Evergreen Climate Innovations

Calling all Chicago water tech founders, investors, and ecosystem builders!

Evergreen Climate Innovations is proud to be an event partner for Innovation on Tap, hosted by Current at mHUB right after the Chicago Venture Summit.

Join us for an afternoon focused on water innovation and connection:
🔹 A live Water Tech Pitch Competition
🔹 An expert panel on what's next for water innovation
🔹 Networking with folks building Chicago's water economy

Wednesday, October 21 |📍mHUB, 1623 W Fulton St, Chicago

Space is limited and registration requires approval, so request your spot early: https://clnenergy.org/4xXrqcI

Thanks to our funding partners The Coleman Foundation and NSF Great Lakes RENEW Engine, and fellow event partners LongJump VC and World Business Chicago.

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Applications for the 2026 Nicor Gas Illinois Innovator Award are open!

If you run an early-stage climate startup in Illinois, apply by November 30.

Winners receive a $25,000 non-recourse grant, 12 months of business mentorship from Nicor Gas and Evergreen Climate Innovations, and exposure to investors and potential customers.

The award is open to pre-seed and seed companies based in Illinois or with a substantial Illinois presence. Your team should have 2 to 12 full-time employees, $3M or less in funding raised, and at least 3 to 6 months of runway.

We want to hear from founders working in renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart buildings and cities, water, ag-tech, energy storage, mobility, circular economy, and digital tools for operational efficiency.

Know a founder who fits? Tag them below or send this their way.

Apply here: https://clnenergy.org/4xRRw0L

Have research with startup potential? Today at 2 PM CT, Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne National Laboratory hosts an info webinar on its Cohort 2027 application.

CRI gives scientists and engineers two years of funding, lab access, and mentorship to move energy technologies from lab to market. You don't need a company to apply.

Join the webinar to learn how the program works and how to apply. Applications close October 30.

Register: https://hubs.li/Q04yBw6h0

Evergreen Climate Innovations recently invested in Air Energy, and Evergreen Principal, Shashank Churukanti just published a deep dive on why.

Air Energy develops batteries that draw oxygen directly from ambient air to serve as the cathode. Their cells reach an impressive 1,920 Wh/kg – a major leap from today’s lithium-ion batteries, which sit around 300 to 350 Wh/kg. This shift opens the door for energy storage and industrial electrification applications that were previously out of reach.

In his piece, Shashank zooms out on the broader market landscape. Despite recent negative headlines around EVs, global demand for electrification remains high. China continues to dominate battery manufacturing, and incremental updates to existing tech won't be enough for the U.S. to close the gap – it will take bold, novel approaches like Air Energy's.

Read the full blog here: https://hubs.li/Q04yzHkf0

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...