Presenting onstage today in the 2018 TC Disrupt Berlin Battlefield is Indian agtech startup Imago AI, which is applying AI to help feed the world’s growing population by increasing crop yields and reducing food waste. As startup missions go, it’s an impressively ambitious one. The team, which is based out of Gurgaon near New Delhi,

U.K. car tech startup Lightfoot, which sells a telematics system that gives real-time feedback to drivers combined with a rewards platform to further incentivize good driving, has picked up £3.2 million (~$4M) from London-based early-stage venture fund BGF. Former Dyson CEO Martin McCourt also contributed to the investment, and will join Lightfoot’s board as a non-executive

Tesla, GM and Nissan are among a group of 15 companies that launched a new coalition aimed at reforming the electric vehicle tax credit. The group, called EV Drive Coalition, brings together a mix of automakers, industry giant ABB, climate change and energy lobbying organizations and EV infrastructure companies, including ChargePoint. The coalition, which officially

Earlier this week in a new experimental newsletter I’ve been helping Danny Crichton on, we briefly discussed transit pundit Jarrett Walker’s article in The Atlantic arguing against the view that ridesharing and microtransit will be the future of mass transit. Instead, his thesis is that a properly operated and well-resourced bus system is much more

Netflix has persuaded everyone’s favorite naturalist, David Attenborough, to voice its forthcoming original nature documentary series, Our Planet, which is slated to put conservation squarely in the frame, not just offer glorious animal eye-candy. It’s a timely moment to focus on conservation with climate change posing existential threats to global biodiversity — unless humans act to

National Grid, the Northeast’s natural gas and electricity company, is planting a flag in Silicon Valley with the launch of National Grid Partners. Led by former Intel Capital vice president and managing director Lisa Lambert, NGP has $250 million to invest in growth-stage technology startups over the next two to three years. Based in Las

Because solar and wind power are now cheaper to produce than energy from fossil fuels, the only obstacle that remains to the mass adoption of renewable power is the amount of money utilities need to spend to store the energy those systems produce. Right now, storing 100 megawatts of renewable energy (enough to power roughly 600,000

The continuing die-off of the world’s coral reefs is a depressing reminder of the reality of climate change, but it’s also something we can actively push back on. Conservationists have a new tool to do so with LarvalBot, an underwater robot platform that may greatly accelerate efforts to re-seed old corals with healthy new polyps.

Google and a group of game cetologists have undertaken an AI-based investigation of years of undersea recordings, hoping to create a machine learning model that can spot humpback whale calls. It’s part of the company’s new “AI for social good” program that’s rather obviously positioned to counter the narrative that AI is mostly used for

MakeSpace founder and former CEO Samuel Rosen is ready to launch his next venture, and it has little or nothing to do with the on-demand economy. This time, Rosen is setting his sights on the world of water. Tap aims to be the world’s first public index and global search engine for drinking water. Plastic

You may remember that back in March, the Water Abundance Xprize named the five finalists in its contest to demonstrate the sustainable and scalable collection of water from the air. Interestingly, none of those finalists were the winner — after one dropped out, an eliminated team stepped in and took the prize. The goal of

A UN report compiled by a coalition of international climate and policy experts has warned that “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” are required if global warming is to be limited to just 1.5°C. The report also sets out some of the dire consequences for both humanity and life on Earth

California plans to launch a satellite to monitor pollution in the state and contribute to climate science, Governor Jerry Brown announced today. The state is partnering with satellite imagery purveyor Planet to create a custom craft to “pinpoint – and stop – destructive emissions with unprecedented precision, on a scale that’s never been done before.”

Electric vehicles still make up just a fraction of the cars, trucks and SUVs on the road today. But that’s changing: The number of electric and plug-in hybrid cars on the world’s roads exceeded 3 million in 2017. By 2025, there are expected to be 20 million electric vehicles in just North America and Europe.

Marijuana may still be on shaky legal ground, but the therapeutic benefits of the psychoactive molecules — cannabinoids — inside the plant are solidly established. Unfortunately, cultivation of that plant is resource-intensive and yields only tiny amounts of some useful medicines. CB Therapeutics, a new biotech company launching today at the Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield,

Earlier today, Facebook said that it has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent and using 100 percent renewable energy to power global operations at the social networking giant by the end of 2020. So, while the company may have problems keeping foreign nationals from using the platform for influence operations (or garbage

As renewable energy use surges in the U.S. and the effects of global climate change become more visible, companies like Arcadia Power are pitching a nationwide service to make renewable energy available to residential customers. While states like New York, California and regions across the upper Midwest have access to renewable energy through their utilities

WeWork, the co-working startup that’s valued at ~$20 billion and has some 200,000 members across 200 locations globally plus nearly 6,000 staff of its own, will no long allow employees to expense meat. It will also no longer serve meat at company events. The policy shift is intended to reduce the business’ environmental impact. The new

Brentan Alexander Contributor Although Silicon Valley seems to have largely forgotten about cleantech after failures in solar, wind and batteries, there are still major strides being made across new and exciting renewable technologies. However, because these companies can take a decade or more to come to market — a timeline that is anathema to Sand

Aclima, a San Francisco-based company which builds Internet-connected air quality sensors and runs a software platform to analyze the extracted intel, has closed a $24 million Series A to grow the business including by expanding its headcount and securing more fleet partnerships to build out the reach and depth of its pollution maps. The Series

From next month two Google StreetView cars will be driving around London’s streets fitted with sensors that take air quality readings every 30 meters to map and monitor air quality in the UK capital. There will also be 100 fixed sensors fitted to lampposts and buildings in pollution blackspots and sensitive locations in the city

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard joined key execs from Apple and industrial manufacturers Alcoa and Rio Tinto to announce a new process for smelting aluminum that removes greenhouse gases from the equation. Alcoa and Rio Tinto are creating a joint venture in based in Montreal called Elysis, to help mainstream

Google has joined Apple in a growing chorus of tech giants coming out in support of the Clean Power Plan. The company filed a statement with the Environmental Protection Agency, which it has since shared with TechCrunch, supporting the Obama-era legislation. The legislation, which sought to curb power plant emissions by more than 30 percent

Although I do my best to minimize the trash produced by my lifestyle (blog posts notwithstanding), one I can’t really control, at least without carrying a spoon on my person at all times, is the necessity of using a disposable stick to stir my coffee. That could all change with the Stircle, a little platform

As renewable energy continues to gobble up more and more of the new energy capacity coming online, the solar project lending company Wunder Capital has raised $112 million in primarily debt financing to boost its business. The 90 percent debt and 10 percent equity commitment came from the multi-strategy investment firm Cyrus Investments, which has

General Motors is spinning up its electrification plans and today announced the stunning, poorly named Buick Enspire concept at Auto China 2018. As a concepts go, this one looks great and rather feasible. GM says it’s powered by Buick’s eMotion powertrain that can produce a maximum output of 410 kW (roughly 550 hp). This should

Last week, Apple called out the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to rollback the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The company cited both the obvious environmental impact of such a move, along with potential economic fallout. It turns out Apple’s got quite a bit invested in the latter.  The company announced today that its global facilities are

Logistics may not be the most exciting application of autonomous vehicles, but it’s definitely one of the most important. And the marine shipping industry — one of the oldest industries in the world, you can imagine — is ready for it. Or at least two major Norwegian shipping companies are: they’re building an autonomous shipping

The Clean Power Plan is shaping up to be the latest Obama-era legislation on the Trump administration chopping block. In fact, Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has been quite open in his intentions to kill the plan focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Apple is among the first — but likely not the last

Dandelion, a clean energy startup that was originally incubated inside Google parent Alphabet, has raised $4.5 million in funding to build out its business — a geothermal heating and cooling system for homes that claims it will drastically reduce its customers’ bills — it claims to cut bills in half (notwithstanding the upfront costs, more