The UK is leading globally in climate tech with an increase of over 60 percent in the number of UK climate tech companies since last year. It is reported that the UK is leading the way for climate tech in Europe with 519 companies in this sector right now while it was 323 companies last year.
As the climate tech sector is growing, the Tech Nation has come up with the second Net Zero Growth Programme. Notably, 32 climate tech scaleups from across the UK have been accepted into the second iteration of this programme. This is the first programme dedicated to support the UK’s most promising climate tech companies. The companies in the Net Zero 2.0 are revolutionising the UK’s approach to combat climate change across industries. Take a look at the UK climate tech startups that are thriving from here.
Magway
Founder/s: Phill Davies, Rupert Cruise
Founded year: 2017
Funding: NA
A sustainable supply chain and transport tech startup headquartered in London, Magway is an all-electric, low-footprint, zero-emissions, high-capacity delivery system. It can reduce 90 percent of delivery vehicles off the roads, thereby reducing congestion, pollution, and the carbon footprint of shopping online.
In February 2020, the sustainable transport company raised over £1.5 million in private investment on Crowdcube to fund the next stage of its plans to revolutionise the UK’s freight and delivery market.
Oxwash
Founder/s: Kyle Grant, Thomas de Wilton
Founded year: 2018
Funding: £5.7M
Laundry startup Oxwash based in Oxford is an app-based on-demand home & commercials laundry services provider that revolutionises the washing industry. It lets users book services and schedule the pickup and delivery via the platform. It combines next-generation cleaning and logistics platforms, thereby addressing the loop in the ever-increasing on-demand hospitality and catering industries.
In June 2021, Oxwash, it bagged £1.75 million in seed funding from RB Ventures, RB’s (Reckitt Benckiser) new venture arm, TrueSight Ventures, Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter), Paul Forster (founder of Indeed.com), Founders Factory, Oxford Technology Management and a slew of angel investors. The funds will be used to invest in its proprietary technology platform and expand in North America and Europe.
Qualis Flow
Founder/s: Brittany Harris, Jade Cohen
Founded year: 2018
Funding: £2.5M
A construction tech company that uses an AI-based platform for measuring construction environmental risks, Qualis Flow, helps contractors and major projects manage their social and environmental impact. Qflow, a machine learning-powered tool automates tracking of materials and waste on construction sites, provides real-time alerts to engineering teams so they can manage quality and sustainability, and gives transparency to investors and developers.
In August, the company bagged a $2.4 million investment from Green Angel Syndicate. The funds will help to scale Qualis Flow and build a more sustainable future.
Ripple
Founder/s: Sarah Merrick
Founded year: 2017
Funding: £1.45M
Ripple, a London-based energy tech startup enables people and businesses to partly own large-scale wind farms and have the low-cost, green electricity they produce supplied to them via the grid through utility partners. It is the UK’s first clean energy ownership platform, which makes fractional wind farm ownership and supply simple and affordable. The company operates with the mission to make clean energy ownership affordable and accessible to everyone.
In December last year, Ripple picked up almost £375K in funding through its latest equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs from over 780 Seedrs investors. It announced that the investment will be used to continue the growth and development of the renewable energy platform.
Satellite Vu
Founder/s: Anthony Baker, Simon Tucker, Tobias Reinicke
Founded year: 2016
Funding: £3.8M
London-based Satellite Vu uses satellite technology to address global challenges as it focuses on infrared and head emissions. It will monitor the temperature of any structure on the planet in near real-time to determine valuable insights into economic activity, energy efficiency and carbon footprint. The high-resolution infrared dataset will enable better business decisions and accelerate our journey to net zero.
The company grabbed £3.6 million in seed funding in April 2021 in a round led by Seraphim Capital along with A/O PropTech, Europe’s largest Proptech venture capital firm alongside other specialist investors, including Ridgeline Ventures, the Earth Science Foundation, E2MC Ventures and Stellar Solutions. The funding will be used to launch the world’s first satellite constellation capable of imaging the thermal footprint of any building on the planet every 1-2 hours. Also, it will enable Satellite Vu to initiate the construction of its first satellite that is due to launch in 2022.
Sourceful
Founder/s: Wing Chan, Shiran Zheng, Mary Wang
Founded year: 2020
Funding: NA
Based out of Manchester, Sourceful is an end-to-end sourcing and supply chain platform focused on sustainability. It lets businesses source, configure and design sustainable packaging from a network of vetted suppliers and automate their inventory replenishment. Its proprietary life cycle assessment tool lets them understand the impact of product decisions in real-time and offset their carbon footprint to achieve net-zero.
Recently, Sourceful just announced that it raised $12.2 million (nearly £8.8 million) in funding. The round was led by Index Ventures with participation from Eka Ventures, Venrex and Dylan Field, founder of Figma. Danny Rimer, a partner of Index Ventures, joins the board. Sourceful intends to use the funds to scale its current operating model and build its tech platform for sustainable sourcing. Also, it will invest in talent across sustainability, technology, marketing and operations. It aims to reach a team size of 60 by the end of 2021.
Sunswap
Founder/s: Michael Lowe, Nikolai Tauber, Andrew Sucis
Founded year: 2020
Funding: NA
A sustainable transport tech company engineering firm Sunswap based in London develops hardware and software to accelerate the decarbonisation of transport refrigeration. Its battery- and solar-powered transport refrigeration unit (TRU) replaces dirty and loosely regulated diesel incumbents currently used by supermarkets and other refrigerated fleet operators.
Earlier this year, it raised £500K in a crowdfunding round on Crowdcube. The investment will be used to rapidly scale the business and deploy their zero-emission TRU technology on the roads by the end of 2021.
Sylvera
Founder/s: Allister Furey, Samuel Gill
Founded year: 2020
Funding: £6M
The world’s first carbon offset ratings provider, London-based Sylvera leverages geospatial data, machine learning, and proprietary climate data to create a reliable and transparent assessment of carbon offset projects has launched.
In May, Slyvera announced that it picked up $7.8 million (£5.5 million) in funding. The investment came from Index Ventures with participation from existing institutional investors including Seedcamp, Speedinvest and Revent. Even prominent angel investors including existing and former CEOs of NYSE, Thomson Reuters, Citibank and IHS Markit took part in the round. It will be used to further expand its technology platform.
Tred
Founder/s: Will Smith, Peter Kirby
Founded year: 2019
Funding: NA
A fintech startup from Leeds, Tred is a consumer fintech whose mission is to make money work for people and the planet. Its first product is the UK’s first green debit card that lets users track, reduce and offset their carbon footprint as they spend, and plants trees with profits.
A few months back, Tred announced its crowdfunding campaign is open to the public and has already secured more than £500K on Crowdcube. It is currently seeking to broaden its shareholder base while raising up to £1m via an EIS investment round. The investment will be used to grow their green banking solutions that will let customers to track, trace and reduce their carbon footprint.
Xampla
Founder/s: Simon Hombersley
Founded year: 2018
Funding: £8.7M
Xampla is a spin-out from the University of Cambridge that makes natural alternatives to plastics and is the world leader in plant protein materials for commercial applications. Its next-generation material performs like synthetic polymers, but decomposes naturally and fully, without harming the environment. Their mission is to replace the everyday single-use plastics you see all around, like sachets and flexible packaging films, and the less obvious, such as microplastics within liquids and lotions.
In January this year, the next-generation plastic replacement company secured £6.2M seed funding led by Horizon Ventures, a private investment arm of Mr Li Ka-shring along with participation from Amadeus Capital Partners. Xampla will use the investment to accelerate the rollout of its natural plant-protein alternative to plastic.
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