Propeller, a brand new climate-tech investor with a concentrate on the ocean, tells TechCrunch that it has hooked $100 million for its first seed fund.
Co-founded by former HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, the enterprise agency mentioned in a press release that it backs and incubates startups in areas like ocean carbon elimination, algae packaging, offshore wind, desalination and delivery decarbonization. Halligan known as such firms “tomorrow’s ‘narwhals’” in a press release. (Referring to $1 billion-plus ocean-tech startups.)
Narwhals look form of like underwater unicorns, they usually look like extraordinarily susceptible to local weather change.
Parter Reece Pacheco, who beforehand labored for the World Surf League and bought a startup to Samsung, instructed TechCrunch that the agency is already working with “just a few founders” and 4 entrepreneurs-in-residence — together with Nike alum John Gillis in addition to Nancy Riley, Kaitlin Callanan and Kevin Walsh — three veterans of the gross sales software program firm that Halligan co-founded. Pacheco declined to share particulars on Propeller’s LPs, however mentioned the agency wouldn’t take cash from oil firms. The Boston-based agency’s different companions embrace oceanographer and local weather scientist Dr. Julie Pullen.
Blackstone invested in HubSpot again in 2006, in accordance with Pitchbook. The practically $1 trillion asset supervisor owns stakes in a coal plant in Ohio and the Dakota Entry Pipeline.
Propeller mentioned it’ll work with the Woods Gap Oceanographic Establishment (WHOI), a non-profit analysis and advocacy group backed by the U.S. Departments of Protection and Vitality, the Chinese language Academy of Sciences and MIT, amongst others. In response to Propeller’s assertion, the cope with WHOI “will present entry to the brightest minds and mental property (IP) in ocean science and innovation, guaranteeing that essentially the most promising, scientifically-sound oceanic options obtain the mission-critical capital, instruments and sources.”
