Participated · Series B · Apr 2024

Founded in 2013 by Samir Ibrahim and Charlie Nichols, SunCulture designs, manufactures, and distributes solar-powered water pumps that replace costly diesel and manual irrigation methods for smallholder farmers. The company couples its hardware with a pay-as-you-grow financing model, lowering the upfront cost barrier and making the technology accessible to low-income users. To date, more than 45,000 smallholder farmers have adopted SunCulture’s solutions, improving crop yields while gaining reliable access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. Revenue and user figures beyond this adoption metric were not disclosed, but the firm positions itself at the intersection of climate resilience, agriculture, and clean energy. With fresh capital, SunCulture plans to strengthen manufacturing and distribution operations and to expand into additional African markets, including Uganda, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Togo. The company also intends to refine its financing products to make solar irrigation even more affordable, aligning its growth with broader goals of water security and food sustainability across the region.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2021

BlocPower, founded in 2014 and led by CEO Donnel Baird, is an NYC-based climate technology company that develops software and financing to decarbonize buildings. Its core product is the proprietary BlocMaps SaaS analytics platform and associated software used for analysis, leasing, project management, and monitoring of clean energy projects. The company has completed energy projects in more than 5,000 apartments, homes, houses of worship and commercial buildings and reports 4,000% revenue growth since its 2020 Series A. BlocPower plans to use the new capital to further develop BlocMaps, expand financing and administrative capabilities, and broaden its Civilian Climate Corps green workforce initiative. The Civilian Climate Corps trains and hires at-risk individuals and has secured city contracts including a two-year, $108m NYC award and an earlier $37m contract; the company opened training facilities in Brooklyn and the Bronx. To date BlocPower has raised over $250m and is deploying its software to support city-scale decarbonization projects in multiple U.S. cities. BlocPower develops and deploys clean-energy retrofits for urban, small- and medium-sized buildings using proprietary software for analysis, leasing, project management and monitoring. Its machine-learning platform identifies high-impact retrofits and the company uses cloud and IoT to gather data and remotely monitor energy consumption. As a Public Benefit Corporation, BlocPower partners with utilities, government agencies and building owners to retrofit unhealthy, energy-wasting buildings. It created an innovative financing solution that enables building owners to implement energy-efficiency improvements with no out-of-pocket cost. BlocPower has completed retrofits in more than 1,000 buildings in New York City and has projects underway in 24 cities, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Oakland. The company plans to expand and scale its inner-city energy retrofit projects across the U.S., create jobs, and will soon offer Environmental Justice Impact Green Bonds to institutional investors to help finance future projects.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2018

Aclima builds a combined hardware and software system that measures air pollution and greenhouse gases at high spatial resolution using its own patented sensors and a network of roving and stationary devices. The company integrates those inputs, compares them to nearby EPA monitors for quality control, and provides a data interface that highlights areas of concern by pollutant, toxin, GHG, or source. Its professional analytics software translates billions of scientific measurements into environmental intelligence for governments, companies, and communities. Aclima emphasizes a science-driven approach and public-health outcomes, and it cites work aimed at reducing emissions and delivering cleaner air. The company has received recognition including TIME100 Most Influential Companies (2023) and inclusion on the GovTech 100 (2023 and 2024), and it recently announced a historic deal with the California Air Resources Board. CEO Davida Herzl said the company will use capital to continue focusing on innovations and scaling revenue. Aclima develops hyperlocal measurement platforms that capture greenhouse gases and regulated air pollutants through mobile and stationary sensor networks. Its technology combines fleets of roving vehicles with stationary sensors and a backend analytics platform to map emissions at neighborhood scale. The company offers an enterprise professional software product for regulators and businesses, a free public tool, and a third revenue stream via partnerships with companies like Google that attach Aclima sensors to mapping vehicles. Aclima’s technologies are deployed across California, with major customers including municipalities in the Bay Area and San Diego, and its data has been used for community intervention plans such as in West Oakland. The startup positions its data at the intersection of climate, public health and environmental justice, helping governments and industry benchmark and prioritize emission reductions. Aclima raised $40 million in new funding to accelerate growth and expand capacity to support new and existing customers. The company was founded by Davida Herzl and is about a decade old. Aclima builds internet-connected air quality sensors and a software platform to generate hyperlocal pollution maps and analytics. The company partners with vehicle fleets (including work with Google StreetView) to deploy mobile sensors and create dense measurement networks. It monetizes interpreted data through a SaaS platform and often finances or part-finances sensor deployments for fleet partners. Aclima has demonstrated its technology across California—mapping the Bay Area, Central Valley and Los Angeles—and its data has supported scientific studies and local policy, including links to cardiovascular risk and school filtration decisions. The company reports its platform provides up to 100,000x greater spatial resolution at a 100–1,000x cost reduction and is investing in R&D to add pollutants (CO2, methane, particulate matter, black carbon) and future capabilities such as VOC speciation and smaller, lower-cost sensors. The new funding will be used to grow headcount, secure more fleet partnerships, expand pollutant coverage and pursue broader geographic (including global) expansion.

Participated · Series B · May 2018

Saildrone develops unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) powered primarily by wind and solar that carry sophisticated sensors and proprietary AI to monitor the maritime environment above and below the surface. Its Voyagers deliver long-duration operations measured in months and support use cases including border protection, critical infrastructure security, and hydrographic survey. The company has sailed more than 2,000,000 nautical miles and spent over 50,000 days at sea across the High North to the Southern Ocean. Saildrone is expanding its operational footprint in Europe and will establish a European headquarters and operational hub in Copenhagen, Denmark. As part of that expansion, it plans to roll out maritime intelligence services to multiple NATO countries and provide 24/7, year-round coverage for critical infrastructure in the Baltic and North Sea. The company recently closed a $60 million financing to accelerate these European deployments and defense partnerships. Saildrone develops and operates autonomous science vessels (USVs) used for ocean mapping, data collection, and marine intelligence. Its fleet has collectively traveled half a million miles and is deployed on missions that would be too dangerous or tedious for human crews, including a NOAA project that sent a vessel into a hurricane. The company’s newest craft, the Surveyor, can spend a year at sea and map the ocean floor beyond two miles of depth. Saildrone positions its systematic data collection to support scientific research, ship routing, and sustainable aquaculture as the ocean economy grows. To capture more of the emerging 'ocean domain intelligence' market it plans to scale production, hire "data insight teams," and expand go-to-market functions. The recent funding is intended to accelerate that scaling and further development of its fleet. Saildrone develops and operates a fleet of unmanned surface vehicles (ocean drones) to collect high-resolution ocean observations. The company sells ocean infrastructure and data used for weather analysis, fisheries management, and in‑situ ocean science. It has partnered with US agencies including NOAA and NASA and announced a multi‑year collaboration with Australia’s CSIRO, opening operations in the Southern Ocean from Hobart, Tasmania. Saildrone recently opened a 200,000 square foot advanced manufacturing facility in Alameda, California to support scale‑up. The company plans to use new capital to scale its global fleet and monitor the state of the planet in real time. Since its commercial debut in 2016 the company has raised almost $90m in total. Saildrone operates wind- and solar-powered unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that collect ocean and atmospheric measurement data. The company’s fleet has sailed over 60,000 nautical miles on missions in the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Bering Sea. Leadership is led by founder and CEO Richard Jenkins with Sebastien de Halleux as COO. Saildrone plans to use new capital to expand its fleet, enhance data processing capacity and scale commercial operations. The company closed a $14M Series A to support those plans. Prior to the round it received a mission-related investment from The Schmidt Family Foundation.