October was the month climate capital went looking for value in what we already have. The 15 rounds we’ve picked out add up to roughly $600 million, and 12 of them are pre-seed to Series A.
Two patterns stand out. First, waste is becoming feedstock: demolition concrete, traded-in phones, recycled plastics and crop residue all drew backing.
Second, startups are finding ways to make flexibility pay, in virtual power plants, factory heat batteries and a battery network across Singapore. And the supply chain is moving onto the cap table, from BHP Ventures to Chipotle’s venture fund to DrizzleX’s own customers.
Capital raised by sector, October 2026
The round-up
Energy & storage
Voltus (United States)
Series D, $225m. Lead: Generation Investment Management, with Activate Capital and Vitol as co-leads.
Runs virtual power plants built from distributed energy resources, and sells that capacity into power markets. Voltus expects to reach 20 GW by 2030. Investors are backing flexibility as a fast answer to the grid’s capacity gap.
Type One Energy (United States)
Series B, $200m. Leads: Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Clutterbuck Capital.
Develops stellarator fusion power and is working towards a commercial plant at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run site. Fusion is still drawing nine-figure cheques, and this one is tied to a named site and a utility.
EPYR (France)
Series A, €15m. Lead: SlateVC.
Stores off-peak electricity as heat in firebricks for factories moving off fossil fuels, sold as Heat-as-a-Service. The round funds its next projects, starting with a 35 MWh unit at a Papeco site. Selling heat as a service takes the upfront cost away from the industrial buyer.
Blue Whale Energy (Singapore)
Seed, $4m. Investors: Wavemaker Partners, SG Growth Capital and ADB Ventures, with Analog Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures and UntroD Capital.
Builds a network of batteries across Singapore to free up capacity on the grid. A distributed network is one way to add flexibility in a dense, land-constrained city. Projects under construction are set to grow its capacity tenfold.
Carbon & removal
Applied Carbon (United States)
Carbon Removal-Linked Note, $72m. Structured by: Citi, with Nuveen participating.
Turns crop residue into biochar with a mobile pyrolysis platform. The note funds its Texas project. Citi calls this a first-of-its-kind outcome bond. Investors give up coupons and are paid through the project’s carbon credits, a new way to finance removals.
Industry & materials
Reclinker (United Kingdom)
Series A, £10m. Leads: Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures.
Recovers cement paste from demolition waste and turns it back into clinker inside electric arc furnaces that already recycle steel. It needs no kiln, no quarried limestone and no fossil-fuel heat. Borrowing existing steel furnaces could be a shortcut around building new plants.
R2Crete (Australia)
Pre-seed, A$750,000. Investors: University of Melbourne’s Genesis Pre-Seed Fund and Uniseed.
A University of Melbourne spinout whose patented process recovers clean aggregates and a cement replacement from waste concrete. The money builds a pilot plant, with industry trials due in early 2027. Pilot data is what will show whether the economics hold.
Giraffe Bio (Argentina)
Seed, $6.4m. Lead: Orion Industrial Ventures, with BHP Ventures.
Designs mine-specific biomolecules that lift copper recovery in flotation and work in existing plants without new equipment. The transition needs far more copper. Getting more from existing mines is a faster route than opening new ones, and a mining major’s venture arm is on the cap table.
Circular economy
Reuse (Chile)
Series A, $21m. Lead: At One Ventures.
Runs trade-in programmes for Latin American retailers and brands, then refurbishes and resells the devices. The round takes it into Colombia. Reuse sits behind the retailer’s own brand, a distribution model other circular founders can learn from.
Ambio (Finland)
Seed, €5.1m. Lead: b2venture, with Montis and Lifeline Ventures.
An AI-powered procurement platform for recycled plastics, covering sourcing, quality and delivery. Ambio acts as principal in each trade, so it carries the quality risk that often puts manufacturers off recycled material.
Food & agriculture
IMIO (United States)
Seed, $12m. Lead: Sofinnova Partners, with Chipotle’s Cultivate Next.
Makes agricultural biologicals that break down crop residues to release nutrients and improve soil performance. A restaurant chain’s venture fund is backing soil health upstream. The round funds a new headquarters, lab and biomanufacturing base in Chicago.
CarbonFarm (France)
Series A, €7m. Lead: Colam Impact, with Proparco, Suma Capital, elea and Bpifrance.
Measures and develops rice decarbonisation projects, using satellite analysis, field data and greenhouse gas modelling. Rice methane is a big, under-served emissions source. CarbonFarm has worked in 19 countries since its last round.
Finches (Germany)
Pre-seed, €2m. Leads: High-Tech Gründerfonds, with Vanagon Ventures as co-lead.
AI early-warning system for agricultural buyers, combining their sourcing data with weather, satellite imagery and local reports. Climate risk is becoming a procurement problem. Adaptation tools that plug into a buyer’s daily work have a clear budget holder.
Mobility
Blaze Energy (United States)
Seed, $6.5m. Leads: Propeller Ventures and Catalyzer Ventures.
Builds a retrofit reformer that turns ammonia, methanol and LNG into a hydrogen-rich mix onboard, so existing marine engines can run on them. Shipowners won’t replace engines quickly. A retrofit route is heading for a 2027 pilot with Lomar Shipping.
Water
DrizzleX (United States)
Series A-2, $6.8m. Lead: Israel Investment Fund Group.
Patented devices attach to individual plumbing fixtures, giving multifamily and commercial property owners fixture-level water data and leak alerts. A group of its own customers invested in the round. There are few stronger signals that a product pays for itself.
What this tells founders
Look at what already exists. Existing furnaces, ship engines, flotation plants and retail trade-in programmes all featured this month. If you can plug into installed infrastructure, you skip much of the capex and permitting story.
Put your buyers on the cap table. BHP, Chipotle and DrizzleX’s customers all invested this month. A strategic or customer cheque is proof of demand as well as capital.
The financing model is part of the product. Heat-as-a-Service and Citi’s outcome bond both move risk away from the buyer or the balance sheet. Think about how your customers will pay, and how your deployment gets funded, early.
Raising? List your startup on Climate Marketplace for free. Investors can explore the climate startups raising there now.
Sources
- Voltus: Voltus
- Type One Energy: Business Wire
- EPYR: Tech.eu
- Blue Whale Energy: Dealroom
- Applied Carbon: Citi
- Reclinker: Clean Growth Fund
- R2Crete: CemNet · Dealroom
- Giraffe Bio: Dealroom · Forbes Argentina
- Reuse: Gunderson Dettmer · Dealroom
- Ambio: Tech.eu
- IMIO: Business Wire
- CarbonFarm: Tech.eu
- Finches: HTGF
- Blaze Energy: Business Wire
- DrizzleX: PropTech Connect
- Deal discovery: Climate Tech Navigator · CTVC
Cover image: AI-generated
