Electric planes, space unicorns, and cocoa shells: a week in climate tech funding

Another week, another cohort of founders pulling in capital to fix the planet's most stubborn problems. Impact Loop has picked out this week's top impact rounds, together with their investors.

Deals spanned five countries and four sectors, with French aerospace and Spanish space tech accounting for the bulk of capital raised. A Foxconn-backed motor company in Belgium and a pair of food and climate tools rounded out the week.

Plume

Franco-American startup Plume has raised €3.3m in a round led by AENU, with Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Raise Phiture, Better Angle and Collab Fund participating.

Founded by Edouard Labarthe, formerly of Palantir, and Marc Watine, a former Harvard geospatial AI researcher, the company was incubated by Y Combinator.

Plume has built a platform that aggregates more than 150 geographic datasets and deploys AI agents to process unstructured documents, including zoning records, permit histories, environmental studies and grid development plans, that currently require renewable energy project developers months to work through manually.

The firm says many renewable energy projects are abandoned after years of work, with delays measured in years at a moment when the climate transition demands months.

Fermtech

Fermtech founder and CEO Andy Clayton. Credit: Fermtech

Oxford-based Fermtech has raised £2.5m to scale production of Koji Cocoa, an ingredient derived from cocoa shells, the side streams of cocoa production that would otherwise go to waste, using fermentation to produce a cheaper replacement with significantly lower emissions.

The round was led by Elbow Beach, which contributed £2m of the total, with Carbon 13 and Empirical Ventures also participating.

The capital will go towards commercialising Koji Cocoa in the UK and beyond, as the global chocolate industry grapples with climate-driven supply shocks pushing up cocoa prices.

Magnax

Belgian motor company Magnax has raised €35.5m from Pan-International Industrial Corp, a member of the Foxconn Group, alongside Foxconn itself and incoming management co-investors. Pan-International will become the company's largest shareholder following regulatory approval.

Founded in 2015 and previously backed by €29m across two earlier rounds, Magnax makes yokeless axial flux motors for electric vehicles, industrial drives, robotics, and aerospace.

Xoople

Spain has a new space unicorn.

Madrid-based Earth observation startup Xoople has closed a $130m round, which puts it in unicorn territory at a valuation of over $1bn, as quoted by TechCrunch. The round was led by Nazca Capital, with participation from MCH Private Equity, CDTI, Buenavista Equity Partners and Endeavor Catalyst.

The company currently provides processed satellite imagery from third-party constellations, including the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2, turning raw optical data into analytics-ready feeds for AI applications.

Use cases range from monitoring construction site delays and crop health to tracking iceberg-related traffic risks for Alaska's Department of Transportation.

Capital will go towards engineering and the build-out of its own constellation.

Aura Aero

A 3D render of the Aura Aero ERA hybrid-electric aircraft. Credit: Aura Aero

Low-carbon aviation is moving from prototype to production line.

French aerospace company Aura Aero has closed a €50m Series B, bringing total financing to €340m. Bpifrance, the European Innovation Council Fund, Safran Corporate Ventures, and energy major EDF are among the backers.

The Toulouse-based firm is developing ERA, a hybrid-electric 19-passenger aircraft for regional travel. The ERA over 700 purchase intentions and 20 firm orders, according to Aura, which also makes training aircraft.

Aura is currently building two manufacturing sites, one at Francazal Airport in Toulouse, which has secured building permits, and a second in Daytona Beach, Florida, supported by Space Florida.

Pictured: Jérémy Caussade (AURA AERO), Olivier Andriès (Safran), Fabrizio Pirondini (Xoople), Celia Pérez-Beato (Nazca), Linda Rottenberg (Endeavor), Sarah Lumb (CDTI), Kester Goh (Magnax), Siobhan Brewster (AENU), Nicky Dee (Carbon13), Flowra Zhang (Elbow Beach), Andy Clayton (Fermtech).