Earth Day is over; climate tech isn't 🌎
Apr 23, 2025
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$15.7M
12
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
FOUNDER SPOTLIGHT
This week, we caught up with Dan Andersen, founder of Insightful Instruments. With three startups, a dozen-plus products in clinic, and over 250 patents under his belt, Dan is reshaping the medtech playbook. He walked us through his path from curious outsider to prolific inventor, the art of building the right team, and why the fastest way forward is sometimes a deliberate pause. Insightful is reimagining refractive surgery, and with recent in vivo validation, their vision is coming into focus. Dive into the full spotlight here.
ENGINEERS <> AI STARTUPS
Engineers might hide in the shadows in most situations, but not at AI companies, especially early stage startups. At the seed stage, 50% of new hires at AI startups are engineers, compared to only 25% for non-AI startups, even with a similar median number of new hires.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Cluely, the brainchild of 21-year-old ex-Columbia students Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam, just raised a $5.3M seed round to build a universal cheating tool.
The long-anticipated exit parade in venture capital has hit yet another speed bump, according to PitchBook's Q1 2025 Venture Monitor.
Despite ongoing fundraising challenges, the climate tech sector is showing signs of recovery, with venture capital funds pouring into energy, manufacturing, and carbon tech.
For the less rushed reader …
Cheat codes
Every software engineer's first love might be LeetCode, but what if there was another way? Cluely, the brainchild of 21-year-old ex-Columbia students Chungin “Roy” Lee and Neel Shanmugam, just raised a $5.3M seed round to build a universal cheating tool. Their AI tool, which runs in a hidden browser window, helps users cheat on everything from coding interviews to sales calls. After a viral X thread and being suspended from Columbia, the duo dropped out and turned their dorm-room project into a $3M ARR operation. Cluely claims it’s the next calculator or spellcheck; critics say it’s straight from Black Mirror. Either way, it’s poised to shake up edtech, pushing schools and platforms to rethink how they measure knowledge in an AI-powered world. The days of writing teeny tiny formulas on water bottle wrappers are over – but we know nothing about that, of course.
Entrance only
“Shawty got low low low low, low low low low,” said Flo Rida, about the IPO market. The long-anticipated exit parade in venture capital has hit yet another speed bump, according to PitchBook's Q1 2025 Venture Monitor. Despite a glimmer of IPO activity and early-year optimism, VC-backed liquidity remains elusive. The IPO index for venture-backed companies dropped 20% since January, and market volatility is spiking to pandemic-era levels. While Reddit and Rubrik are holding strong, other recent debuts like Ibotta and ServiceTitan are underwater. The Trump administration’s surprising alignment with Biden-era antitrust stances and fresh tariffs aren’t helping either. For LPs eagerly awaiting distributions, net cash flow has been negative for four years, and first-time funds are increasingly being ghosted. LPs were promised champagne waterfalls, but it seems like the venture drought may be here for a little longer.
Major progress on climate tech e-missions
Climate tech is climbing the VC ranks. Despite ongoing fundraising challenges, the climate tech sector is showing signs of recovery, with venture capital funds pouring into energy, manufacturing, and carbon tech. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s latest report, climate tech funds have outperformed the overall VC market, boasting a 9% higher IRR for the 2020-2024 fund vintage. Key drivers include clean fuels, renewables, and carbon tech, as demand for electrification and emission reductions grows. Clean power deals reached an all-time high in 2024, though some companies are reducing burn rates and facing slower revenue growth, with hardware firms seeing a dip in growth compared to their software counterparts. With clean power deals heating up, climate tech is certainly powering a green future in more ways than one.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
climatetech
Trellis Health - Girls just want to have care.
Trellis Health raised $1.8 million including participation from Palette Ventures, Swizzle Ventures, NEXTBLUE, Suncoast Ventures, and Sundial Foundation. Trellis Health is creating an AI-powered digital health platform that acts like a modern family doctor for women, unifying fragmented medical data into personalized, proactive care.
healthtech
Cosmic Robots - Watt a day to be a robot.
Cosmic Robots raised $4 million led by Giant Ventures. Cosmic Robotics is building a robot assistant to automate solar panel installation at utility-scale solar farms, speeding up deployment while reducing worker strain.
AI
Snowfire AI - The perfect executive (AI)assistant.
Snowfire AI raised $2.3 million from undisclosed U.S.-based angel investors. Snowfire AI is developing an Adaptive Decision Intelligence platform that helps executives and leadership teams make real-time, data-driven decisions.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
