CTC #75 - Idealist adds $50M to climate tech growth fund & Rithmik cleans up mining

Hey there,

Welcome to another issue of Climate Tech Canada! Some good news for EVs this week: turns out they actually do emit way less than internal combustion vehicles - about 70% less over their life span.

Quick note: I’ll be coming to your inbox on Tuesdays for the next few issues to try out posting earlier in the week. Let me know what you think 👀

This week in climate tech:

• Canada Growth Fund invests $50M in Montreal climate tech fund

• Rithmik lands $2M to cut mining equipment emissions

• Oil sands producers seek approval for carbon capture project

Let’s go!

💰 Funding

⛏️ Rithmik Solutions raised $2M in funding from Chrysalix Venture Capital, Sprout Fund, Cycle Momentum and others. Rithmik uses machine learning to improve the efficiency of mobile mining equipment, improving uptime while also reducing emissions from mining activity. The funding will be used to expand with existing customers, acquire new ones, and land partnerships with OEMs.

💸 Idealist Capital secured $50M from the Canada Growth Fund for its climate impact fund. Idealist Capital targets growth stage climate companies, and has backed companies like dcbel, Sollum, and Spark Microsystems. This is the third investment from the Canada Growth Fund and its first in a fund.

💰 Other Funding

⛏️ pH7 Technologies received $850K from B.C.’s Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund for a pilot project extracting platinum metals from raw materials. pH7 is developing a closed-loop process for extracting critical minerals from low-grade resources with a low environmental footprint.

🏙️ Miru Technologies also received $1M from the ICE fund for its energy efficient smart glass. Miru’s windows can be automatically tinted to let in more or less light, helping reduce heating and cooling costs and the associated emissions for buildings. The funding will help build out a demonstration manufacturing facility.

♻️ Loop Mission and Still Good took home $1.5M each from the national Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Loop up-cycles food waste into new products like cold-pressed juices (Morning Glory is a personal fav), and won for their work developing a new business stream producing ingredients for food processors. Still Good, also in Montreal, develops technology that turns food by-products into new food products, like spent grain from brewing into flour. 

☀️ SolarBank, a Toronto based energy developer, will acquire Vancouver’s Solar Flow-Through for almost $42M. The deal brings 70 projects in Solar Flow-Through’s portfolio totalling 28.8 MW of solar and 15 MW of storage.

📈 Milestones & Growth

⚛️ Prodigy Clean Energy will work with Des Nëdhé Group, an Indigenous economic development group, to explore deploying Prodigy’s transportable SMRs in remote communities and Indigenous ownership models.

🧪 AuX Labs and Genuine Taste joined Ontario Genomics’ BioCreate program to commercialize their cultivated food products. AuX Labs is developing vegan casein (a protein found in dairy) for the plant-based cheese industry. Genuine Taste is using precision fermentation to produce cultivated beef fats that improve the taste and texture of alternative proteins. 

♻️ Li-Cycle will scale back operations at several of its spoke processing plants as it works to preserve cash and re-evaluate its strategy. Production at its Ontario plant is paused, while other locations have slowed. The company is also looking at producing just two battery materials at its planned NY hub.

🍎 Flashfood expanded to California in a new partnership with Save Mart Companies. Flashfood connects customers with groceries at a discount, helping divert food from landfills and avoiding food waste.

♻️ Cyclic Materials will partner with Vacuumschmelze (VAC), a producer of rare earth magnets, to recycle VAC’s by-products into new raw materials with a low carbon footprint.

💨 Vancouver-based CO280, a developer of CO2 removal projects, partnered with Norway’s Aker Carbon Capture to develop large-scale CDR projects for the pulp and paper industry.

🗞️ In the news

💨 Pathways to removal: The Pathways Alliance, a group representing Canada’s oil sands producers, started the regulatory approval process for a massive carbon capture project. The project includes a 400km pipeline that would take CO2 from oil sands sites to an underground storage hub. It’s the first step in a long process - the group expects approval to take at least a year. The project is expected to cost around $16.5B and Pathways continues to seek more financial assistance from the federal government.

📊 High leverage: A new report found that industrial carbon pricing systems are having the biggest impact on Canada’s emissions. Current policies are on track to deliver 226 million tonnes of emissions reductions by 2030. Other policies with big potential include an oil & gas emissions cap and methane regulations.

🛫 A new era for aviation: New rules aimed at cleaning up air travel are coming into place around the world, pushing the industry to accelerate adoption of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and likely pass on higher prices to consumers. Singapore announced a tax on air fare to fund SAF purchases, carriers in Malaysia can now charge a carbon levy, and European airlines will have their emissions allowance drop by 25% this year. Supplies of SAFs are still limited as producers scale up.

🗞️ In other news:

• SaskEnergy launched a new rebate of up to $9,000 for new homes that exceed current energy efficiency standards.

• B.C. will provide $30M to build new public EV charging stations, covering up to 50% of costs.

• Canada’s marine renewables association is partnering with its U.S. counterpart to collaborate on key challenges facing the sector.

• Indicators of climate change reached new records in 2023, with records set across ocean heat, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice loss and glacier retreat. 

• In the U.S., Constellation Energy issued a $900M green bond to finance its nuclear reactor fleet. It’s the first green bond in the country to finance nuclear projects. Ontario’s Bruce Power has issued several nuclear bonds already.

• Google, Microsoft and Nucore launched a new effort to advance new business models in clean energy and accelerate first-of-a-kind projects by aggregating demand from “three of the world’s largest energy buyers”.

• The U.S. EPA introduced new tailpipe emissions rules to cut emissions by 56%. The rules do not mandate EV adoption.

📣 What’s going on

🗓️ Climate Careers & Community: Montreal folks can pair the virtual content from Climate Career Week with this opportunity to get some face time with the local climate community in Montreal, hosted by Innovation Climat Montréal. March 27th, Montreal.

🗓️ Climate North: Renewable Runway: This Toronto meetup features local experts discussing new, sustainable materials, the actions you can take to own a greener closet, and why it matters. March 27th, Toronto.

💡THRIVE Climate Challenge: Hosted by THRIVE SVG Ventures and Alberta Innovates, this challenge is a $100K investment for startups working on biofuels, on-farm energy and water stewardship. Apply by March 29th.

💡 Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge: Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen) is seeking projects to accelerate Canadian climate tech and advanced technologies to improve the environmental sustainability of Canadian manufacturing. Apply by June 26th.

🎧 What we’re reading & listening to

Geothermal is the hottest thing in clean energy. Here’s why

• A great dive into the rapidly emerging world of advanced geothermal energy. Go even deeper with this report from the U.S. DOE on pathways to scaling.

Building and Scaling Climate Hardware: A Handbook

• This is a comprehensive guide to the world of climate hardware with resources for founders, operators and investors on everything from sales & GTM to policy. Pick and choose the chapters that are relevant for you.

📌 Jobs

Check out the job board for newly posted roles from Canadian climate tech companies like dcbel, CarbonHound and Highwood Emissions Management.

➡️ Hiring? List your posting here.

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Justin