Prelude Ventures
Canvas Category Consultancy : Company : Venture Capital
Prelude Ventures is a venture capital firm partnering with entrepreneurs to address climate change. Since 2013, we have invested in over 60 companies across advanced energy, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, advanced materials and manufacturing, and advanced computing. We have a long-term commitment to the sector, accept informed risks, and couple a fundamental emphasis on venture-level returns with an understanding of deep-tech and hardware development timelines. Prelude manages capital exclusively for Simons family philanthropic entities and is a founding member of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.
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Marking First Full Year of Operations, Vaulted Deep Secures $32.3 Million Series A Funding Led by Prelude Ventures
Vaulted Deep (“Vaulted”), a biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) company specializing in durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR), announced that it has raised $32.3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by new investor Prelude Ventures and returning investors with super pro rata participation including from Lowercarbon Capital, Earthshot Ventures, and WovenEarth Ventures. Additional new investors include Fall Line Capital and Rethink Impact.
As a spinoff from an established waste disposal company, Vaulted launched in late 2023 with existing, permitted well infrastructure and an experienced team. This has allowed the company to deliver CDR quickly and safely using mature, proven injection technology.
Redoxblox Closes $40.7 Million Series A to Support Industrial Decarbonization and Grid Storage with Next-Gen Thermochemical Energy Storage System
Redoxblox raised an additional $30M in Series A funding, led by Prelude Ventures and joined by Imperative Ventures and New System Ventures, alongside existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Khosla Ventures. This brings the total Series A round to $40.7M. Redoxblox is pioneering a new class of low-cost thermochemical energy storage systems (TCES) designed to accelerate industrial decarbonization and address long duration energy storage needs for the grid. The company’s TCES units store energy both chemically and as heat at high temperatures, allowing for continuous or on-demand discharge for industrial processes or electricity generation. The system can fast charge when electricity prices are low or during periods of surplus renewables generation.
95% of industrial heat is provided by fossil fuels, which accounts for 30% of global carbon emissions. Decarbonizing this sector has been historically challenging due to a lack of affordable emissions-free alternatives. With a conversion efficiency comparable to lithium-ion batteries, higher energy density, and direct high temperature air discharge, Redoxblox provides the first reliable, cost-competitive solution to effectively use electricity as an alternative to fossil fuels. The system also offers space efficient, grid-scale long duration energy storage, enabling intermittent renewables to meet baseload needs.
Windfall Bio Raises $28 Million Series A to Scale Methane Capture & Transformation Solution
Windfall Bio, a leader in methane-to-value solutions, announced its $28 million Series A funding round led by Prelude Ventures with participation from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Global Brain (through its Norinchukin Innovation Fund L.P.), Incite Ventures, and Positive Ventures. Existing investors also participated in the round, including B37 Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mayfield, and UNTITLED (a fund backed by the Tetra Laval family). Supporting its commercial pipeline, the new capital will enable Windfall to expand pilot deployments across methane intensive industries including agriculture, oil and gas, and waste management. Windfall will also invest resources to continue building out its team, manufacturing capacity and supply chain to meet growing global customer demand for methane mitigation solutions.
Quaise Energy Raises $21 Million to Accelerate Terawatt-Scale Deep Geothermal Energy
Quaise Energy, the company unlocking terawatt-scale geothermal, announced the closing of a $21 Million Series A1 financing round led by Prelude Ventures and Safar Partners. Mitsubishi Corporation and Standard Investments are among several new investors participating in the round. This latest funding will enhance Quaise field operations and strengthen the company’s supply chain position, while ongoing product development will continue with pre-existing capital.
Quaise is uniquely positioned to harness deep geothermal energy worldwide at 3-20 km below the Earth’s surface. To achieve such a feat, the company has advanced a novel technique to vaporize rock using high-power microwaves in the millimeter range, based on more than a decade of research at MIT and recent testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The original MIT experiments have now been scaled up 100x, with field demonstrations commencing this year.
Thea Energy Announces $20 Million Series A Financing
Thea Energy Inc., a fusion energy company advancing stellarator technology for commercialization, today announced the closing of a $20 million Series A financing. Prelude Ventures led the round with participation from other investors including 11.2 Capital, Anglo American, Hitachi Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Mercator Partners, Orion Industrial Ventures, and Starlight Ventures.
Proceeds from the financing will support the construction and operation of the Company’s proprietary superconducting planar coil magnet array systems, the design and simulation of Eos, Thea Energy’s large-scale integrated neutron source stellarator system, and continued team growth.
LightShip Series B
We are excited to share that we have closed a $34 million Series B financing to accelerate production and bring the L1 to your driveways. This round was co-led by Obvious Ventures and Prelude Ventures and joined by Allegis Capital and global RV manufacturer THOR Industries and its investment partner TechNexus Venture Collaborative. Returning investors Congruent Ventures, HyperGuap, and Alumni Ventures also joined the round.
Closing this fundraise ushers in a new chapter as we build the manufacturing system and supply chain to bring the L1 to production later this year. As great things often come in twos, we are also moving into our new pilot production facility in Broomfield, Colorado later this week.
Boston Metal Closes $262M Series C Funding Round to Decarbonize Steelmaking and Disrupt the Metals Industry
Boston Metal, a global metals technology solutions company, today announced the close of its Series C fundraising, bringing the series total to $262 million. New investors include Aramco Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Aramco; global investment manager M&G Investments; natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg; and investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures also joined the round, and several others made additional investments in the Series C, including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures and Prelude Ventures.
The metals and mining sectors are under significant pressure to shift to more sustainable production methods while enhancing efficiency and profitability. Boston Metal is developing a scalable technology platform that uses electricity to produce a variety of metals and alloys from a wide range of feedstocks. The company’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis process is simpler, more energy efficient and has a lower environmental impact than traditional methods. With its high-value metals business, Boston Metal is empowering mining companies to create new revenue streams by deploying MOE to extract high-value metals from complex, low-concentration materials that are currently considered waste.
☀️ Terabase Energy Raises $44 Million Series B to Digitalize and Automate the Deployment of Utility-Scale Solar Power Plants
Terabase Energy today announced a $44 million Series B financing co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Prelude Ventures with additional participation by SJF Ventures and other existing investors. The round brings Terabase’s total funding to $52 million and will be used to support the company’s mission to reduce the cost and increase the scalability of solar by building a digital and robotic automation platform for the development, construction, and operation of utility-scale PV power plants.
Citrine Informatics Raises $16M in Series C Financing
Citrine Informatics, the leading provider of artificial intelligence software for materials, chemicals, and manufactured product development, announced the successful close of a $16 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Drive Catalyst (Far Eastern Group), Alumni Ventures, ISAI Cap Venture, Presidio Ventures, and others.
This latest round of funding will be used to further accelerate the growth and development of Citrine’s AI-driven materials and chemical design platform, which is already in use by leading companies across materials, chemicals, formulated products, and manufacturing industries to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their product development processes.
LuxWall Receives Funding Led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Prelude Ventures
LuxWall, Inc., a provider of vacuum insulated glass (VIG) solutions designed to significantly reduce carbon emissions in the built environment, today announced completion of a company financing. Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) and Prelude Ventures led the round with participation from Baruch Future Ventures.
Citrine Informatics Raises $20M in Series B Funding
Citrine Informatics, the developer of the first materials artificial intelligence (AI) operating platform, announced $20M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Next47, and other investors. The financing will help support commercial growth of the Citrine Platform, the company’s core product, as well as the expansion in business development and sales efforts in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
The technological innovation behind the Citrine Platform dramatically reduces the time and cost of materials and chemicals development by combining materials-specific data handling and storage, scalable compute for AI and data processing, along with modular composable AI units optimized to predict materials behavior. The Citrine Platform has helped some of the world’s largest organizations, including chemicals and product companies, hit overall R&D milestones in 50-70% percent of the time originally forecast and has enabled totally new materials product lines.
Citrine Informatics Raises $7.6M to Revolutionize Materials-Driven Product Development With AI
Citrine Informatics, the chemicals and materials artificial intelligence (AI) platform, announced it has closed a $7.6 million Series A led by Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, DCVC (Data Collective), and Prelude Ventures. Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures and XSeed Capital also joined the round. Citrine combines AI with the world’s largest materials database to help bring products to market faster. The company will use the funding to accelerate its early successes with Fortune 1000 customers.
Factories are getting smarter, yet the chemicals and alloys that produce cutting-edge products remain largely unchanged. The consequence of this mismatch is painful delay and cost to manufacturers. According to the National Academy of Sciences, new products can take two decades or more to go from initial design to market, with the intermediate step of developing new materials often taking the longest. Citrine dramatically reduces the time and cost of this process by providing a data-driven approach to predict and optimize materials behavior.