Welcome to The Deep Tech Newsletter, a weekly exploration of the business, science, and engineering behind the world’s most important frontier technologies.

Defying gravity, 2022 Climate Tech VC funding totals $70.1B, up 89% on 2021

“2022 was an enormous year for Climate Tech VC. The US invested more Climate Tech VC in 2022 than the entire 2006-2011 Clean Tech 1.0 Boom and at the current pace of investment, by the end of 2023, the US will have invested over $100B in VC since then. Europe's venture funding into Climate Tech more than doubled in 2022, out investing China for the first time and together with a huge rise in India and around the world, grew 89% globally on 2021's record.” (Holoniq)

Pairs well with: Marble’s 12 climate tech themes for 2023

Meet Lila, an automated scientist that engineers microbial strains for the industrial production of small molecules

“In this work we describe the design and implementation of a computational system, an Automated Scientist we call Lila, which handles all metabolic engineering design and optimization. Lila specifies the design and re-design of microbial strains in a matter of seconds to minutes. Strains specified by Lila are then built and subsequently phenotyped as part of a largely automated in-house pipeline…in total we created hundreds of thousands of microbial strains capable of overproducing 242 molecules. (bioarXiv)

Pairs well with: this great commentary on Lila and automating scientific discovery over at Codon

The 2022 Battery Report

The most read annual report in the battery industry. “Crowd-sourced from top industry and academia experts, this report seeks to provide a comprehensive and accessible overview of the latest battery research, policy and business landscape.” The bottom line: batteries boomed in 2022 despite macro headwinds. (Volta Foundation)

Quantum computing poses ‘existential risk’ to encryption

“Quantum computing poses an existential risk to the classical computer encryption protocols that enable virtually all digital transactions. Over the next several years, widespread data encryption protocols, such as public key cryptography (PKC) standards like RSA, could become vulnerable. In fact, any classically encrypted communication which could be wiretapped is at risk, potentially already exposed to exfiltration, with the intention of harvesting that data once quantum decryption solutions are viable.” (IBM)

Deep Tech News

• After a slow start, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is about to hit its stride (Ars Technica)

• Energy department announces $52M in funds for clean manufacturing R&D (Utility Dive)

• China, a Pioneer in Regulating Algorithms, Turns Its Focus to Deepfakes (WSJ)

• SpaceX Prepares for a Breakout Year (Bloomberg)

• Over 5 Million New US Startups Show Covid-Era Boom Has Legs (Bloomberg)

• With VC Funding Drying Up, Biotechs Are on a Quest for Cash (Bloomberg)

Deep Tech News

• After a slow start, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is about to hit its stride (Ars Technica)

• Energy department announces $52M in funds for clean manufacturing R&D (Utility Dive)

• China, a Pioneer in Regulating Algorithms, Turns Its Focus to Deepfakes (WSJ)

• SpaceX Prepares for a Breakout Year (Bloomberg)

• Over 5 Million New US Startups Show Covid-Era Boom Has Legs (Bloomberg)

• With VC Funding Drying Up, Biotechs Are on a Quest for Cash (Bloomberg)

Crypto News

• Filecoin Foundation set to test IPFS-based communication in space (The Block)

• The WEF’s global village metaverse promises better world, and better meetings (The Block)

• Metaverse Landlords Are Creating a New Class System (Wired)

• Web3 developer activity spiked in Q4 2022 despite market volatility (TechCrunch)

• Linux Foundation launches Open Metaverse Foundation to move the metaverse to reality (VentureBeat)

• NFT blue-chip Azuki’s new virtual city Hilumia touches physical and digital worlds (The Block)

• Bitcoin mining difficulty is about to blow through the roof (The Block)

• Suspected North Korean hackers move $63.5 million in ether stolen from Horizon bridge (The Block)

• Ethereum Layer 2 protocol Optimism surpasses Arbitrum in transaction volume (The Block)

• Did It Really Take Just 13 People To Hard Fork Polygon? (Decrypt)

• Metahood Raises $3M to Build the Zillow of the Metaverse (Decrypt)

• Metaverse land developer LandVault signs with Hollywood powerbroker CAA (The Block)

• **L'Oréal’s NYX Makeup Brand to Launch DAO **(Decrypt)

• Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year bitcoin bet before market crash (Financial Times)

Peer Review

• Building and sustaining reliable public EV charging in the United States (Environmental Research Letters, 01*.*23)

• Researchers reverse signs of aging in mice (Cell, 01.23)

• Electric vehicle batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand by as early as 2030 (Nature, 01.23)

• OpenAI, Georgetown, Stanford study finds LLMs can boost public opinion manipulation (OpenAI, 01.23)

• Storing hydrogen in cryogenic tanks (Energy, 09.22)

• Small modular reactors could hold key to electrifying heavy transport (University of Michigan, 01.23)

Funding x M&A

DEEP TECH

• Clinical-stage cell therapy and antibody products company IASO raises $75M in Series C1 funding

• Exposome sequencing startup LinusBio raises $16M

• Shell snaps up EV charging operator Volta for $169M Decarbonized cement producer Sublime Systems raises $40M Series A

• Noon Energy Raises $28M To Develop Carbon-Based Long Term Energy Storage

• Scenario lands $6M for its AI platform that generates game art assets

CRYPTO

• Web3 luxury fashion startup Syky raises $9.5M and launches first NFT

• P2P lending platform PeopleFund raises $20M Series C extension

• Deal Box’s venture arm to invest $125M in startups using web3 technology

• Framework Ventures leads Parfin’s $15M raise to provide web3 rails in LatAm

• TaxBit acquires rival crypto accounting platform Tactic

• Diva closes $3.5M seed round for distributed liquid staking protocol

• Crypto investor HashKey Capital closes third fund at $500M

• Pantera and Archetype co-lead $12.5M Series A funding round for Obol Labs

• **Web3 credential protocol Gateway raises $4.2M **(The Block)

• MoonPay acquires web3 creative studio Nightshift in its first deal

• ZK tech developer Nil Foundation raises $22M at a $220M valuation

• Y Combinator leads $4.3M round for multichain wallet Cypher

• ZK proof startup Ulvetanna raises $15M in seed funding

• Ethereum infrastructure service Flashbots seeks up to $50M at a billion-dollar valuation

• SphereOne raises $2.5M for cross-chain crypto payment platform

Miscellanea

Biometrics year in review / The economics of noncompete contracts / College syllabus AI policy / The bioeconomy of emerging cancer therapy / Claude AI passes law and economics exam / Cuba and the geopolitics of submarine cables / The inner beauty of basic electronics / ChatGPT and the collapse of higher ed / Grain farming goes indoors / Explaining the global chip shortage / A 19th century technology of the future / Fake AI generated startup websites / Quantum computing’s noise problem / What really caused the industrial revolution / Do AI’s political orientations change? / The struggle of public quantum startups / Open source geospatial data / US Military earns $100M/yr on its own slot machines / The future according to Sam Altman / Illegal uranium found at Heathrow

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