Evergreen Climate Innovations

Evergreen Climate Innovations is proud to have recently invested in Lilac Agriculture's oversubscribed $2.3 million seed round, led by Innova.

Lilac is tackling the "black box" problem in inoculants. Farmers often pay for microbial products that get outcompeted by native soil bacteria, and most commercial strains date back decades. Lilac applies a plant-breeding approach to microbes, screening naturally occurring rhizobia for nitrogen-fixing efficiency and competitiveness. The results are promising: in field trials, their lead strain, PL11, delivered an 11% yield increase over no inoculant and 6% over commercial alternatives.

Why we're excited:
• Healthier soil, with more nitrogen available from the start
• More profitable, sustainable crop rotations
• Better yields and economics for plant-based protein, which can help reduce livestock emissions over time

The new funding will support expanded field trials, R&D platform development, PL11 commercialization, and preparation for entry into Canada.

Congratulations to Natalie DiNicola and the Lilac team, and thank you to the other investors: Innova, 701 Fund, Ag Ventures Alliance, North Dakota Development Fund, Pathway Ventures, and Tall Grass Ventures.

Read more in AgFunderNews: https://hubs.li/Q04ydf7B0

Exclusive: Lilac Agriculture raises $2.3m to tackle inoculants’ ‘black box’ problem The funding will help Lilac Ag advance a platform built to optimize two traits at once: nitrogen-fixing efficiency and competitiveness.

Are you an early-stage water tech founder in the Chicagoland area looking to scale your solution?

Apply now for Innovation on Tap, a startup pitch competition in partnership with Current & Great Lakes RENEW. Enter for a chance to win a share of $25,000 in non-dilutive funding, plus pitch coaching, commercialization support, and direct connections to investors and innovation partners.

1st place: $15,000
2nd place: $5,000
3rd place: $2,500
4th place: $2,500

We’re specifically looking to support founders building outside traditional VC and university networks.

To learn more about Innovation on Tap, visit: https://hubs.li/Q04xPZrt0
Apply by September 27th, 2026 11:59pm CT: https://hubs.li/Q04xPZqy0

Partner organizations include Current, National Science Foundation, The Coleman Foundation, World Business Chicago, Long Jump VC, & Evergreen Climate Innovations.

Congrats to Evergreen’s portfolio company, CorePower Magnetics for raising $10.6M to keep building the transformers and motors this country needs more of - the kind of hardware that's quietly become a bottleneck for AI infrastructure, grid upgrades, and electrification more broadly.

This funding round was co-led by Engine Ventures and Material Impact. Evergreen Climate Innovations also participated, along with the Carnegie Mellon Catalyst Fund, and Baruch Future Ventures.

We've been backing CorePower since 2022, and it's been amazing to watch this team grow, from the early engineering work to now scaling real production capacity in Pittsburgh. The new funding is going to production capacity, equipment, and hiring across engineering, operations, and manufacturing.

Congrats to Sam Kernion and the whole CorePower team - this is exactly the kind of domestic manufacturing capacity we need to see more of.

Exclusive: Power Equipment Startup CorePower Magnetics Raises $10.5 Million The company plans to invest in domestic manufacturing for its high-heat magnets.

Evergreen Climate Innovations is headed to New York Climate Week! We’ve been attending for several years and continue to be inspired by the rich content, conversations, companies, & people we meet.

Here are a few of the top events we’re looking forward to attending:
→ Common Denominator: How Philanthropy Unlocks and Scales Climate Innovation | Hosted by LabStart, Activate, The Engine, and Azolla Ventures (https://hubs.li/Q04xv3Cb0)
→ Project Frame 2026 Convening: Assessing Adaptation Impact | Hosted by Prime Coalition (https://hubs.li/Q04xv3DX0)
→ New Climate Futures | Hosted by Newlab (https://hubs.li/Q04xv3D10)

If there is an event you think should be on our radar or if you’ll be in town and want to connect, please comment here or send us a DM. We’ll see you in NYC!

Members of the Evergreen Climate Innovations team recently spent an insightful week participating in conversations at Aspen Ideas Climate in Chicago, and at surrounding events.

Through multiple conversations and sessions, our team encountered several emerging themes regarding where the climate and energy ecosystem is headed. A few to note:

→ Data Centers have driven a massive surge in electricity, requiring stakeholders to work though varied solutions.
→ Institutional focus on climate risk, supply chain resilience, and regional competitiveness remains strong.
→ Water security (such as the Colorado River crisis) and solutions to mitigate straining municipal water supplies has become increasingly important.

Read our full thoughts here!

Grid Tension, Data Centers, and Climate Resilience: Takeaways from Aspen Ideas: Climate Members of the Evergreen Climate Innovations team recently spent an insightful week participating in conversations at Aspen Ideas Climate in Chicago and at surrounding events. Across main-stage panels, breakout sessions, and hallway chats, several clear themes emerged regarding where the climate and...

August's theme: infrastructure under pressure – data centers rewriting grid rules, water scarcity hitting the Colorado River, and carbon removal picking up real momentum.

Ian Adams' latest Cleantech Roundup:
→ PJM's new BYONC rule: data centers over 50 MW now have to bring their own generation, storage, or demand response instead of just plugging into the grid.
→ Battery storage keeps compounding: capacity grew ~70%/year for three years straight, with more added last year alone than existed through 2022.
→ Colorado River cuts are hitting CA, AZ, and NV as reservoirs sit at record lows. The real problem isn't scarcity, it's incentives that favor thirsty crops like alfalfa over smarter water management.
→ Microsoft's new deal with Crew Carbon pulls carbon out of wastewater for a fraction of direct air capture's energy cost. The same approach Evergreen's own Aquarry is using in pit lakes.
→ Data centers are facing real public backlash: Chicago's pushing a moratorium despite barely any local development.
→ Waymo's now running Chinese-made EVs in the U.S. by swapping in its own autonomous tech, and just got the green light in the Bay Area.

Read the full roundup here:

August 2026 Cleantech Roundup: BYONC in PJM | Western Water Crisis | Grid Storage Surge PJM IRAS BYONC It’s official, PJM finally has a plan to deal with the onslaught of new data centers vying for power. It is a bit of a grid acronym word salad: the IRAS (Interim Resource Adequacy Service) approach requires new data centers (large loads over 50 MW) to BYONC (bring your own new capac...

How do we challenge fundamental assumptions about how climate tech gets funded?

Join us TOMORROW for an insightful fireside chat on alternative climate financing with Evergreen Climate Innovations CEO Michelle Carr, Kara Rodby (Lost the Plot) and Matt Orsagh (Arketa Institute).

Together, they'll explore innovative models for scaling impactful climate solutions beyond traditional VC investment.

📍 Location: Climate Action Museum, 300 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL
📅 Date & Time: Wednesday, September 9th | 5:30–7:30 PM
🎟️ Tickets: https://hubs.li/Q04wYXQZ0

Presented in partnership with the Climate Action Museum and Lost the Plot as part of Chicago Venture Week.

One of our most recent investments, Carba, is a company that buries wood waste to fight climate change — we think it's one of the smartest bets in carbon removal right now.

Carba takes wood waste, runs it through a low-temperature pyrolysis process, and turns it into stable biocarbon that gets buried underground for 1,000+ years. They call it "reverse coal mining." Instead of digging carbon out of the ground, they're putting it back in. It's cheap, scalable, durable and certified.

Carba's reactor is also modular and mobile, so they process biomass on-site instead of trucking it long distances, which keeps costs down. Their first reactor is already running at a landfill in Burnsville, MN.

The traction backs up the thesis: project capacity grew 20x between 2023 and 2025, and companies like Microsoft are already buying credits.

We are excited to be part of Carba’s journey as they grow to gigaton-scale carbon removal and supply the world with the tools we need to make a real impact on climate change.

Read more about why we invested: https://clnenergy.org/4gzueYj (https://clnenergy.org/4gzueYj)

Chicago Venture Week is quickly approaching! Join Evergreen at Chicago's Climate Action Museum during Chicago Venture Week for a conversation that challenges some fundamental assumptions about how climate tech gets funded.

Evergreen’s CEO Michelle Carr, Kara Rodby (Lost the Plot), & Matt Orsagh (Arketa Institute) will be participating in a fireside chat on alternative climate financing.

Climate Action Museum, 300 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL
Wednesday, September 9th, 5:30–7:30 PM
Tickets: https://clnenergy.org/4i2hZEN

Presented with Climate Action Museum and Lost the Plot as part of Chicago Venture Week.

The Patience Deficit Rethinking Capital for Climate Tech

mHUB has launched the mHUB Powered Challenge, a national innovation competition for startups, researchers, entrepreneurs, universities, national laboratories, corporations, and innovators from across the country to submit technologies, pilot concepts, operating models, and infrastructure solutions.

Selected concepts will have a pathway to engage with mHUB as it advances a new, large-scale urban manufacturing district, creating an opportunity for innovators to shape a new industrial environment from the ground up.

The challenge has three tracks: energy, infrastructure, and management and operations.

Applications are open from August 24 - September 27, 2026.
Apply here:

mHUB Launches National Innovation Challenge for Urban Manufacturing Revitalization mHUB launches national innovation challenge to source next generation of energy and infrastructure solutions for urban manufacturing revitalization