Clean Energy Fund to develop its low-cost technology for measuring carbon in soil. 

Loop Energy (Burnaby, BC) received $9.75M in financing from Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan). Loop provides hydrogen fuel cell systems for vehicle and power generation manufacturers. The funding will allow Loop to increase it’s manufacturing capacity. 

CORE Energy Recovery Solutions (Vancouver, BC) also received over $670K from PacifiCan. The funding will allow CORE to increase production and quality control for it’s hydrogren fuel cell systems for heavy duty ZEVs. 

Growth & Milestones

Lion Electric reported a record number of electric vehicle deliveries in its Q1 earnings report, with 84 deliveries in the quarter.

Hydrogen Naturally and Fort Nelson First Nation announced plans to transform a former plywood mill into a new, $1.2B hydrogen production facility. 

Delta-Q, a producer of chargers for EVs and industrial equipment, hit their four millionth battery charger shipped! They also received a $300K grant from Clean BC’s Go Electric ARC program to develop on-board chargers for heavy duty EVs.

GoFor announced that it’s purchasing 3,266 EVs from Germany’s Odin Automotive to expand its sustainable last-mile delivery offering. GoFor will be Odin’s first north american customer.

Another sustainable last-mile delivery company, Courant Plus from Montreal, also announced an expanded zero emissions fleet with the help of “EV as a service” provider 7 Generation Capital. 

Canadian Solar entered the UK energy storage market with an agreement to construct four battery storage projects totalling over 100 MWh.

Terravis Energy launched their new suite of hydrogen energy systems, including a combined electric charging and hydrogen refuelling station, and solutions for individual homeowners through to communities and data centers. 

Kelowna’s INCA Renewtech is building a new manufacturing facility in Vegreville, Alberta. The plant will use biomass from hemp production to produce fibre for BioBalsa, a renewable replacement for balsa wood. 

Entosystem is opening a new plant in Drummondville, Quebec for its insect-based protein technology. The system uses discarded agri-food waste to feed black soldier flies, which are then dried and turned into a protein flour for animal feed.

Here & there

• The story behind Friendlier, the startup aiming to replace single-use packaging in restaurants

• Registrations for zero-emission vehicles passed 6% in Canada for the first time ever

• Taiga Motors was named one of Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas” for 2022

• Canadian rail companies explore electric and hydrogen-fuelled locomotives as they move towards zero-emissions freight

• How Calgary’s Qube Technologies is becoming an emissions monitoring leader

In the news

Through its newly released climate-action strategy, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board will take on carbon-intensive investments in order to apply pressure on companies to decarbonize. This approach mimics that of the CPPIB, while others like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec have committed to specific net-zero targets.

Montreal mayor Valérie Plante announced that all new builds in the city will be required to be zero emissions by 2025, and all buildings must be powered by renewables by 2040. 

Quebec will support the electrification of the Exo bus fleet, which serves the suburbs around Montreal. Exo is aiming for 135 electric buses in the next five years, and plans to electrify its entire fleet over time.

The City of Toronto updated its Toronto Green Standard, which includes both a mandatory performance Tier and two, more ambitious voluntary Tiers. The Standard includes features like emissions targets and requirements for EV charging infrastructure. 

BDC Capital is ramping up efforts to bring in institutional investors as partners in order to increase its footprint in cleantech and other industries.

EDC and Bank of Montreal are partnering to guarantee loans to small and medium businesses in carbon-intensive sectors to support efforts to reduce their emissions.

Alberta announced funding for a new Clean Hydrogen Centre of Excellence, focusing on accelerating the hydrogen industry in the province. 

The Federal government announced an additional $300M for its “Clean Energy in Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities” program.

Opportunities

🗓 The Canadian Waste to Resource conference is happening May 29 - 31st in Collingwood Ontario. Both in-person and virtual options are available. 

🗓 The 2022 Zero Waste Conference is happening in Vancouver from September 28 - 29th. Early bird pricing is available until May 31st and both in-person and virtual options are available. 

That’s all for this week. As always, thanks for reading and if you’re enjoying the newsletter, considering forwarding to a friend!

Justin