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By using the Flashfood app, Loblaw customers have saved more than $238 million since 2019, and diverted nearly 86 million pounds of potential food waste from landfill
BRAMPTON, ON – January 22, 2025 – Savvy Loblaw shoppers coast-to-coast have saved more than $50 million in 2024 on groceries – and over $238 million in the past 5 years! – simply by shopping on the Flashfood app. Flashfood is a marketplace that connects customers to great deals on fresh groceries and is available in 850 Loblaw grocery stores across Canada.
With the Flashfood app, shoppers save up to 50% off everyday essentials that are nearing their best-by date or where the store has excess inventory, including meats, dairy, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables, prepared foods, and more. Purchases are made directly through the app and customers simply pick up their order from the Flashfood Zone located inside their participating Loblaw grocery store.
Since initiating their partnership with Flashfood in 2019, Loblaw has diverted nearly 86 million pounds of potential food waste from landfill through the program – a major milestone, as Loblaw aims to send zero food to landfill by 2030.
“With the rising cost of living, Canadians are looking for more ways to save money. Last year alone, customers purchased more than 900,000 boxes of fresh produce at our stores through the Flashfood app,” explained Jonathan Carroll, SVP, Superstore Operations and head of Loblaw’s food waste reduction initiatives. “This partnership allows us to offer incredible value to our customers while taking meaningful action to reduce food waste. It’s a win-win for our customers, our business, and the environment.”
“Loblaw’s commitment to sustainability and its expansive network of stores have been instrumental in the success of our partnership and our impact on Loblaw’s communities,” said Nicholas Bertram, CEO of Flashfood. “Together, we continue to deliver on our mission to connect families with more affordable groceries in Canada and reduce the amount of food going to landfills.”
Launched at Maxi in 2019, Flashfood is now available in 850 Loblaw grocery stores and franchise locations across Canada, including select No Frills, Maxi, Real Canadian Superstore, Real Atlantic Superstore, Loblaws, Real Canadian Wholesale Club, Zehrs, Your Independent Grocer, Provigo and Dominion stores.
For all Loblaw and Flashfood partner locations, visit flashfood.com/locations/home.
To learn more about Loblaw’s food waste reduction, visit https://www.loblaw.ca/en/food-waste/.
To learn more about Flashfood, visit flashfood.com.
About Loblaw Companies Limited
Loblaw Companies Limited is Canada’s food and pharmacy leader, as well as its largest retailer and private sector employer. With over 1 billion transactions each year in its unmatched network of 2,500 stores and national e-commerce options, Loblaw brings food, pharmacy, beauty, apparel and financial services to customers through many of Canada’s favourite and most-trusted brands: President’s Choice, No Name, Loblaws, Shoppers Drug Mart, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, T&T, Joe Fresh, PC Express and PC Financial. The Company’s loyalty program, PC Optimum, has more than 16 million active members and is one of Canada’s largest and best-loved reward programs.
Loblaw’s purpose is to help Canadians live life well. It makes good food affordable, health, beauty and wellness accessible, saving for the future possible, and essential style achievable.
About Flashfood
Flashfood is on a mission to feed families, not landfills. The app marketplace connects shoppers with fresh produce, meat and other groceries at up to 50% off. By partnering with retailers across North America, Flashfood offers shoppers nutritious staples at affordable prices; reduces the amount of food going to landfills; and gives retailers a path to new shoppers and greater shopper loyalty. Flashfood is a remote-first B Corp Certified company currently partnered with more than 2,300 stores across 50 store banners, 31 states in the US and 10 provinces in Canada. For more information, please visit www.flashfood.com.
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Source: Flashfood
PALO ALTO, CA, January 17, 2025 – ev.energy has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to lead a $12 million initiative to deploy advanced managed charging solutions in partnership with four utilities across the US and study the benefits to consumers, the grid and environment.
ev.energy will launch next generation smart charging solutions in diverse grid systems in California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Alaska and partner with Idaho National Laboratory to quantify the impacts of these efforts on peak load and carbon reduction, electricity rates, and system deferrals.
Key highlights of the project include:
- Broad geographic reach: Partnering with utilities across the U.S. to test deployments across different grid systems
- Advanced EV charging capabilities: Deploying solutions for renewable energy matching, peak smoothing, localized dispatch, and innovative vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies
- Benefits to disadvantaged communities: Fifty percent of program participants will come from underserved groups, with a keen focus on engaging EV drivers living in multifamily dwellings
- Research collaboration: Partnering with Idaho National Laboratory to assess the value of managed charging for grid deferrals and energy rate impacts
- Industry engagement: Collaborating with industry partners, including the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) and the Association of Energy Service Professionals (AESP) to broadly disseminate research findings to key industry professionals, including regulators, distribution planners, and other key stakeholders
“With millions of EVs plugging into the US electric grid system in the coming years, policymakers, grid operators, regulators, and system planners face the challenge of ensuring this shift delivers net benefits to the environment while keeping power reliable, resilient, and affordable,” said Nick Woolley, CEO and Co-Founder of ev.energy. “This grant will provide invaluable information into the value advanced managed charging can bring.”
Kate Merson, Director of Client Solutions at ev.energy, emphasized the significance of the collaboration, “This initiative is a game-changer. Most managed charging programs, to date, remain small-scale and focused on narrow goals to shift charging outside of peak windows. With our partners, this grant enables us to deploy true virtual power plant solutions and test them at scale for the benefit of the broader industry.”
This selection is part of the DOE’s Connected Communities 2.0 program, which supports the deployment of advanced grid-edge solutions to improve energy affordability and efficiency.
For more information about the DOE’s Connected Communities 2.0 program, visit the DOE website. To learn more about ev.enegy’s managed EV charging solutions, visit ev.energy.
About ev.energy
ev.energy is a Certified B Corporation® with a mission to make EV charging greener, cheaper, and smarter for utilities and their customers. Its end-to-end software platform wirelessly connects to electric vehicles and chargers to intelligently manage EV charging while working with utilities to put cash back in customers’ wallets for charging at grid-friendly times. With a global base of utility, vehicle OEM, and EVSE partners, ev.energy manages more than 200,000 EVs on its platform each day. Learn more at https://www.ev.energy/.
Media contact:
James Pratley
press@ev.energy
Source: ev.energy

It’s not an easy time to raise money for an electric vehicle startup, especially given how many have failed or are close to failing. But Los Angeles-based Harbinger has pulled it off by taking a hyper-focused approach to electrifying commercial trucking.
The reward is a $100 million Series B, co-led by early Tesla investor Capricorn Investment Group and Leitmotif, a new U.S. fund co-founded by the former M&A head for Volkswagen. Also joining the round were Tiger Global and mobility venture firm Maniv, both of which were existing investors.
“We know how the EV space has gone. We know that it’s just littered with bodies from the decade past,” Harbinger CEO John Harris told TechCrunch in an interview. “So we really, really try to keep our scope very focused and have very high confidence in what we say we’re going to do before we say we’re going to do it.”
Founded in 2022 by a group of former Canoo and QuantumScape employees, Harbinger set out to make a modular all-electric chassis for medium-duty trucks.
Then it… did that, and only that.
Harbinger maintained its focus at a time when investors threw billions of dollars at startups that claimed they’d make hundreds of thousands of EVs, or reshape transportation as we know it. Arrival, for instance, started out in a similar sector as Harbinger. But as it went public, Arrival claimed it would reinvent vehicle manufacturing with so-called microfactories, planned to make buses, developed a ride-hail car with Uber, and was potentially even working on an aircraft.
Arrival is now bankrupt. Harbinger, meanwhile, has closed a Series B and is on the verge of entering production.
“Harbinger is just this amazing team of very seasoned operators, with kind of a lot of scar tissue and relevant experience from their previous roles,” Leitmotif co-founder Jens Wiese, the former VW exec, said in an interview. “They’re just laser-focused on this segment and getting the product right.”
Harris said focusing on one product has not only allowed his startup to survive, it’s helping make the product better.
As an example, Harris pointed to the battery packs that power Harbinger’s chassis. Instead of packaging them in stamped steel, which needs to be welded together — and can lead to leaks that harm the batteries — Harbinger invested in a 6,500-ton press that uses high pressures to die cast the entire enclosure.
Harris said Harbinger was only able to invest in such a specialized tool because it didn’t have to spread its spending across multiple other products. The result: battery pack enclosures that are just one-twentieth of the normal cost.
Investments like this have allowed Harbinger to make its chassis more affordable from the outset, instead of relying on massive scale to reach attractive unit economics.
And since Harbinger is essentially selling to CFOs of fleet companies, Maniv managing partner Michael Granoff said that’s a tantalizing proposition.
“The segment they’re going after, they don’t replace their fleets that often, and when they’re thinking about it, they’re doing it for a number of years — and the math gets so compelling that it’s just unavoidable,” Granoff said.
Granoff so thoroughly believes in Harbinger’s opportunity that his firm has invested more in the startup than any other company. Harbinger’s Series B is also the only investment round Maniv’s second fund has joined that the firm didn’t lead.
“We’ve basically delivered compelling unit economics already, and that’s why people come in who normally wouldn’t be in this space, [investors] like Tiger,” Harris said. “We have industry-leading unit economics, if you ignore Tesla, but I expect us to have better margins than them, probably in another 12 to 18 months.”
Source: TechCrunch

Katherine Homuth has raised US$200-million for her innovative textile company Sheertex Inc., which aims to replace nylon tights with an unbreakable alternative, sideline waterproof fabric heavyweight Gore-Tex and rejuvenate Montreal’s ancient garment business.
But while Sheertex, known as SRTX, counts fashion icon Chip Wilson, Swedish retail giant H&M Group, and clean technology venture capitalists, among its investors, it hasn’t raised institutional money in its home province – until now.
On Tuesday, Montreal-based SRTX announced it had secured US$50-million in financing anchored by US$25-million from the Quebec government’s investment arm, Investissement Quebec.
IQ “is proud to support a company like Sheertex that is always looking to innovate, increase productivity and develop its international potential,” the agency’s chief executive officer, Bicha Ngo, said in a statement.
IQ has financed a range of companies across many industries operating in the province. But while Montreal has long been Canada’s garment trade capital, the “textile, clothing and leather products” category has been a laggard on IQ’s books, drawing the lowest or second-lowest level of financing from the agency among all secondary manufacturing sectors in 11 of the last 12 years.
It’s the start of a key partnership with Quebec for SRTX, five years after it quietly slipped into Montreal, relocating to a former Gildan Activewear hosiery plant from Ontario’s Muskoka region. After the pandemic hit, SRTX focused on existing investor relationships and becoming economically viable.
But it “wasn’t yet at the stage where IQ could convince their investment committee they should be writing a cheque, said Murray McCaig, managing partner with investor ArcTern Ventures.
SRTX began building local relationships after hiring Montreal-based finance executive Timothy Leyne as chief financial officer in 2022: “He knows how to navigate the political ecosystem that is the funding landscape,” said Ms. Homuth, the founder and CEO. “This never would have happened without him.”
Paul Desmarais III, a key figure in Montreal’s tech sector, also helped Ms. Homuth make local connections: “She has done a lot out of very little,” said Mr. Desmarais, a senior executive with Power Corp. of Canada and board member with Endeavor Canada, which champions promising high-growth entrepreneurs such as SRTX’s CEO. “She hustles.”
Ms. Homuth said “we need to have the support from Quebec to get the power we need, the approvals we need to move faster on construction and to get the word out on employment. It means a lot to us and our employees to understand our commitment to Quebec.”
Quebec’s textile and clothing manufacturing sector is in a funk. Productivity, profitability and the number of companies – mostly small and medium enterprises – have declined since 2020, according to a new report by the Sectoral Workforce Committee of the province’s textile industry. The industry has an aging work force, higher-than-average unemployment and pays relatively low salaries. Research and development and digital transformation lag other sectors.
Against that backdrop, SRTX offers promise and renewal. It makes leggings from ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), the same material used in bulletproof vests – which last longer than nylon tights, which tear easily. It has also developed an impermeable layer called Watertex it hopes to sell as an ecologically superior alternative to Gore-Tex and other waterproof materials that are made from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances and don’t break down in nature.
SRTX has developed innovative processes and software to power its manufacturing and is developing a method to recycle used products from customers to make new apparel, sparing it from landfills, where a lot of fast fashion ends up.
The company, founded in 2017, gained its initial following selling tights directly to consumers online. It is now transforming its business to supply directly to retailers. H&M, Costco, Walmart, Holt Renfrew, Macy’s and Kim Kardashian’s SKIMs banner already stock its leggings.
To succeed in wholesale, SRTX has driven down production costs, bolstered by automation and inexpensive Quebec hydro power. Costs fell to about US$10 a pair last year from US$75 in 2019, and the goal is to get to US$6 after opening a vertically integrated plant in Pointe Claire, Que., this year. SRTX is on target to extrude all of its own raw material for the first time this month, turning the polymer into spools of thread itself, and reach operating profitability in late 2025.
Ms. Homuth said she expects SRTX to triple sales to six million units next year, making up for lower revenues from wholesale clients than online shoppers pay: “The top line doesn’t matter as much as making sure the bottom line economics work.” Getting there “has been a dream for a long time and it’s so close you can taste it.”
If things go as planned, she anticipates increasing production to the facility’s annual capacity of 20 million units and opening a similar operation near Milan to serve Europe: “I just want the next year to happen faster.”
Source: Globe & Mail
October 15, 2024
Emeryville, Calif. (October 15, 2024) — Liminal, a leading battery manufacturing intelligence company with a mission to accelerate the global adoption of electric vehicles and clean energy, announced today that it has closed a $10M strategic investment round catalyzed by LG Technology Ventures, the venture capital arm of the LG Group. The round also included new support from Chailease Holdings as well as participation by current investors including ArcTern Ventures, University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, Good Growth Capital, Chrysalix Ventures, and Ecosystem Integrity Fund.
“LG Technology Ventures is committed to investing in companies we believe have the power to move industries forward,” said Robert McIntyre, Managing Director at LG Technology Ventures. “The current state of the EV market and the challenges manufacturers are having in scaling battery production demonstrates the pressing need to solve for battery quality—an area where Liminal has demonstrated success.”
Liminal’s quality control solutions use ultrasound inspection and physics-informed data science to deliver powerful insights to battery cell manufacturers to accelerate production ramp-up, improve quality, and reduce scrap and costs. The company deployed its in-line inspection product in a European gigafactory late last year, has an active pilot with a major Asian battery cell manufacturer, and will be deploying with a US-based automotive OEM in the coming weeks.
“We’re thrilled to have the support of a leading corporate investor known for facilitating strategic relationships between its portfolio companies and LG companies,” said Andrew Hsieh, co-founder and CEO of Liminal. “We are also grateful for the continued support from our existing investor base. This funding will enable us to more rapidly deploy our quality control solutions with more customers and into more production lines.”
About Liminal
Liminal is a battery manufacturing intelligence company that combines ultrasound with machine learning to deliver advanced insights that empower manufacturers. By improving the quality and safety of batteries and decreasing their lifetime costs, Liminal’s solutions address the climate crisis and increase scalability for battery manufacturers to create a world where EVs are accessible to all drivers. Liminal was founded in 2015 by top technologists from Princeton University, who were part of the Activate fellowship program. Liminal’s investors include Arctern Ventures, Chrysalix Venture Capital, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Good Growth Capital, Helios Climate Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, Northvolt, University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, and Volta Energy Technologies. Visit liminalinsights.com for more information.
Media Contact:
Whitney McGoram
whitney@alderagency.com
(202) 525-0606
Source: Liminal
October 16th, 2024 – Durango, CO – King Energy, a pioneering provider of solar energy solutions for multi-tenant commercial properties, announced today the successful close of a $10 million funding round led by ArcTern Ventures with $7 million and an additional $3 million from existing investors Blackhorn Ventures, Active Impact Investments, and Next Frontier Capital, underscoring the continued confidence in King Energy’s mission and market leadership.
The investment will fuel King Energy’s expansion of its innovative solar financing and billing platform that brings renewable energy to multi-tenant commercial buildings, providing economic value to both tenants and property owners alike. The additional capital will support scaling of operations, hiring, and technology enhancements, furthering King Energy’s reach across North America.
John Witchel is the CEO of King Energy with a strong record of building and scaling successful companies. He co-founded Prosper Marketplace, a pioneer in peer-to-peer lending, served as Senior Technical Architect at SolarCity during its rapid growth, President of GitPrime leading to its successful acquisition by Pluralsight. He currently serves on the board of Wunder Capital, La Plata Electric, and recently on the board of Colorado Solar and Storage Association. Witchel’s experience in finance, renewable energy enabled him to build an exceptional leadership team of seasoned industry experts to lead King Energy’s expansion.
John Witchel, CEO of King Energy, expressed genuine gratitude for the ArcTern partnership. “We are incredibly honored by ArcTern’s investment, which stands as a strong endorsement of our mission to transform how commercial properties benefit from renewable energy.”
ArcTern Ventures is a global venture capital firm dedicated to backing companies that address critical sustainability challenges. With a proven history of supporting transformative technologies across energy, transportation, and food systems, ArcTern’s investment in King Energy highlights its commitment to advancing impactful clean-tech innovation. As part of this partnership, ArcTern Partner Mira Inbar will join King Energy’s board, bringing valuable insight and expertise to the team from her time in the C&I renewable sector.
“King Energy brings a much-needed renewable solution to the multi-tenant commercial real estate, an enormous and underserved market,” said Mira Inbar, Partner at ArcTern Ventures. “Sustainability progress happens when it makes economic sense, and King Energy has cracked the split incentive problem so that everyone wins. We look forward to supporting their next phase of growth as they create real value for building owners and tenants eager for energy efficiency and cost savings.”
About King Energy
King Energy manages nearly 200 energy programs at multi-tenant commercial properties, serving more than 25 million square feet of tenant space. Their vision is to bring solar to every commercial rooftop by providing clear financial value to both property owners and their tenants. With their innovative OneBill software platform, King Energy optimizes the allocation and billing of energy to a commercial property’s tenants. By combining OneBill with project financing, solar program installation, and long-term management, King Energy serves as a single source solar partner that adds material financial value to commercial properties. This turnkey approach allows businesses to easily adopt clean energy, reducing both operational costs and carbon footprints without the upfront expenses or complexities typically associated with solar power.
King Energy is committed to making solar energy accessible, reliable, and profitable for all stakeholders, paving the way for a more sustainable future. Discover how King Energy is transforming commercial rooftops into valuable energy assets at www.kingenergy.com.
About ArcTern Ventures
ArcTern Ventures is a venture capital firm committed to addressing the climate crisis and advancing sustainability. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Oslo and San Francisco, ArcTern invests globally in innovative technology companies focused on climate action and sustainability—what we call Earthtech. The firm was founded on the premise that accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral economy can disrupt industries and present an unprecedented opportunity for outsized financial returns, benefiting companies, investors, and the planet. ArcTern’s latest fund, Fund III, closed in January 2024 with US$337M from leading institutional investors, with a focus on Series A and B startups. Visit www.arcternventures.com to learn more.
For further inquiries, please contact:
King Energy
Tori Moon
1-800-781-1765
media@kingenergy.com
Source: King Energy

Cyclic Materials’ agnostic technologies enable rare earth magnets recycling out of end-of-life products such as wind turbines, EVs, MRIs or e-waste. This image shows industrial waste from an MRI machine. (Photo: Business Wire)
September 25, 2024 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cyclic Materials, the advanced recycling company creating a circular supply chain for rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical materials, today announced it has successfully closed an oversubscribed USD $53 million Series B equity round.
The funding round was led by ArcTern Ventures and supported by new investors BDC Capital’s Climate Tech Fund, Hitachi Ventures, Zero Infinity Partners, Climate Investment, and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund. Existing investors Fifth Wall, BMW i Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and Planetary Technologies also participated in the round.
This funding brings the company’s total equity raised to over USD $83 million and will enable Cyclic Materials to fast-track its international growth. Cyclic Materials will deploy this capital to build rare earth recycling infrastructure in the US and Europe, and grow its team to support its world-class operations.
“We’re energized to partner with the world’s top sustainability-focused infrastructure and corporate investors to scale our technology’s impact,” said Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO and Co-Founder of Cyclic Materials. “This funding underscores the confidence in our ability to create the circular economy for rare earths needed for the clean energy transition. Not only is our technology essential for supporting sustainable domestic production of rare earths, but it will also play a critical role in re-establishing North American and European leadership in the rare earths industry.”
Importantly, Cyclic Materials’ process of recycling these rare earth materials from magnets achieves significant environmental benefits in comparison to traditional mining processes, including a reduced carbon footprint and unparalleled water efficiency.
“We seek to partner with visionary founders and technology companies that share our commitment to tackling sustainability challenges with innovative solutions,” said Marc Faucher, Managing Partner at ArcTern Ventures. “Cyclic Materials’ mission-driven approach to the circular economy combined with its proprietary rare earth metals recycling processes offers a scalable decarbonization solution that contributes to the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions. This alignment with our impact-driven investment strategy is why we chose them to become a part of ArcTern’s investment portfolio.”
The Series B funding follows a USD $3.6 million grant award from Natural Resources Canada that supports the continued operation of Cyclic Materials’ commercial demonstration facility (Hub100) for producing high-purity REEs from recycled magnet material and preparing for scaling to larger operations. These recent public and private investments demonstrate the surging interest in funding companies with technology proven to address climate change and sustainable development.
“The opportunity to invest in companies like Cyclic Materials at this stage of development and scaling is scarce,” said Tobias Jahn, Partner at Hitachi Ventures. “We are impressed with their high growth potential, strong leadership, proprietary extraction processes from electronic and industrial waste, and commitment to overcoming the limited availability of rare earth elements essential for various technologies in today’s electrification era.”
Established in 2021, Cyclic Materials’ proprietary technologies are capable of economically and sustainably recovering critical raw materials from end-of-life electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, MRI machines, and data center electronic waste. Over the past year, the company forged strategic partnerships with key industry leaders such as Solvay, Vattenfall, Synetiq, and VACUUMSCHMELZE to recycle magnets containing REEs and establish a circular supply chain.
About Cyclic Materials
Established in 2021, Cyclic Materials is a cleantech company creating a circular supply chain for rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical materials for supporting the clean energy transition. Through its innovative technology, the company economically, sustainably, and domestically transforms end-of-life products into valuable raw materials that are essential to the production of electric vehicles, wind turbines, and motors for the electronics we use in our daily lives. In 2023, Cyclic Materials commissioned a commercial demonstration facility of the first stage of its process, to recover rare earth magnets from end-of-life materials using the proprietary process, Mag-Cycle™. In 2024, Cyclic Materials opened a second commercial demonstration facility, for the second stage of its process, in Kingston, Ontario where Mixed Rare Earth Oxide is produced using its proprietary hydrometallurgical technology, REEPure™. With the global market for magnets containing REEs forecasted to increase dramatically by 2030, establishing new sources of these critical materials is vital to support the electrification of the global economy. Cyclic Materials is scaling its technology across North America, Europe, and Asia. To learn more, visit cyclicmaterials.earth.
About ArcTern Ventures
ArcTern Ventures is a venture capital firm committed to addressing the climate crisis and advancing sustainability. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Oslo and San Francisco, ArcTern invests globally in innovative technology companies focused on climate action and sustainability—what we call Earthtech. The firm was founded on the premise that accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral economy can disrupt industries and present an unprecedented opportunity for outsized financial returns, benefiting companies, investors, and the planet. ArcTern’s latest fund, Fund III, closed in January 2024 with US$337M from leading institutional investors, with a focus on Series A and B startups. Visit www.arcternventures.com
About Hitachi Ventures
Hitachi Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Hitachi Ltd. With $600M assets under management, we focus on investing in early-stage and growth-stage technology companies with strategic relevance to Hitachi. With a global network and extensive experience across various industries, Hitachi Ventures supports innovative startups in their journey to disrupt markets and transform industries. The firm’s investment areas span from environmental tech & circularity, energy, AI & digital technologies, to industrial automation and life sciences. For more information visit www.hitachi-ventures.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
Contacts
Media Contact
Chelsea Nolan
chelsea.nolan@antennagroup.com
646-854-8721
Source: Businesswire
Brighter Future had the great pleasure of speaking with Tom Rand, co-founder of ArcTern Ventures. ArcTern Ventures is focused entirely on climate tech, and invests in technologies to out-compete fossil fuels on the open market and reduce greenhouse gases at scale.
Over the course of our conversation, Tom provided a number of great insights into his particular brand of climate investing.
Tom Rand is a lifelong entrepreneur, and has dedicated his career to moving the needle on carbon emissions. After successfully building and selling a software company in the early 2000s, Tom pivoted to climate-focused investing and co-founded ArcTern Ventures in 2012.
Tom’s mission-driven approach to investing goes beyond simple financial returns, he told us. “I became an investor not because I wanted to be an investment professional, but because I want to move the needle on carbon,” he said.

“At the end of the day, the only way you reduce greenhouse gas emissions is by building a significantly scalable company in a large market. If you’re not doing that, you’re not moving the needle. […] So, it’s directly tied to market size, ability to disrupt the market, and all that.”
When we asked about the impact of recent global economic changes on Tom’s investment criteria, he said it had not changed. “We play a long game,” he said. “I think the single most important macroeconomic variable of this century is climate risk, [and] that risk doesn’t go anywhere.”
When evaluating potential investments, Tom said he and ArcTern look for a combination of factors. He noted that a great team and deep intellectual property are valuable, but they’re not the only considerations. Tom likes to see startup founders with previous entrepreneurial experience, saying that “ultimately, you’re betting on a team and a CEO. Both are critical.” Ideally, the startups they invest in would also have a protected moat around their technology and deep intellectual property.
Tom is quick to point out that they don’t just look at business plans, however.
“We don’t invest in business plans,” he tells us. “We invest in technology.”
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But not just any technology. For Tom, interesting deals aren’t necessarily the ones you’d expect in the climate tech space. While climate investors often want to invest in apps and software because they’re high margin and easily replicable, Tom wonders how effective such solutions might often turn out to be.
“That’s nice,” he says of app- and software-based climate tools, “but you can’t solve climate without rewiring infrastructure,” and adds that part of this huge task involves changing how large energy projects are built. He takes a hard look at companies working in areas like this.
“Infrastructure and technology are like oil and water,” he said. “Climate tech is a rewiring of the economy. Tomorrow’s energy systems won’t look like today’s.”
This perspective means that Tom and ArcTern seek out companies that can revolutionise industrial processes, energy production, large-scale energy storage systems, and cellulose-based chemical inputs for the creation of synthetic fuels and related outputs. Tom acknowledges that these areas are challenging, but he believes they offer the greatest potential for impact.
“Investors who figure out how to play that piece are the ones making a difference,” he said.
These are admittedly complex development areas, and in light of that Tom says he has “a particular view of risks with tech.” He approaches them “at the systems level, as opposed to the component level.”
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We asked Tom whether he preferred first movers or better movers among the companies he invested in.
“Really good question,” he said. “It depends.” He told us first movers are in a great position if they have big moats and the market is solid. But it’s harder for first movers trying to create a market, he said, and that “it’s often more efficient to be a fast follower” of someone else’s first-mover success.
To illustrate his point, he gave the example of long-duration energy storage. He pointed out that without the market signal to encourage utility-scale batteries for renewable energy, you might be able to build the best, biggest 12-hour battery on earth, “and no one cares. […] It’s hard to do. It’s much easier to fast follow and do something better than someone who’s gone there before.”
Tom’s advice to startups seeking investment in the current market emphasised that it’s extremely important to convey to investors that “you’re the best at what you do.”
He said storytelling plays a huge role for founders seeking success and funding. Convincing an investor that you’re the best in your field is “part narrative, part storytelling, part pitching, and part being persistent.”
“But at the bottom, you’ve really got to believe the opportunity you have is the best thing since sliced bread, because that’s what investors are looking for.”
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Interestingly, Tom’s views on the relative importance of “great team” versus “great idea” have evolved over time. Tom told us that lately he prefers a great team to a great idea in a company he might invest in. “No matter how great the idea is,” he says, “without the right team, it doesn’t go anywhere.”
Perhaps most surprisingly, Tom believes that we’ve invented everything we need to solve the climate crisis already.
“It’s about deployment now,” he says. “100 per cent about deployment, regulation, and finance. The innovation is on the human side, not the technology side, frankly. And I think that’s really empowering.”
As the climate tech sector continues to evolve, investors like Tom Rand play a huge role in shaping its trajectory. By focusing on scalable, impactful technologies and the teams that can bring them to market, they’re working to ensure that the innovations of today become the climate solutions of tomorrow.
From all of us at Brighter Future, we’d like to thank Tom enormously for his time in sitting down with us, and we wish him and ArcTern nothing but the greatest possible success going forward.
Source: Brighter Future