• Marathon Fusion

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2024

  Marathon Fusion is developing high-throughput tritium extraction and hydrogen purification systems based on superpermeation to enable fuel supply for commercial fusion reactors. The startup is refining a 40-year-old superpermeation technique that uses a metal membrane and a plasma-stage process to allow hydrogen (including tritium) to pass while blocking impurities and compressing the gas for injection. Marathon’s goal is to increase filtration throughput by, in the company’s words, "a few orders of magnitude" to meet continuous commercial reactor needs versus current experimental equipment. The company has operated stealthily and received early support from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program and the Breakthrough Energy Fellows program. Marathon recently raised a $5.9 million seed round led by the 1517 Fund and Anglo American, with participation from Übermorgen Ventures, Shared Future Fund and Malcolm Handley. It also holds letters of intent from Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy to potentially supply fuel-processing systems as fusion deployment scales.

• Funga

  Participated · Seed · Feb 2023

  Funga PBC uses DNA sequencing and advanced data analysis to identify growth‑promoting native fungal communities that have been degraded in managed forests. The company formulates inoculants and applies them to seedlings at nurseries so the fungi establish on roots prior to planting. Early results reported by the company show its inoculants can increase survival rates and boost tree growth by an average of 30%. Funga has helped restore fungal biodiversity across more than 6,500 acres of managed forests. The company was founded in 2021 by Dr. Colin Averill and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Funga positions its approach as a way to restore belowground biodiversity and enable forests to sequester more carbon, and it is scaling through strategic partnerships and investment. Funga combines DNA sequencing, machine learning, and forest microbiome research to identify and reintroduce native mycorrhizal fungal communities that boost tree growth and carbon capture. The company says restoring wild soil microbial biodiversity can accelerate plant growth by an average of 64%, driving faster carbon sequestration. Funga is developing proprietary software and datasets to recommend the right fungal combinations for specific locations and to quantify additional carbon removal. Its early projects include a microbiome restoration site in Lexington, Georgia in partnership with Conservation Resources, and plans to establish another ~2,500 acres within the loblolly pine footprint of the southern U.S. over the next 18 months. Funga’s longer-term goals include generating fungal DNA profiles from 1,000+ forests and establishing 1,000 hectares of combined tree planting and soil fungal community restoration. The company aims to offer measured carbon removal to corporate buyers and target the sequestration of at least three billion tons of CO2 by 2050.

• Gradient

  Participated · Series A · Feb 2023

  Gradient Comfort was founded by thermal scientists and builds HVAC products starting with the Gradient, a window heat pump that uses climate-friendlier R32 refrigerant and is designed to be quiet, efficient and not block the window. The company says its product aims to deliver heating and cooling with significantly lower carbon impact and targets a 95% carbon reduction when used to both heat and cool. Gradient Comfort plans to use new capital to advance design, deployment and manufacturability of its air‑sourced window heat pump units for cold climates, expand into business‑to‑business channels, and develop software services (hardware monitoring, maintenance, leasing, and demand‑response/VPP integration). The firm also intends to add headcount and build new products as it scales operations. Financially, Gradient Comfort closed a $9M Series A follow‑on that brings total Series A funding to $27.5M and has additionally secured more than $9M in non‑dilutive government grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the California Energy Commission, and the California Strategic Growth Council. In August 2022 the company was awarded a seven‑year contract to develop and deliver 10,000 cold‑climate packaged window heat pump units by NYCHA/NYPA/NYSERDA under the Clean Heat for All Challenge. Gradient builds HVAC products aimed at cooling and heating homes without the environmental harm of traditional systems; its first product is a replacement for the window AC that uses heat pump technology and a climate-friendly refrigerant. The company was founded by thermal scientists and includes talent from Tesla and Nest, positioned to reduce carbon emissions from heating and cooling. Gradient plans to develop a second product: cold-climate packaged window heat pump units, and to expand solutions for multi-family homes. It also intends to add services such as hardware monitoring, maintenance, leasing, and demand-response integrations with virtual power plants. Gradient has secured more than $9M in non-dilutive government grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, California Energy Commission, and California Strategic Growth Council, in addition to venture funding. In August 2022 the company won the Clean Heat for All Challenge and was awarded a seven-year contract to develop and deliver thousands of cold-climate packaged window heat pump units for NYC agencies.

No current team members are available.