In 2023, European climate tech startups secured a record-breaking $20 billion in venture capital (VC) funding, according to Dealroom data, despite an overall decline in VC investments across the market. The UK, Sweden, and Germany led the region in total climate tech VC funding, while Iceland, Lithuania, and Bulgaria showed the fastest growth compared to 2022. Major clean energy players like Northvolt and H2 Green Steel closed substantial funding rounds, with Northvolt raising $5 billion to expand its circular gigafactory, and H2 Green Steel securing €4.75 billion for its flagship green steel plant in Boden, Sweden—the world’s first large-scale green steel project.
Climate tech continues to dominate Europe’s investment landscape, attracting increasing attention from VCs, private equity, and other investors. This trend is supported by a robust network of European and international backers, including the EIC Fund, BPIFrance, and Antler, among others.
Now, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has just announced Amazon Clean Energy Accelerator 4.0 is the fourth iteration of Amazon’s accelerator program aimed at supporting innovative startups that are developing clean energy technologies and solutions. The program is designed to advance the development of breakthrough technologies that can contribute to a sustainable energy future and support Amazon’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon by 2040. It targets early-stage startups working on solutions across areas such as renewable energy, energy storage, grid optimisation, decarbonisation technologies, and energy management systems.
Hence, we at TFN decided to handpick those based in the Europe from the list and check out their developing breakthrough technologies.
DeepIQ (Austria)
Picture credits: DeepIQ
Founder/s: Viswanath Avasarala
Founded year: 2016
DeepIQ offers an AI-powered no-code platform for industrial automation. The company leverages generative AI to digitise human expertise, enabling end-to-end automation of industrial processes. This technology has the potential to revolutionise industries like manufacturing, energy, and chemicals by increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and improving safety. It helps companies discover rare earth metals critical for the energy transition, measure carbon sequestration, and optimise operations to reduce emissions.
EH Group (Switzerland)
Picture credits: EH Group
Founder/s: Mardit Matian, Christopher Brandon
Founded year: 2017
The Swiss company EH Group specialises in developing hydrogen fuel cell technology for various applications. Its mission is to provide clean, efficient, and reliable energy solutions. The company’s fuel cell technology offers high power density, simplified architecture, and scalable production methods, making it suitable for a wide range of industries, including heavy-duty mobility, stationary power, and aviation. By transitioning to hydrogen fuel cells, EH Group aims to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Electriq (Israel)
Picture credits: Electriq
Founder/s: Baruch Halpert
Founded year: 2014
Solving the operational gaps that conventional hydrogen couldn’t solve, Electriq is revolutionising the industry by developing a unique powdered form of hydrogen that is easy to store, transport, and use. Its powdered hydrogen, called KBH4, is a safe and efficient alternative to traditional hydrogen storage methods. It can be easily transported and stored at ambient temperatures, without the need for high-pressure tanks or cryogenic storage. When mixed with water, it releases hydrogen gas, which can be used to power fuel cells or internal combustion engines.
Earlier this year, Electriq developed a system that converts water into fuel to power vehicles. Their technology extracts hydrogen from water to generate electricity that propels the car. With an estimated 1,000 km range per tank, Electriq’s water-based fuel could soon make gasoline obsolete.
Faradai (UK)
Picture credits: Faradai
Founder/s: Şahin Çağlayan, Burak Sefer, Utku Simitli
Founded year: 2017
UK-based startup Faradai develops enterprise AI software that helps measure, analyse, and report energy and carbon emissions. The platform also helps clients reduce emissions and cut costs. They provide real-time data acquisition, data management, compliance, and reporting tools by combining granular data, advanced machine learning algorithms, and deep sustainability expertise.
Currently reporting data from more than 18,000 sites in 16 countries worldwide, Faradai’s platform is used by many of the world’s largest companies, such as Shell, IKEA, PepsiCo, Vodafone, Delivery Hero, and DHL, to mention a few. These companies use Faradai to collect, store, analyse, and report their carbon emission and energy data, helping them to make savings, comply with legislation, and navigate their net zero journeys.
NET2GRID (Netherlands)
Picture credits: NET2GRID
Founder/s: Bert Lutje Berenbroek
Founded year: 2011
Dutch home energy management company NET2GRID supports renewable energy use by offering an energy monitoring solution that utility companies can provide consumers for home use. Its platform offers appliance recognition and disaggregation, actionable control, and brand awareness, thereby enabling clients to reduce the cost of service while increasing customer engagement.
NET2GRID EnergyAI is the company’s AI-powered SaaS which analyses residential energy data to deliver detailed household energy profiles and insights for personalised customer experience and valuable business intelligence.
Teknobuilt (UK)
Picture credits: Teknobuilt
Founder/s: Abhishek Srivastava, Yogesh Srivastava
Founded year: 2018
A cloud-based construction project management company Teknobuilt offers an innovative Digital Block and machine learning reduces re-work, interruptions, and wastage. It allows projects to be completed ahead of schedule and within budget in a safe, smart, and sustainable manner. Its PACE OS is a cloud-based platform that helps owners, design teams, and construction teams manage projects. It offers features such as digital construction blocks, predictive safety, carbon tracking, and real-time collaboration. Headquartered in London, the company has offices in the US, Canada, South Korea, Egypt, and India.
Diabatix (Belgium)
Picture credits: Diabatix
Founder/s: Lieven Vervecken, Roxane van Mellaert, Ine Vandebeek
Founded year: 2016
Through a combination of AI and generative design, Diabatix designs, analyses, and optimises heat sinks and cold plates with extreme speed and efficiency. With a focus on heat transfer, the cooling components generated on its platform are designed to cool the highpowered tech. After repeated customer requests for direct access to the software, Diabatix launched ColdStream, which bundles all of our innovations in thermal design into an easy-to-use in-browser platform.ColdStream enables users to analyse or to apply generative design to thermal and flow problems. Usage of the platform does not require installing any additional software, nor does it require any special hardware.
Proveye (UK)
Picture credits: Proveye
Founder/s: Jerome O’Connell, Nick Holden
Founded year: 2019
Irish startup Proveye provides an enterprise SaaS platform combining image processing for multiple remote sensing sources with AI and machine learning to enhance and compile selected image types into a single view, correcting for weather conditions, sunlight, and a range of other factors which usually make it difficult to isolate clear information to inform decisions on the ground. It is used by agricultural advisors, fertiliser and pesticide suppliers, and food processors to provide fast and accurate information about productivity and sustainability on agricultural land to their farmer customers.
Last year, Proveye raised €1 million in seed funding to grow its customer base and capitalise on its proven technology to develop further solutions across grassland, arable crops, and into more specialist areas of UAV image processing.
PhysicsX (UK)
Picture credits: PhysicsX
Founder/s: Robin Tuluie, Jacomo Corbo
Founded year: 2019
London-based PhysicsX brings the power of generative AI to enable engineering in advanced industries including automotive, aerospace, renewables, and materials production. It aims to solve its customers’ most difficult engineering challenges across design, manufacturing, and operational control. It builds AIs that dramatically accelerate accurate physics simulation, enable generative engineering solutions, vastly accelerate some of the most time-consuming activities in the engineering process, and make complex engineering across industries more accessible.
In 2023, the company secured $32 million in a Series A funding round to accelerate its growth across customer delivery, platform engineering, and fundamental research, expand the capabilities of its tooling, and advance its AI models and methods.
VIOTAS (UK)
Picture credits: VIOTAS
Founder/s: Paddy Finn
Founded year: 2013
VIOTAS is an electric utility company providing electric power and smart grid technology for commercial or industrial facilities. Its advanced virtual power plant technology helps businesses generate revenue, achieve their sustainability goals, and facilitate the transition to a sustainable low‑carbon power system. It enables commercial electricity customers to get paid by actively supporting the reliability, security, and stability of national electricity grids.
The post From fuel cells to AI: Meet 10 European startups championing net-zero transition appeared first on Tech Funding News.