Read time: 3 minutes 59 seconds
Good Morning! Welcome to our 32+ new readers.
Three time saving resources for you this week:
1) 31+ skills for small business owners - to stop those late night back office tasks
2) 140+ solar companies mapped
3) 30+ new deals, events and links
Enjoy,
Ollie
📡 WEEKLY RESOURCE
Claude released 31+ skills for founders & operators to save hours each week
20 mins
Time to implement
Hours
Time saved p/w
Easy
Difficulty
Founders and small business operators - stop running your back office after 6pm. That is the real promise of what Anthropic shipped this week, and it is the most practical AI release I have seen for anyone running a business or a lean team.
The tools to hand this off have existed for a while BUT it was fiddly. You had to write the prompts, wire up the context, remember which one did what, and rebuild it every time. The set-up cost usually outweighed the time saved.
That changed once ready-made "skills" arrived. We've packaged 31+ for energy and climate-tech operators. So you get to hand off the invoice chasing, the CRM tidying, the month-end reconciliation and the pre-meeting prep.
🧭 DEEP DIVE
We spent 16+ hours compiling a map of 142 Solar start-ups
TL;DR
For years, solar grew on two simple things: government money that helped people pay for it, and cheap panels from China. In 2025, both were challenged at the same time - and that is shaking up which companies win and which disappear. We mapped 142+ companies to find a signal through the noise.
Why map now?
The discount for home solar ended. In the US, a tax break that took 30% off home solar stopped on 31 December 2025. Now the only way to get help is to rent panels instead of buying them - so almost overnight, the way these companies make money had to change.
Lots of solar companies are going bust. Big names like SunPower and Sunnova have collapsed under heavy debt now that the government help is gone. When companies fail this fast, a map is the simplest way to see who is still standing.
Cheap panels are experiencing some volatility. Prices crashed because China built far more panels than the world could use, and many factories started losing money. Now China is pushing prices back up - so the bargain era is volatile at a minimum
AI and space are unexpected new sources of demand. The data centres behind AI need enormous amounts of power, grid are constrained and many DC operators are looking to co-locate renewables. and solar-plus-batteries is one of the fastest ways to get DC’s online sooner. That is pulling in brand-new companies and investors who were never in solar before.
Money is pouring in, but in every direction. Investors are backing very different ideas: cheap rooftops in India, US-made panels, pure finance companies, even solar power beamed from space. They cannot all be right. With money going everywhere, a map of the 147 companies is the only way to see where it is actually landing.
The Grouping
We split the map into seven key groupings:
1. Residential & Solar-as-a-Service - The companies turning your roof into a power plant - no upfront cost, just a monthly subscription
2. Software for Installers - The behind-the-scenes tools that help solar installers quote, design and finish jobs in days instead of weeks
3. Planning & Design - The simulation software that figures out exactly where panels should go to capture the most sun
4. Financing & Capital Markets - The marketplaces and platforms that move billions of pounds into solar projects - PPAs, project finance, M&A
5. Asset Management & Operations - The AI tools watching every solar farm 24/7 - spotting broken panels, predicting failures and boosting yield
6. Solar Hardware, BIPV & Specialised Solutions - Solar tiles that look like roof tiles, solar windows, agrivoltaic greenhouses, second-hand panels
7. Space-Based Solar Power - satellites collecting sunlight 24/7 in orbit and beaming it back to Earth as microwaves or lasers (yes, really)
Access the database
If you want access to the database click here
🛗 FOR YOUR LIFT CONVERSATIONS
🛗 Links
Energy & Minerals
🔋 Chinese solar majors pivot to batteries as panel margins collapse: JinkoSolar, JA Solar, LONGi, and Trina are all accelerating battery storage expansion. JinkoSolar plans to nearly triple its battery manufacturing capacity from 5 GWh to 13 GWh as panel sales falter under pricing pressure and trade barriers. Link
🔌 AI's power hunger has made electricity America's hottest business: Ford's stock hit a three-year high after launching a $2B energy arm, Bloom Energy is up 1,200% in a year, and GE Vernova booked $2.4B in fresh orders. Wall Street is now hunting for any source of electrons to feed data centres. Link
Land
🥩 FlyBox founder: insect farming can work in Europe, but not as a VC-backed protein play: Following the bankruptcy of Danish insect ag firm ENORM, FlyBox's founder argues the sector needs to pivot away from high-growth protein narratives toward niche, profitable applications. The shakeout is forcing a rethink of business models across the European insect ag space. Link
🤖 Reservoir VC says we're "entering the golden age of robotics" in agriculture: Partner Danny Bernstein argues that falling hardware costs, better AI vision systems, and proven ROI are finally unlocking commercial deployment of field robots. The firm is actively backing founders building autonomous systems for weeding, harvesting, and crop monitoring. Link
Water
🌊 Oneka's wave-powered buoys head for their first California deployment: The Canadian firm turns ocean waves into fresh water with zero grid electricity and zero land. Fort Bragg is funding a $1.49M demo buoy due to switch on this summer, backed by a separate $4.1M Ocean Supercluster monitoring project. Link
🌊 OceanWell wants to farm fresh water 4.5 miles offshore: The startup is anchoring subsea desalination pods on the seabed, using deep-ocean pressure to cut electricity use by up to 40%. A planned $500M-$1B array would deliver 60 million gallons a day, and it has signed an MOU with Eau d'Azur in Nice to build one. Link
Atmosphere
💨 Deep Sky lands a 10-year carbon-removal deal with TD Bank: Announced 4 June 2026, the Canadian developer will sell TD over 18,000 verified DAC credits. across the next decade, one of the larger bank-backed offtakes for engineered removal to date. Link
🌡️ California sets a $450/tonne bar for direct air capture demos: The state's Energy Commission opened up to $11M for two to four DAC projects, but only ones already past Technology Readiness Level 6. Entrants must hit $450/tonne capture cost, under 1,400 kWh/tonne, and remove at least 500 tonnes of CO2 a year. Link
💰 Deals & Fundraises
🇺🇸 Helion, a United States-based Fusion energy startup building power plant for Microsoft, raised $465m in Series D+ funding from Sam Altman, undisclosed investors.
🇺🇸 Focused Energy, a Austin, TX-based Laser-powered fusion energy technology, raised$240m in Series A funding from Prime Movers Lab.
🇺🇸 Colorado School of Mines / ElementUSA, a Gramercy, LA-based Rare earth element extraction and refining from mine tailings, raised $67m in Debt funding from US Department of Energy.
🇺🇸 Phoenix Tailings, a Woburn, MA-based Converting industrial waste into high-purity rare earth metals, raised $67m in Debt funding from US Department of Energy.
🇺🇸 InCharge Energy, a United States-based Installs and manages distributed EV charging and energy assets, raised $46m in Series A funding from S2G Ventures, QIC.
🌍 Tilt, a Unknown-based E-commerce platform for live shopping and live auctions, raised$26m in Series A funding from Vinted Ventures.
🇺🇸 Charm Industrial, a United States-based Stores bio-oil underground for carbon removal, raised $20m in Debt funding from JPMorganChase.
🇩🇪 Freshflow, a Berlin, Germany-based AI platform for supermarket inventory management and waste reduction, raised $10m in Series A funding from Reimann Investors.
🇺🇸 Volt Harbor, a Michigan, USA-based Modular battery energy storage for data centers and grid, raised $2m in Seed funding.
🇳🇱 Tulip Tech, a Netherlands-based Advanced UAV battery systems for European platforms, raised Series A funding from Parcom, Keen Venture Partners.
🇺🇸 Pacific Fusion, a Fremont, CA-based Fusion energy technology development, raised$1b+ in Series D+ funding from General Catalyst.
Funds
🇺🇸Gigascale, a San Francisco, CA-based Climate fund for energy, grid, critical minerals, closed $250m.
🇺🇸DCVC, a San Francisco, CA-based Energy and climate-focused venture capital fund, closed $500m.
Exits
🇫🇷 Carbonfact, a Paris, France-based Fashion supply chain carbon footprint measurement platform, acquired by Carbonfact (acquirer of Vaayu).
🇺🇸 Arcadia, a Washington, DC-based Energy management platform for enterprises, acquired by Arcadia (acquirer of ENGIE Impact
📅 Events
🇺🇸 Sustainable Brands 2026 Conference – SB’26 San Diego: A major conference for sustainable brand strategists. (June 8-10)
🇮🇹 3rd Global Summit on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability: (June 8-9): Confirmed by Times Scientific Group: “2nd Global Summit on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability … September 08–09, 2025, Paris, France. (June 8-9)
🇩🇪 Bonn Climate Change Conference 2026 (UNFCCC First sessional period 2026 / SB64): UNFCCC SB62 site confirms: “June 2–13, 2025, Bonn, Germany.”. (June 8-18)
🇩🇪 Specialty Gas Summit 2026 (gasworld): 2.5-day summit discussing the role of industrial gases in decarbonization, covering hydrogen, specialty gases, and equipment innovations for cleaner production across APAC. (June 9-11)
🇨🇳 WieTec 2026 (Shanghai International Environmental Protection Exhibition): Trade fair highlighting next-generation building technologies, sustainable HVAC systems, and advanced envelope solutions aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of large-scale construction. (June 9-11)
🇪🇺 European Sustainable Energy Week 2026 (EUSEW 2026): Europe’s premier event on clean energy transitions, featuring exhibitions, policy debates, and networking for energy stakeholders. (June 9-11)
Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways we can help you:
1. Energy, Industrials and Natural Capital Advisory
In our day jobs, we help energy, industrial and natural capital organisations (and their investors) to grow by:
1) Choosing the right portfolio of products, customers and geographies to focus on
2) Build the commercial systems - pricing, go-to-market, operations - to win in those markets, using the latest in AI
2. Media Partnerships
We have a growing audience of 48,000+ Investors, Business Owners and Executives across Energy and Natural Resources and ClimateTech. Apply to feature your business in front of our readers by replying to this email.
📩 Written by Ollie. Feel free to send us deals, announcements, or anything else using the link below or via LinkedIn.
