Lifeline Ventures

Tomorrow… Finnish Startup Community’s Presidential Debate at 9am - https://lnkd.in/d9rVWdrM

Our culture club and Timo came out with poetry… ”Growth entrepreneur’s poems I” contains 20 must reads. Get yours from the link below. https://lnkd.in/dka6-pAD

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 15! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups tackle the climate crisis. Clouder builds a virtual cabling platform for commercial real estate to cut the costs and emissions of buildings from construction to operation. A commercial building includes 50 building tech systems. These building tech systems include systems like heating, cooling, ventilation, security systems, and lighting. Today, building tech systems are interconnected with physical cabling, resulting in fixed installations, high costs, embodied carbon and operating emissions. Firstly, physical cabling requires raw materials (e.g., copper and plastics), which increase a building’s embodied carbon. Embodied carbon refers to the building’s materials emissions from manufacturing to end-of-life (e.g., steel, cement, and cables). Secondly, installing physical cabling infrastructure is costly and complex, requiring manual labor. Thus, most building tech systems are left to operate in individual silos, resulting in unoptimized energy use and unnecessarily high operating emissions. Operating emissions include emissions from energy use like heating, cooling, and lighting, accounting for 27% of the CO2 emissions globally.   Clouder solves the challenges of physical cabling with its virtual cabling platform. The platform connects the different building tech systems via an infrastructure network instead of individual system-specific cables. Clouder’s virtual cabling platform removes the costly and complex physical cabling installation work. A wireless system can help to save up to 10-20% of the construction direct costs in a large construction project. Clouder also connects the different building tech systems and provides data that enables building management systems to optimize the building’s energy use. Controlling heating and cooling more intelligently can save 20-50% energy. This includes measures such as heating and cooling spaces that are in idle use. Tomi Grönlund, Emma Grönlund, Jussi Toivonen, and Ilkka Pirttimaa founded Clouder earlier this year and raised a funding round led by Lifeline Ventures. “We are really excited to have Lifeline onboard. There's a great demand for our solution amongst construction companies and commercial real estate owners to bring down costs and emissions in a turbulent market. With this funding, we're able to speed up scaling our production and start our first installations with selected partners soon. We’re currently looking to expand our team with exceptional software and network engineers interested in making a positive impact with their work.” Tomi Grönlund, CEO & Co-Founder of Clouder. #buildingautomation #virtualcabling #IoT #realestate #proptech #climatetech #climatestartupseries

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 14! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups tackle the climate crisis. Intergrid builds software to optimize electric heat production for manufacturers and district heating network operators. Most industrial processes, like making food, clothes, steel, cement, fertilizers, all require heat. The heat is used for various purposes in the industries. For example, cooking, drying, and calcining (breaking down limestone) are common heat-requiring processes. All industries globally use 85 exajoules of energy for process heating. This equals one-fifth of global energy consumption. Unfortunately, as fossil fuels produce 90% of industrial heat, industrial heating contributes 20% of global CO2 emissions. In Europe, 9% of the heating and cooling is delivered via a district network. Over 60 million Europeans depend on district heating. 75% of Europe’s district heating is produced by fossil fuels. Intergrid is developing a software to optimize the electrification of industrial and district heating. Industrial and district heating can be electrified via solutions like electric boilers, heat pumps,  furnaces, and thermal storages. Before electrification investments, Intergrid’s software makes it easy to navigate varying technologies and unit concepts by simulating different options, taking into account the partners’ existing process, heat demand and location. After the electrification investment, the software optimizes the use of electric heat assets by utilizing hours of low electricity prices and by providing demand response services for the grid network.    Olli Kangas, Pasi Hakulinen, and Mikko Ilmonen founded Intergrid earlier this year and raised a 1M€ pre-seed round led by Lifeline Ventures.  “Lifeline’s support helps us take our optimization offering to the next level. The whole team is excited about the initial interest and traction from industrial heat producers, and as a result, we are accelerating technology development to deliver the best possible results when the first pilots kick off with our partners soon. We are currently looking for exceptional software engineers interested in making a positive impact with their work to join our core team and will soon open other positions in business development and operations as well.” -Olli Kangas, CEO & Co-Founder of Intergrid. #industrialheat #districtheating #demandresponse #grid #electrification #climatetech #climatestartupseries

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 13! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups tackle the climate crisis. Steady Energy is building a new type of nuclear reactor (a small modular reactor, SMR) that produces low-carbon heat up to 150°C for district heating and industrial process heating. Heating and cooling accounts for half of humankind’s energy demand. That’s 230 exajoules or 64000 terawatt hours (TWh) annually! Heat is required, for example, for heating up buildings and powering industrial processes.  In Europe, 9% of the heating and cooling is delivered via a district network. Over 60 million Europeans depend on district heating. But unfortunately, 75% of this district heating is produced by fossil fuels. Likewise, fossil fuels make up over 90% of industrial process heating. Process heating is required in many industrial processes, such as drying, cooking, and calcining.  Steady Energy develops a small modular reactor (SMR) that provides zero-emissions heat up to 150°C. Its first design will be the LDR-50 reactor, which will supply heat for the district heating network and for industrial processes. The heat can also be delivered in the form of steam. The SMRs rely on nuclear fission as conventional nuclear power plants. In the fission reaction, a larger nucleus (like uranium) is split up into smaller nuclei. As a result, energy is released. Steady Energy’s reactor: 📐has a modular design ⬇️operates in low temperature and low pressure 📐Steady Energy’s LDR-50 reactors are designed to be modular and small-sized, providing only 50 MW of power. In comparison, a traditional nuclear plant usually supplies up to 4GW. The small, modular designs allow easier manufacturing of the reactors and thus lower costs. If a larger power supply is required, several LDR-50 reactors can be deployed to meet the power requirements. ⬇️The LDR-50 reactors operates in low temperature (<150°C) and low pressure (<10 bar). A conventional pressurized water reactor typically operates at 300°C and at 150 bar. The less demanding operating conditions make the reactor design easier and cheaper. Steady Energy is a spinout from VTT, the Finnish state-backed research institution. Tommi Nyman, Hannes Haapalahti, and Petteri Tenhunen founded Steady Energy in 2023 after 3 years of strategic research at VTT. Finland is a fantastic location for developing advanced nuclear reactors. Finland has a long history in nuclear energy - the last nuclear reactor was just opened in May 2023. There is also an extensive district heating network in Finland for testing and first customers. “We have recently signed a project agreement with VTT to continue development of the heating plant enabling us to move ahead in the design process and start preparing for the first step of the nuclear licensing.” Tommi Nyman, CEO & Co-Founder of Steady Energy. #nuclear #nuclearenergy #nuclearpower #SMR #climatetech #hardtech #deeptech #climatesolutions #climatestartupseries

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 12. In this series, we highlight how our portfolio’s climate startups are tackling the climate crisis. Vensum Power makes next generation power conversion technology for applications like EV charging, renewable energy production, and energy storage☀️🔋🚗 The world is electrifying. Solar and wind are increasingly generating our energy, and more energy storage is added to the grid and EVs to the streets. No wonder the global electricity demand is projected to triple by 2050. Energy applications such as solar and wind power generation, energy storage, and EV charging always need power conversion. Power converters are equipment adapting voltage to the needs of different applications. Currently, 7-10% of electricity is wasted as heat in conversion. Today's converters are also quite big, heavy, and unreliable. Vensum Power is the pioneer of software-defined power conversion. It is one of the most significant innovations in power conversion in the last 50 years. Software algorithms control how electricity is transformed. High-frequency switching technology and software control enable significant reduction to energy loss, radically smaller size and weight, as well as higher reliability than existing technologies. Converters can be updated like any smart device, ensuring a long lifespan. Vensum Power’s power converters: 💚Save up to 50% of energy losses ⚡Deliver up to 3x more power from the same physical footprint 🔧Require little maintenance  Jyrki Penttonen founded Vensum Power in 2018. Today, Vensum Power employs 11 people. It recently closed a $3.4M seed round. “We are excited to expand our team with top-tier talents and turn our lab-matured technology into products. At the same, we engage with potential customers who share our vision of advancing green transition.” Peter Nisula, CEO of Vensum. #powerconverters #powerconversion #renewables #energystorage #EVcharging #EVchargers #climatestartupseries

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 11! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups are tackling the climate crisis. Sulapac Ltd helps companies to replace conventional plastic with materials that are sustainable, beautiful, and functional. Our humankind has produced 9.2 billion tons of plastics since 1950s. And the production is on the rise. Today, we produce around 500 million tons of plastics every year. Plastics are a material wonder (versatile, durable, cost-effective), but they have detrimental effects on the environment and health. Firstly, plastics is produced from crude oil, a non-renewable resource. Plastic production emits nearly 2 gigatons of CO2 annually. Secondly, only 14-18% of plastics is recycled. Most plastics end up in the landfill or in the environment like oceans. Plastics never decompose, but they degrade to smaller pieces of plastic called microplastics, which may be harmful to human health.  Sulapac develops sustainable alternative materials to replace conventional plastics. Existing plastics converting machinery can use their materials, which has enabled quick adoption. Sulapac’s materials are used to manufacture, for example, cosmetics packaging and items for the food service sector. Sulapac materials: 🌳Are bio-based and biodegradable 💚Leave no persistent microplastics or toxic load behind ♻️Recyclable by design & industrially compostable 👣Have a low carbon footprint Suvi Haimi and Laura Tirkkonen-Rajasalo founded Sulapac in 2016. Today, Sulapac employs 28 people and has formed partnerships with internationally recognized brands like CHANEL, Shiseido, and Schwan Cosmetics International GmbH. “This year, we have opened up discussions with over 20 large international cosmetic companies, which reflects the momentum we are gaining in this sector. Especially recycled content, CO2 reductions, and urge to replace certain controversial plastic types are reasons why cosmetic brands turn to Sulapac.” - Suvi Haimi, CEO & Co-Founder of Sulapac. #packaging #sustainability #plasticpollution #microplastics #plastics #biodegradable #materials #climatetech #climatestartupseries

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 10! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups are tackling the climate crisis. P2X Solutions Oy produces and distributes green hydrogen and synthetic fuels for industry and transportation. The hydrogen economy is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. While the annual production of hydrogen was around 90Mt in 2020, it is forecasted to reach 660Mt in 2050. The future use cases for hydrogen include the industry and the transportation sectors. For example, hydrogen-based direct reduction is one promising way to decarbonize steel production. The production method of hydrogen is drastically changing. Today, hydrogen is overwhelmingly produced from fossil fuels. Only 0.03% of the produced hydrogen is green - hydrogen made by splitting a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen with renewable electricity. P2X Solutions is at the forefront of creating the green hydrogen economy. It builds green hydrogen plants and distributes the hydrogen to industrial and mobility customers.  P2X Solutions also produces synthetic fuels like e-methane and e-methanol for its customers. Synthetic fuels are made by combining green hydrogen and captured CO2. The CO2 can be captured, for example, from a nearby factory’s flue gases. Herkko Plit founded P2X Solutions in 2020. P2X has 12 employees and tens of consultants today and is building the first 20 MW plant in Harjavalta, Finland. The plant will produce green hydrogen and synthetic methane. “Finland has every chance of becoming a leader in hydrogen economy if all the investments that are under planning across the country will be implemented. We are proud that our Harjavalta plant has already reached its rooftop height and is progressing well towards production. It is thanks to our capable team and partners that the project is making such a good progress” Herkko Plit, CEO & Founder of P2X. #hydrogen #greenhydrogen #hydrogeneconomy #electrofuels #efuels #electrolyzer #hardware #climatetech #climatestartupseries

Our angel investment since 2016 builds one of Europe’s largest carbon removal facilities in Finland… many more such units to be built soon! Congrats Carbo Culture! https://lnkd.in/e_mFPuNk

🌍✨Climate Startup Series - Part 9! This series highlights how our portfolio’s climate startups are tackling the climate crisis. Norsepower manufactures and installs rotor sails on ships. This allows the vessel to take advantage of wind propulsion technology and consequently reduce fuel consumption by 5-20%. Shipping is a crucial part of modern society. Ships deliver over 80% of global trade. Unfortunately, most ships run on heavy fuel oil today. Shipping emits 1 Gt of CO2 emissions annually, accounting for 3% of global CO2 emissions. Furthermore, maritime trade volumes are expected to triple by 2050, which makes the decarbonization challenge even more urgent.     The shipping industry is under a lot of regulatory pressure to decarbonize fast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations agency regulating shipping, has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030 from 2008 levels. Norsepower has a solution to the urgent decarbonization need for the shipping industry. It has developed a product known as Norsepower Rotor Sail™ that can be installed on different kinds of ships. The rotor sails deliver fuel savings by 5-20%. The rotor sails utilize the Magnus effect to create thrust. When wind meets the spinning rotor sail, the air flow accelerates on one side and decelerates on the opposite side of the sail. This difference in air speed creates a pressure difference leading to a lift. (Learn more about rotor sails and the Magnus effect from the links in the comment!) Tuomas Riski and Jarkko Väinämö founded Norsepower in 2012. Today, Norsepower employs 52 people in Finland and China and has installed 14 rotor sails on 8 vessels. Norsepower’s rotor sails have saved 5500 tons of fuel and avoided 17 kilotons of CO2 emissions. “Because of tightening regulation and the shift towards green shipping our sales funnel looks great. We closed two new deals in the past week and there's more to come in the near future. There's never been a better time to get rotor sails for your fleet." -Tuomas Riski, CEO & Co-Founder of Norsepower. #maritime #rotorsails #fuelefficiency #fuelsavings #decarbonization #climatetech #climatestartupseries