Spring is here, baseball is back and the days are longer, so it’s pretty easy to miss some of the more intriguing rounds startups announce in April.
Don’t worry, we have rounded up a quintet of eye-catching startups raising money to maintain you up up to now with what you may have missed last month.
Extinguishing a fire using… robots?
California hosted 13 of the 20 states the most destructive fires in history since 2017. So perhaps it’s no surprise that a San Francisco-based startup is looking for ways to stop such disasters.
BurnBot raised $20 million in financing led by ReGen ventures last month. A robotics startup says it has developed remotely operated vehicles – which mainly seem like Zamboni – that can devour and burn plants or other dry vegetation that fuels devastating wildfires.
The idea is a good one because it goals to maneuver the firefighting industry away from more dangerous or slow solutions, akin to goats grazing vegetation, burning it or using toxic herbicides.
California goals to treat 1 million acres per 12 months, a United States Forest Service has a goal of clearing 50 million acres in the coming decade. Maybe a herbivorous Zamboni is just what’s needed.
Better diagnoses
All parents want what is best for their children. However, making the correct diagnosis and providing appropriate care might be difficult the younger the child is, especially in the case of developmental problems akin to autism.
Decatur, based in Georgia EarliTec diagnostics last month he raised money to assist, locking in $21.5 million for the B team he co-led Nexus NeuroTech ventureswhich focuses on corporations that treat brain diseases and Venture investors.
The startup claims it could possibly diagnose children as young as 16 months old. This is essential because research suggests that the earlier a child is diagnosed, the higher the developmental outcomes.
EarliTech uses an FDA-approved method in which a child watches videos of social interactions on a screen, and artificial intelligence tracks the child’s eye movements to evaluate the child’s level of function in the hallmarks of autism – social disability, verbal abilities and non-verbal learning.
Autism is on the rise – 1 in 36 children in the US have been diagnosed with it – up from the previous rate of 1 in 44 – in response to the CDC. Earlier diagnosis may not stop this trend, but it could possibly actually help with care and development.
Eggs and ham without animals?
Well, people looking for animal-free eggs probably won’t pair them with ham, but they might soon give you the chance to search out them more easily.
Based in Helsinki Onego Bio Last month, it raised a large $40 million round led by a Japanese-Nordic VC NordicNinja. The startup’s goal is to provide real egg white, completely animal-free.
While animal-free meat has been in vogue for some time, animal-free eggs are not as well-known to us. The startup uses fermentation to provide real egg white, completely animal-free, using the ingredient, Bioalbumen.
Onego claims that the product provides equivalent taste and dietary value, in addition to over 90% lower environmental impact in comparison with eggs from chickens. The company plans to make use of the fresh money to expand its entry strategy into the North American market so that the product could appear in food market aisles on this side of the Atlantic sooner fairly than later.
Let it rain
This is definitely the first time that two Finnish start-ups have made it to this list.
NPHarvest took in roughly $2.4 million in a round led by Nordic Foodtech VC. A startup from Finland has developed equipment to gather and recycle nutrients from wastewater, akin to rainwater. The company plans to make use of the funds to build the first commercial-ready “nutrient catcher” to be installed at customer facilities.
The startup claims that its treatment devices can separate and collect all excess nutrients from wastewater – mainly ammonia salt – which might then be recycled and used in fertilizers.
Maximizing the use of wastewater to deal with food insecurity is not necessarily a recent idea, but this method is novel.
Breaking down plastic
Colossal biological science – which is trying to unravel the problem of anti-extinction – has made the list before, but now the Dallas unicorn is incubating the corporations that make the list.
Breakingplastic degradation and synthetic biology company founded in April and announced that it has already raised a $10.5 million seed round from corporations akin to Climate Capital, Carnrite Ventures, VC constructors AND Animal capital.
The Boston-based company says it has discovered a microbe called X-32 that destroys many forms of plastics by quickly breaking down hydrocarbon chains in various chemical structures.
According to the company, the microbe can break down 90% of polyolefins, polyesters and polyamides, abandoning carbon dioxide, water and biomass, in just 22 months.
Plastics are a growing environmental problem — in response to Breaking, 5 billion tons of plastic lie in landfills, in our oceans, and in our ecosystems — so a recent microbe that can speed up its decomposition could also be a part of the solution.