Participated · Equity · Apr 2023

Gen Phoenix develops recycled leather fiber materials designed to replicate traditional leather quality while improving durability through circular transformation. The company has formalized an expanded partnership with Tapestry, Inc., including a three-year supply agreement and deeper collaboration on design and resources. Since their collaboration began in 2022, the two firms have moved beyond a vendor relationship to co-develop materials and scale a "luxcycling" approach that extends the lifespan of fashion and accessories. Luxury brands are increasingly adopting Gen Phoenix’s materials as part of the industry’s shift toward sustainable luxury. Gen Phoenix announced a closed financing of $15 million and an increased strategic investment from Tapestry that raised Tapestry’s equity stake to 9.9%. Leadership frames the deal as a milestone for scaling circular material innovation across global brands. Generation Phoenix, formerly ELeather, develops upcycled leather-like materials by shredding leather waste and entangling it around a high-performance core using high-pressure water. The company says its products contain up to 86% recycled content, including recycled leather and recycled plastic, though final products still include some virgin plastic. Gen Phoenix reports it has diverted more than 8,000 tons of leather waste from landfills to date and has worked with brands such as Nike and Delta. The 15-year-old firm is based in Peterborough, U.K., and says it will use new capital to expand into the luxury fashion and footwear categories. It is commercialising a bio-based coating system and bio-based substitutions for synthetic materials and says it aims to reduce and ultimately eliminate virgin materials from its products, though no deadline was given.

Participated · Series B · Dec 2021

Apex.AI builds Apex.OS, a scalable operating system and SDK that lets OEMs implement complex AI and autonomous driving functionality across vehicles and robots. Its platform is positioned as analogous to Apple’s iOS SDK for vehicle software, intended to shorten development cycles for customers. Apex.OS has earned high safety certifications, including TÜV Nord product certification and ISO 26262 ASIL‑D. The company has attracted strategic OEM partners and investors, including a partnership with Toyota’s Woven Planet. Apex.AI is based in Palo Alto, CA, and targets safety‑critical automotive applications. Financially, the company accrued over $56 million in Series B funding as of last December and continues to draw OEM investments. Apex.ai develops safety-certified software tooling for automakers and other mobility customers, notably an ISO 26262–certified software development kit called Apex.OS for autonomous driving and safety-critical applications. The company also offers Apex.middleware, an enterprise middleware product that integrates protocols to improve communication between software applications. Apex.ai was founded by Bosch veterans Jan Becker and Dejan Pangercic and maintains offices in Palo Alto, Berlin, Stuttgart and Munich. The team recently secured TÜV NORD certification for Apex.OS at the highest ISO 26262 functional safety level, enabling use in production vehicles. Financially, Apex.ai has raised $74 million to date and plans to commercialize its existing products while developing new offerings for adjacent markets such as agriculture, mining, industrial automation and IoT. The company intends to double its workforce from about 70 to roughly 140 by the end of next year and to expand into Asia under the leadership of former Panasonic executive Tavis Szeto. Apex.AI is a Palo Alto-based startup founded by automated systems engineers Jan Becker and Dejan Pangercic that is building a robotic operating system qualified for use in production automobiles. The company focuses on an enterprise-focused version of the Robot Operating System open-source middleware. It lists two products, Apex.OS — providing simple-to-integrate APIs to give automakers access to fully certified autonomous mobility technology — and Apex.Autonomy, which supplies specific autonomy components such as perception, localization and path planning. Apex.AI positions its technology to help speed the process of getting autonomous driving systems into production vehicles across commercial and consumer offerings by enabling easier development of safety-certified systems, per Volvo Group Venture Capital's comments. Last November the two-year-old startup raised $15.5 million in a Series A. Volvo Group Venture Capital has made an investment via Volvo's VC arm; financial details were not disclosed and Volvo said the investment "has no significant impact" on its earnings or financial position. Apex.AI develops an enterprise-grade operating system for autonomous vehicles designed to never fail. Its software stack is positioned as an enterprise version of the Robot Operating System (ROS) and is built to integrate into existing systems. The company has engineered redundancies and schedules compute to guarantee safety-critical processes receive required execution time. Apex.AI is application-agnostic and targets a range of autonomous mobility platforms, including cars, drones, and flying taxis. The founders emphasize moving beyond R&D toward mass production as autonomy scales. Financially, the company emerged from stealth while announcing a new financing round to support these efforts.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2021

Ascend Elements commercializes an ultra‑efficient Hydro‑to‑Cathode process to produce sustainable pCAM and CAM from black mass recovered from recycled lithium‑ion batteries. The company is building Apex 1, a 1‑million‑square‑foot facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, slated to open in early 2025, which is expected to produce materials sufficient for up to 750,000 electric vehicles per year. Ascend’s process eliminates intermediary steps in traditional cathode manufacturing, yielding economic and carbon‑reduction benefits, and peer‑reviewed studies show recycled materials perform comparably to those from mined sources. The Apex 1 project is partly supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Financially, Ascend announced $162 million in new equity financing as part of a Series D, bringing its 12‑month funding total to $704 million following a $542 million round in September 2023. Goldman Sachs served as sole placement agent for the Series D round. Ascend Elements develops sustainable, closed-loop lithium-ion battery materials, including recycled battery feedstock, precursor cathode active material (pCAM) and cathode active materials (CAM). Its proprietary Hydro-to-Cathode® direct precursor synthesis technology produces new pCAM from spent lithium-ion cells, aiming to reduce cost, improve performance, and lower GHG emissions. The company has signed commercial-scale supply contracts (including a $1 billion pCAM contract starting Q4 2024 with options up to $5 billion) and is building its Apex 1 facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Apex 1 is planned as a 1-million-square-foot plant on a 140-acre site, targeting enough sustainable pCAM for 750,000 electric vehicles per year when complete. Ascend has also secured two U.S. Department of Energy grants totaling $480 million under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Led by CEO Mike O’Kronley, the company is scaling from EV battery recycling through commercial pCAM and CAM production. Ascend Elements develops engineered materials and lithium-ion battery recycling processes, including commercial-scale production of lithium-ion battery precursor (pCAM) and cathode active materials (CAM). Its proprietary Hydro-to-Cathode direct precursor synthesis technology produces new CAM from spent lithium-ion cells, aiming to reduce cost, improve performance, and lower GHG emissions. The company intends to accelerate commercialization of that process and scale production to serve EV supply chains. Ascend has disclosed plans to invest up to $1 billion to build the Apex 1 facility in Hopkinsville, Ky., which is expected to produce enough pCAM and CAM to equip up to 250,000 electric vehicles per year. Financially, the company recently raised $300 million in equity and debt (including $200 million in Series C equity) and has two Department of Energy grants totaling $480 million. Led by CEO Mike O’Kronley, Ascend positions itself as a provider of sustainable, closed-loop battery materials solutions from EV battery recycling to commercial-scale cathode manufacturing. Ascend Elements develops Hydro-to-Cathode™ direct precursor synthesis technology to produce cathode active materials from spent lithium-ion cells. The process is presented as more efficient than traditional methods, offering reduced cost, improved performance, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions. The company is led by CEO Mike O’Kronley and is based in Westborough, MA. Ascend plans significant manufacturing and recycling capacity expansions, including a multi‑phase investment of up to $1 billion to build a facility called “Apex 1” in Hopkinsville, Ky. Apex 1 is expected to produce enough precursor and sustainable cathode active material to equip up to 250,000 electric vehicles per year. Ascend is also opening a battery recycling facility, “Base 1,” in Covington, Ga, which when fully operational in Q4 2022 will recycle more than 30,000 metric tons of used batteries and manufacturing scrap per year.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2021

Circulor provides an enterprise software platform that creates a reliable chain of custody for materials and attaches greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other ESG data directly to material flows. The platform helps customers demonstrate responsible sourcing, monitor inherited emissions from their supply chains, and underpin circular-economy initiatives. Circulor positions itself to make complex supply chains more transparent to help prevent exploitation of people and the planet. The company is headquartered in the UK and reports a global footprint across Germany, the U.S., Singapore, and Australia. In June 2022 Circulor raised $25 million in a Series B to support growth. The new funds will be used to expand its global footprint with a particular focus on the North American market. Circulor offers an enterprise software platform that creates a digital identity for commodities and tracks supply-chain data and embedded carbon using blockchain, business logic and machine learning. The platform provides full visibility across complex supply chains to support responsible sourcing, analyse emissions and improve sustainability. It has established commercial traction in the electric-vehicle industry and is used to trace materials such as cobalt, mica and lithium, and is expanding to nickel, copper, plastics and leather. Circulor is also deployed in circular-economy solutions, including remanufacturing of automotive parts, and helps customers meet upcoming EU Battery Passport requirements. Notable customers include Volvo Cars, Polestar, BHP, LG Energy Solutions and Vulcan Energy Resources. The company plans to extend its presence in North America and Asia and continue product innovation to accelerate impact and revenue growth.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2021

LGN is a London-based edge AI company that helps enterprise clients scale machine learning at endpoints to accelerate real-world learning. The company deploys autonomous systems and provides thousands of data endpoints to collect real-world data rather than relying on lab simulations. LGN focuses on making models more resilient by optimising endpoints and iterating from anomalies encountered in operational environments. The firm plans to build a networked AI infrastructure to enable AI-to-AI communication and remove humans from the interpretation loop. LGN was founded in 2018 by Daniel Warner, Dr Luke Robinson and Professor Vladimir Čeperić. The company recently raised $2 million in funding to support scaling deployments and its networked AI ambitions.