The Saturday Morning Newsletter #31
Brand Protection, Lawn Products, Waste, Glass, Heat, and More
March 29, 2025
đź‘‹ Hello friends,
Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 10 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.
Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.
Time to Read: 4 minutes.
Let’s dive in!
#1: Spiritus
Description: Spiritus is a developer of direct air capture technology.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Spiritus recently raised $30M in venture capital funding. Their “carbon orchard” technology uses passive air contacting, a low-temperature desorption process, and a modular design that allows for rapid scale. The solid sorbent absorbs CO2 from the ambient air through passive contacting—once desorbed, the sorbent is circulated back to the contractors for additional passive air contacting.
#2: Watter
Description: Watter is a startup using heat from devices to warm water.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Watter recently raised $5M in venture capital funding. Their devices use the waste heat from powerful computing devices to heat the water in residential homes. It’s still very much in the prototype phase, but there’s the potential that every house with computing devices will also have one of these devices to heat their water.
#3: Capture6
Description: Capture6 is a startup developing clean water and carbon removal technology.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Capture6 recently raised $27.5M in venture capital funding. The process combines removal and decarbonization, yielding clean water and carbon captured from the atmosphere. The technology recovers 50%+ of freshwater from desalination waste brine. Providing a backbone for the circular economy, Capture6 is vertically integrating across many supply chains.
#4: Supercritical Solutions
Description: Supercritical Solutions is developing next-gen hydrogen solutions.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Supercritical Solutions recently raised $18.1M in venture capital funding. The world’s hydrogen demand is for pressurized hydrogen sources. It’s difficult to compress hydrogen as there are many risks (explosions and such). Supercritical has developed an electrolyzer that doesn’t rely on the current compressor systems on the market—a safer and more effective solution.
#5: Podqi
Description: Podqi is a brand protection provider.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Podqi recently raised $3.2M in venture capital funding. The online counterfeiting market is $1T+, growing 20% YoY. Companies face unprecedented difficulties in protecting their IP assets, as perpetrators can use AI to generate content and fully impersonate storefronts in hours. Podqi’s platform automates the entire IP protection process from detection to takedown, scanning millions of potential infringements and providing immediate enforcement mechanisms.
#6: Sunday
Description: Sunday is a maker of eco-friendly lawn products.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Sunday recently raised $25M in venture capital funding. Many of the lawn products currently on the market aren’t as eco-friendly as they could be. Led by their Chief Science Officer, their mission is to cultivate rich, living soil that’s more self-sustaining.
#7: Topanga
Description: Topanga is a waste reduction startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Topanga recently raised $8M in venture capital funding. Topanga is supporting the transition to reusable packaging through their quick and easy reusable packaging program. Their packages are multi-use, with the labels and branding as stickers on the top, easily removable for reuse.
#8: Also
Description: Also is a small electric vehicles technology developer.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Also recently raised $105M in venture capital funding. Also is a spin-out from Rivian, focusing on small, lightweight vehicles (micromobility). This portfolio of technologies didn’t fit perfectly in the broader Rivian enterprise, but the two companies are very closely associated.
#9: Endera Motors
Description: Endera Motors is an electric commercial vehicle manufacturer.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Endera recently raised $36M in venture capital funding. An all-American EV manufacturer, Endera has prototypes for their commercial shuttle design, a school bus design, and an all electric powertrain for trucks. They claim their vehicles have unmatched range, battery capacity, and charging time.
#10: Le Fourgon
Description: Le Fourgon is a glass recycling startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Le Fourgon recently raised $8.2M in venture capital funding. Their local pickup system delivers convenience, where customers can order someone to come by and collect their recyclables. Now, their team has 100+ members and is beginning to expand throughout many regions in France.
See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,
Drew Jackson
Twitter: @brainwavesdotme
Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.
