Taronga Ventures, 2150 and Hong Kong’s MTR Lab Company have joined forces to invest in Ampd Energy, a provider of clean energy generation units for the construction sector.
The $8 million Series A funding will allow the company to expand into the United Arab Emirates and the United States this year, adding to its existing presence in the United Kingdom and Australia.
The energy storage systems are used to provide power to construction projects, replacing diesel generators. The lithium batteries in the unit emit up to 85 per cent less CO2 than their diesel counterparts. The company has produced 200 units to date which have saved more than 28,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions and removed nearly 59,000 cars worth of air pollution from the atrmosphere.
This is the second round of Series A funding the company has received. The first round in 2021 allowed the company to expand into Singapore, Australia and the UK.
“The electrification of construction sites is one of the key decarbonisation pathways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for the built environment,” said Mr Avi Naidu, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Taronga Ventures.
Seed funding for rescued plastic
New Zealand-based Better Packaging Co has secured $5 million to commercialise its Pollastic packaging which is manufactured from rescued ocean plastic from the Asia Pacific.
Participating investors in the funding round include Even Capital, the Clare Foundaton, Norwegian impact fund Katapult and Elemental Excelerator from the US.
Pollastic is made from 100 per cent recycled ocean bound plastic which is purchased from coastal communities in Southeast Asia, providing them with a source of income. The material is made into flexible plastic film for use as mailing satchels, poly garment bags, pallet wrap and hygiene liners for swimwear.
In the past four years the company has collected more than one million kilograms of plastic from the environment, avoiding the emission of 2.6 million kg of CO2 by substituting the recycled material for virgin plastic and has sold more than 300 million recycled plastic bags.
International brands that use Pollastic includes Aramex, Toyota, Assembly Label and Boardriders Group. The bags are already distributed in the UK, US, Australia, China, the EU and New Zealand but the company has plans to expand further within these markets.
Australian climate tech sector heats up
ClimateTech companies in Australia have ambitions to raise $1.5 billion in capital over the next 12 months, tripling the amount of funds they have raised to date, research by business accelerator group Climate Salad has found.
The 2023 Australian Climate Tech Industry Report featured 228 companies which have raised a combined $553 million in the past 12 months and have invested $435 million overseas. The companies’ technologies have saved two million tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere and are projected to remove a further 1300 gigatonnes of CO2 when their various technologies scale up.
The Australian climate tech cohort has a combined $4.12 billion valuation, and has posted an average annual revenue of $385 million, representing an average 88 per cent revenue growth over the past year. Nearly half already operate international, and three quarters said they plan to expand into a new international market.
The climate tech industry is composed of the following sectors (ordered from largest to smallest): circular economy, data and finance, agri food, carbon markets, biosphere, renewables, storage, mobility and resources, according to the report. Australia is underweight in biosphere companies because there has been rapid growth in demand for nature-based solutions in the past 12 months.
Nearly half of the 228 companies on the 2023 list have been founded since 2020. Almost a third are located in Sydney, 21 per cent are in Melbourne and 12 per cent are in Brisbane. Climate tech businesses are also concentrated in regional industrial hubs such as the Hunter Valley, North Coast of New South Wales and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Just under 20 per cent are headquartered in a regional area.
In a positive sign for diversity, 44 per cent of all climate tech companies have at least one female founder, and 53 per cent have at least one female executive. Around a third of climate tech business leaders were born overseas, but just 1.3 per cent identified as Indigenous.
Climate tech start-ups focused on the built environment have raised a combined $16 million in capital in the past 12 months, and plan to raise a further $67 million over the course of the year. One of these is HAL Systems, a predictive climate control technology for use in buildings with centrally controlled HVAC systems which can save 10-15 per cent of energy use.