Ocean-climate VC Propeller launches with $100M to fund ‘tomorrow’s narwhals’ • TechCrunch

Propeller, a brand new climate-tech investor with a give attention to 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 stated in an announcement that it backs and incubates startups in areas like ocean carbon removing, algae packaging, offshore wind, desalination and delivery decarbonization. Halligan known as such firms “tomorrow’s ‘narwhals’” in an announcement. (Referring to $1 billion-plus ocean-tech startups.)

Narwhals look form of like underwater unicorns, and they look like extraordinarily susceptible to local weather change.

Parter Reece Pacheco, who beforehand labored for the World Surf League and offered a startup to Samsung, advised TechCrunch that the agency is already working with “a number of 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 stated the agency wouldn’t take cash from oil firms. The Boston-based agency’s different companions embody oceanographer and local weather scientist Dr. Julie Pullen. 

Blackstone invested in HubSpot again in 2006, in accordance with Pitchbook. The almost $1 trillion asset supervisor owns stakes in a coal plant in Ohio and the Dakota Entry Pipeline.

Propeller stated it is going to work with the Woods Gap Oceanographic Establishment (WHOI), a non-profit analysis and advocacy group backed by the U.S. Departments of Protection and Power, the Chinese language Academy of Sciences and MIT, amongst others. In keeping with Propeller’s assertion, the take care of 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.”