Participated · Series A · Jan 2026

Cream Co. Meats partners exclusively with ranchers who raise animals without hormones or antibiotics, on vegetarian feed and regenerative pastures, with more than half of its beef supply certified regenerative. Drawing from hundreds of sustainable family farms and artisan producers, the company now serves over 300 customers throughout California and beyond, including large institutional accounts such as the University of California system, Google, and Shake Shack. Its mission is to demonstrate that animal protein can be produced responsibly, transparently, and profitably while strengthening the West Coast regional supply chain. The company is the only California meat processor to have secured a USDA Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion grant of more than $1.5 million, which supports its infrastructure build-out. Recent capital will be used to expand processing capacity and deepen its regenerative sourcing network. By scaling these operations, Cream Co. aims to make regional, regenerative meat the norm rather than the exception. Founded and led by CEO Cliff Pollard, the business positions itself as both a supply-chain innovator and a champion of rancher economics.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2024

Notpla is a materials-innovation company that creates natural, seaweed-derived packaging and coatings intended to disappear harmlessly after use. The firm is now spearheading a three-year consortium to design a market-ready coffee cup featuring a fully natural, plastic-free coating that can be home-composted. Backed by a €4 million Horizon Europe grant, the project will investigate new coating chemistries, scalable production methods and real-world performance testing that comply with EU waste-management regulations. Notpla’s existing solutions have already displaced more than 35 million plastic single-use items across food service, events and retail. By targeting the estimated 500 billion disposable cups used annually, the company seeks to unlock a major new application for its technology. Fourteen partners spanning material science, manufacturing, academia and food service will collaborate to ensure the cup performs under high-volume hospitality conditions. The non-dilutive funding strengthens Notpla’s balance sheet while expanding its IP portfolio and product roadmap. Successful execution could position Notpla as a leading supplier of plastic-free packaging to global beverage and hospitality markets.

Led · Equity · Aug 2023

Allume Energy has developed SolShare, a technology that enables fair sharing of solar energy from a single rooftop solar PV system among multiple dwellings in the same building. Led by CEO Cameron Knox, the company has an established market in Australia and is already providing around 2,000 apartments with clean, affordable energy globally. Allume is expanding into the UK and the U.S., running pilots and early projects in both markets. Its first U.S. pilot in Orlando showed average annual savings of $1,166 per apartment in the first year, including net metering credit savings. The company will soon begin installation of a second Orlando project, which will bring U.S. installations to three (the other site is in Jackson, MI). Allume expects new projects across the Sun Belt over the next year to prevent over 10,000 tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to taking over 2,000 cars off the road for a year. Allume Energy, an Australian startup, develops the SolShare technology to enable a single rooftop solar system to distribute energy behind-the-meter to separately metered apartments, commercial units and retail strips. SolShare meters and apportions solar electricity so individual tenants can receive and be billed for their proportion of generation. The company is delivering a pilot that will install 487 kW of rooftop solar across 10 multi-unit properties owned or tenanted by The Salvation Army and other non‑government organisations, with the first site at The Salvation Army’s Glenorchy City Corps in Glenorchy, Tasmania. The Salvation Army will sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) with project financier Green Peak Energy and act as the building’s solar retailer, on-selling excess solar to tenants at rates cheaper than grid power. ARENA has provided $220,000 in funding toward the $1.04 million pilot project. If the pilot succeeds, Allume intends to roll the approach out across the not-for-profit sector.

Participated · Seed · Aug 2023

Refiberd builds hyperspectral imaging and AI technology to identify textile fiber composition and enable accurate sorting for recycling. Its system can be integrated into existing recycling infrastructures so materials are processed with the correct methods and turned into new, usable fibers. The product targets the waste-sorting dilemma in fashion to advance textile-to-textile recycling. Refiberd was named eBay's Circular Fashion Innovator of the Year and received mentorship and industry access through the program. CEO Sarika Bajaj said the investment will help close a significant round, expand the technology to new recycling partners, and strengthen the company's AI capabilities. Refiberd is a US business. Refiberd builds hyperspectral imaging and AI systems to identify textile materials and blends to enable accurate sorting for textile-to-textile recycling. The company points hyperspectral cameras at garments, samples dozens to hundreds of bands of light, and uses neural networks plus generative AI to distinguish thousands of textiles and fill gaps in its dataset. Refiberd has assembled a sample library of over 10,000 entries and generates synthetic spectra to improve model accuracy for materials not present in its collection. One camera unit can eventually sort up to 7 million pounds of material, and the startup is targeting pilots with textile companies, chemical recyclers, mechanical recyclers, and textile sorters to refine its product. Founded three years ago by Sarika Bajaj and Tushita Gupta, Refiberd frames its work as a response to the roughly 14 million tons of clothing landfilled or incinerated annually in the U.S. The company will use its recent funding to roll out initial pilots and further develop its hardware and AI models.

Led · Series B · Jul 2023

Nuru builds solar-plus-battery utility mini-grids designed to provide 24/7 reliable renewable power to communities in eastern DRC. The company is deploying metrogrid-style systems and already operates mini-grids in four cities, with planned new sites in Goma, Kindu and Bunia. The three new mini-grids will total 13.7 megawatts of generation capacity and are intended to expand access where national electrification is limited. Nuru’s stated social goal is to provide 24-hour electricity to five million people in the DRC, though management says achieving that target will require substantially more capital. The company is pursuing additional project finance alongside its equity raise to fund near-term construction and operations. Nuru positions its technology and deployments as a way to improve climate resilience and bypass fossil-fuel generation in low-electrification regions. Founded in 2015 as Kivu Green Energy, Nuru develops and operates urban hybrid solar mini-grids in eastern DRC, serving commercial, industrial, and household customers. The company runs a 1.35MW mini-grid in Goma and has commissioned a 1.33MW hybrid solar power plant, among the largest off-grid facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nuru positions its systems as more reliable, cleaner, and comparatively more affordable than diesel-generator solutions. It has secured a EUR1 million (US$1.2 million) cash injection from Proparco to scale into additional provinces. Nuru plans to deploy its off-grid solutions across North Kivu, Maniema, Ituri, Haute Uélé, and Kasaï, aiming to electrify five million people by 2024. Proparco, the private-sector financing arm of the French Development Agency (AFD) group, provided the funding as part of its Digital Africa initiative. Kivu Green Energy develops and operates solar PV minigrids paired with battery storage to provide stable, cheaper electricity in under‑electrified urban areas. The company will deploy its first minigrid in Goma with an initial capacity of 1.3 MW of solar and 2 MWh of battery storage. The Goma project is expected to create more than 760 new connections and serve about 3,800 beneficiaries, producing up to 2,300 MWh per year and avoiding roughly 1,840 tons of CO2 annually. KGE targets commercial and industrial anchor clients through long‑term power purchase agreements while also selling to small and medium businesses, households, and institutions. Management says the company seeks rapid scale in eastern Congo, aiming to deploy and operate an additional 33 MWp of capacity by 2023. Financing support from investors has been used to start construction and to refine the company’s business, financial modeling, and environmental and social policies.