Tim De Chant

Senior Reporter, Climate, TechCrunch

Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.

Tim De Chant

With most residential solar panels installed by smaller companies, customer experience can be a mixed bag. To try to address the quality and consistency problem, Civic Renewables is buying small…

Civic Renewables is rolling up residential solar installers to improve quality and grow the market

“We were motivated to fundraise because we think the ’24 vintage is going to be a good one,” founder Craig Shapiro said.

After hits like Reddit and Scopely, Collaborative Fund easily raised a $125M fund to tackle climate, health and food

The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Novel battery manufacturer EnerVenue is raising $515M, per filing

A new app called MyGlimpact is intended not only to help people understand their environmental footprint, but why they shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

How many Earths does your lifestyle require?

The startup is hoping its durable filters can make metals refining and battery recycling more efficient, too.

SiTration uses silicon wafers to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste

The startup has been pursuing a ground-up redesign of a well-understood technology.

‘Star Wars’ lasers and waterfalls of molten salt: How Xcimer plans to make fusion power happen

The design brief was simple: each grind and dry cycle had to be completed before breakfast. Here’s how Mill made it happen.

Mill’s redesigned food waste bin really is faster and quieter than before

When other firms were investing and raising eye-popping sums, Clean Energy Ventures took a different approach. It appears to be paying off.

How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

Ore Energy emerged from stealth today with €10 million in seed funding. The company hopes to make grid-scale batteries that are cheaper and longer lasting.

Ore Energy emerges from stealth to build utility-scale batteries that last days, not hours

The company is hoping to produce electricity at $13 per megawatt hour, which would be more than 50% cheaper than traditional onshore wind.

Bill Gates-backed wind startup AirLoom is raising $12M, filings reveal

Young geothermal energy wells can be like budding prodigies, each brimming with potential to outshine their peers. But like people, most decline with age. In California, for example, the amount…

Special mud helps XGS Energy get more power out of geothermal wells

All cars suffer when the mercury drops, but electric vehicles suffer more than most as heaters draw more power and batteries charge more slowly as the liquid electrolyte inside thickens.…

Porsche Ventures invests in battery startup South 8 to boost cold-weather EV performance

The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech “comes of age.”

ETF Partners raises €285M for climate startups that will be effective quickly — not 20 years down the road

Bedrock Materials is developing a new type of sodium-ion battery, which promises to be dramatically cheaper than lithium-ion.

Forget EVs: Why Bedrock Materials is targeting gas-powered cars for its first sodium-ion batteries

The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.

Quilt heat pump sports sleek design from veterans of Apple, Tesla and Nest

Charging has long been the Achilles’ heel of electric vehicles. One startup thinks it has a better way for apartment dwelling EV drivers to charge overnight.

Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers

SAP Chief Sustainability Officer Sophia Mendelsohn wants to incentivize companies to be green because it’s profitable, not just because it’s right.

SAP’s chief sustainability officer isn’t interested in getting your company to do the right thing

Here’s what one insider said happened in the days leading up to the layoffs.

Tesla’s profitable Supercharger network is in limbo after Musk axed the entire team

Usually, when something starts to rot, it gets pitched in the trash. But Joanne Rodriguez wants to turn the concept of rot on its head by growing fungus on trash…

Mycocycle uses mushrooms to upcycle old tires and construction waste

Plenty of founders have a difficult decision to make early in their journey: where to set up shop. For deep tech founders, the decision is complicated by the fact that…

How to choose a deep tech startup program

Companies focused on reducing CO2 emissions raised big sums, second only to Q3 2023.

Climate tech investment roars back with an $8.1B start to 2024

Walmart heir Lukas Walton, worth $28 billion, is bringing on new limited partners to expand S2G’s investment reach.

Walmart heir Lukas Walton’s Builders Vision puts S2G on a path to independence

Featured Article

The ‘valley of death’ for climate lies between early-stage funding and scaling up

It’s easier for climate companies to get enough funding to get started. It’s much harder once they need money to scale.

8:00 am PDT • April 27, 2024
The ‘valley of death’ for climate lies between early-stage funding and scaling up

Joselyn Lai appeared on TechCrunch’s Found to discuss her company and its hopes of driving down the cost of a proven technology to address the…

Bringing down skyscrapers’ sky-high carbon footprint with Joselyn Lai from Bedrock

The startup, founded by an Arcadia alumnus, seeks to become a common data collection and sharing platform for renewable power sources like wind, solar, and batteries.

Texture makes a bid to become the world’s go-to platform of the energy transition

The stealthy new startup hopes a fully integrated approach, from direct air capture to electrolysis and methane generation, will let it drive prices down for so-called e-fuels.

General Galactic emerges from stealth to make methane from carbon dioxide

NZero developed a new algorithm that helps building owners estimate their carbon pollution down to the hour.

Building owners are often in the dark about their carbon pollution — a new algorithm could shed light on it

The startup is developing a technology it claims is as fast and energy efficient as 3D printing at a cost that can compete with sand casting.

Magnus Metal wants to revamp the 4,000-year-old way metal parts are made

Climate nonprofit Prime Coalition is hoping to bridge the valley with a new program, Trellis Climate.

Trellis Climate aims to bridge the ‘commercial valley of death’ for climate tech