Ecovative is a biomaterials company that develops sustainable alternatives to traditional plastics and other environmentally harmful materials using mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms. Ecovative’s AirMycelium platform grows more than 400 tons of furniture, goods, and packaging annually with clients in CPG, housing, packaging, fashion, food, beauty, sports, and more. The platform uses AI to optimize mushroom mycelium for scale, density, elasticity, and other industrial parameters. Ecovative's products are fully biodegradable and compostable, offering a more sustainable alternative to petroleum-based plastics.
- biofabrication
- biomaterials
- biotech
- digital platform
- manufacturing
- mycelium
- mycotecture
Ooooby is an digital platform that functions as a decentralized network for local and small-scale food producers, empowering independent farmers and artisans to sell directly to consumers through strategically placed packing hubs. This approach bypasses traditional distribution channels, giving producers greater control and a larger share of the profits. Ooooby utilizes technologies to enable local producers to set up their shopfront and streamline the ordering and delivery process, offering convenience to customers of fresh, local, and sustainable food options. Their mission is to rebuild a food system centered around small-scale community-oriented producers using ecologically sound approaches to food production and consumption. Ooooby also partners with local institutes to support market gardening education and learning opportunities.
- digital infrastructure
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
- reduced food waste
- sharing economy
- social media / community
Gitcoin is a crowdfunding and collaboration platform that coordinates stakeholders to fund and innovate open source and digital public goods. Through blockchain-enabled infrastructure, it empowers communities and entrepreneurs to fund digital tooling for the commons. The platform also enables quadratic funding, a term for using unique mathematical formula that rewards funds based on the number of people who have donated, not only donation size. In effect, this prioritizes projects with a broad appeal from many funding parties over those with similar liquidity but reliant on fewer large donors. Gitcoin’s platform coordinates stakeholders across the ecosystem to submit ideas, vote on ideas, contribute funds, tokenize capital, collaborate on projects, allocate those funds digitally.
- blockchain
- crowdfunding
- digital platforms
- digital public infrastructure
- open source
- regenerative finance
- web3
Coral Vita is a company that works on restoring coral reefs by growing resilient corals and transplanting them to degraded reefs. They operate commercial land-based coral farms, using microfragmentation techniques to cultivate a diverse range of coral fragments which accelerates coral growth up to 50 times faster than natural rates and and assisted evolution, which trains corals to be resistant to the effects of climate change such as ocean acidification. Along with cultivatation of coral, Coral Vita also partners with local communities, eco-tourism operators, corporations, foundations, governments, mitigation banking, and other restoration organizations to design and accelerate projects supporting the restoration of vital marine ecosystems.
- agricultural tech
- coastal wetland restoration
- conservation agriculture
- coral
Matriark Foods is a social impact business that upcycles farm surplus and fresh-cut remnants into healthy, low sodium vegetable products for schools, hospitals, food banks and other foodservices. Matriark works with farmers and aggregators to make use of the vegetables that would otherwise go to waste, to instead provide nutritious food for people and reduce the environmental harms of food waste. They are using technology to manage their supply chains, inventory, sustainability tracking, and data analysis to underpin auditability of Upcycle Certified products.
- certifications
- circular economy
- food waste
- foodtech
- supply chain traceability
Silicon Ranch is a solar energy company that approaches, constructs, and manages solar project development designed for community impact and environmental stewardship. They offer a platform called Clearloop to help businesses offset their carbon footprint through solar energy investments. Beyond generating clean power, Silicon Ranch works collaboratively with local communities to create jobs and boost the local tax base to ensure the region's long-term economic health. Installations also focus on regenerative land management practices, designing strategically placed interconnected solar panels to maximize the capture of sunlight and integrate with sheep grazing or pollinator-friendly plantings to improve soil health and biodiversity. Throughout the Southeastern US, Silicon Ranch makes solar a force for positive change, owning and operating all projects to benefit both the environment and the communities they partner with.
- concentrated solar power
- distributed energy storage
- distributed solar photovoltaics
- energy storage optimization
Empower.eco is a global marketplace platform for plastic waste, using technology for transparent recording and rewarding of plastic deposits. By giving plastic a marketplace value, the platform incentivizes stakeholders to contribute, fund, account for, source from, and monetize plastic circularity. The platform helps create an economic foundation for scaling the network effects needed to enable plastic circularity and ecosystem restoration.
KMX’s technology facilitates a separation and recovery of pure water, lithium and other rare earth minerals a from industrial brine and waste-streams at low temperature and pressure. By using its proprietary membrane distillation technology for mineral recovery and water separation, KMX's technology targets water scarcity and contamination and offers a new method of promoting clean water and wastewater treatment. In addition, separation of Lithium, which is a critical element for batteries used in electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies, as well as other rare earth minerals, through brine and waste is a far more sustainable approach than traditional lithium extraction methods which are energy-intensive and have negative community and environmental impacts.
- circular economy
- critical minerals
- industrial waste
- renewables
- water
Olio a free app to reduce household and food waste by fostering a hyper-local sharing economy. People can list unwanted but usable items, including surplus food, as well as clothes, books, and furniture. Neighbors can browse listings and arrange free pickup, giving unwanted items a second life and saving it from landfills. This approach combats waste, promotes sustainability, and fosters a sense of community by encouraging people to share and connect with those around them. Because it diverts far more greenhouse gasses across the 49 countries it operates in than it produces, Olio is a carbon-negative company.
- circular economy
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
- reduced food waste
- sharing economy
- social media / community
Relier is a company tackling plastic waste in the produce industry through the upcycling of grapevine shoots. Relier's unique approach transforms discarded grapevine shoots into a sustainable biomaterial for packaging. This innovative material offers several benefits, including delaying fruit ripening, inhibiting microbial growth, and protecting produce during transport. Relier uses AI to analyze different recipe mixtures and percentages to obtain thermal, mechanical, and rheological behavioral to model the behavior of the clamshell, resulting in thousands of possibilities depending on the “how much” and “how” the components are mixed. Relier's biomaterial aims to be a more eco-friendly alternative to traditional plastic clamshell containers.
- agricultural tech
- artificial intelligence
- bioplastics
- bioremediation
- composting recycling
- data
- reduced food waste
Freegle is an online platform for exchanging stuff. The platform pair speople who have stuff they don't need with people who need stuff they don't have. This promotes reuse and keeps things out of landfills and incinerators. Freegle has over 2.7 million members across the UK.
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
Hunome is a digital platform designed to help people understand complex issues by bring together diverse perspectives for multidisciplinary sensemaking. Its platform is designed to bridge fragmented information and siloed perspectives into clarity, and supports environments for people to spend the time in dialogue developing perspective, openness, accountability, and collective sensing around complex topics. It uses data to transparently show interactions, "thinking paths," and how decisions are informed. Hunome recognises 16 different "knowtypes." These encompass knowledge derived from experience, research, observation, intuition, aesthetics, and creative exploration. Exposure to diverse ideas can spark creativity and lead to new solutions for global challenges.
- city planning
- collective
- decision-making
- digital platforms
- market research
- sense-making
