DCVC 2024 Q4 update

Greetings, friends of DCVC, and Happy New Year! We closed out 2024 with a Q4 to remember.

The action across our energy portfolio was elec­tri­fying: DCVC Climate led a $100 million Series C for Radiant toward completion of its truck-portable 1MW Kaleidos microre­actor and a $39 million Series B for Equilibrium Energy to scale its grid opti­miza­tion and trading platform that’s already having a major positive impact in Texas energy markets. We partic­i­pated in the recent $255 million in funding for Fervo as it builds out the world’s largest enhanced geothermal generating station (helped immensely by approval from the Department of the Interior to streamline permitting and expand its Cape Station project in Utah by an additional 1.6 GW), and we were thrilled by advanced-nuclear energy leader Oklo’s (NYSE: OKLO) historic announce­ment of a deal to provide a whopping 12 GW of energy to data center company Switch (whose customers include Google, Nvidia, and Cisco).

Outside of energy, flagship company Relation Ther­a­peu­tics signed likely the biggest biotech/techbio deal of any Seed stage company, ever: two agreements with GSK to pursue new treatments for fibrosis and osteoarthritis, with big upfront payments, major royalties, and significant milestone payments, all-told potentially worth many billions of dollars.

DCVC Bio partic­i­pated in a fresh $75 million funding round for Chroma Medicine as it merged with Nvelop to form nChroma Bio, which will combine epigenetic editing capa­bil­i­ties with in vivo delivery tech­nolo­gies. DCVC Bio also partic­i­pated in Fable Ther­a­peu­tics’ $54 million raise toward using machine learning models to create custom-built protein drugs. Cell therapy pioneer Orca Bio presented important clinical data that brings the end of blood cancer and similar afflictions as lethal versus manageable diseases potentially much closer.

We enter the new year strong — and determined to help make deep tech a driver of American strength as the new Admin­is­tra­tion takes office. Oppor­tu­ni­ties toward that end are real. In conver­sa­tions across the private and public sectors, we hear an unmis­tak­able consensus around the major impetus for increased American manu­fac­turing, for boosted domestic energy production from all sources, and improved American defense. And even in those areas without political consensus — most notably, around climate change — we see bright futures for our companies precisely because DCVC never counts on government support in the business case for our companies. Also, we are seeing that the most profitable industrial trans­for­ma­tions are also the most favorable for the climate: in other words, a great American industrial resilience company is almost by definition a great American climate resilience company, and vice versa. Across industries, DCVC companies are well-positioned.

We’ve given voice to all of this. DCVC Partner Rachel Slaybaugh chatted with Alan Neuhauser of Axios for his ​“Expert Voices” series, which resulted in a stellar piece: Staying the course under Trump. She summed up our collective thinking perfectly: ​“Energy policy will see a shakeup under President Trump, but climate investment funda­men­tals will remain the same.” And General Partner Milo Werner penned a blog on climate tech’s ​“lemons-to-lemonade” moment, outlining our thoughts on how the private sector can ensure a durable, clean American industrial renaissance. We were glad to see a great deal of positive response to Rachel and Milo’s thinking.

Off we go. We wish you an excellent start to Q1 and 2025!

DCVC Flagship & DCVC Climate

Equilibrium Energy announced its DCVC-led $39 million Series B funding to expand its grid opti­miza­tion trading platform. Alongside the funding, Equilibrium also signed new battery tolls, entered California, and celebrated its market-leading battery management performance already making a positive impact in Texas.

Fervo Energy secured an additional $255 million in funding as it continues to build the world’s largest enhanced geothermal systems power development, with approx­i­mately 400 MW already contracted (with a TCV in the billions of dollars).

Q‑CTRL raised an additional $59 million (joined by DCVC) to build quantum computing infra­struc­ture software, bringing its Series B total to $113 million.

Radiant secured $100 million in DCVC Climate – led Series C funding to complete its Kaleidos truck-portable 1MW microre­actor and conduct fueleddemon­stra­tion tests in 2026 — a remarkable pace of achievement in energy in general, but especially for nuclear.

Reality Defender announced its Series A extension with DCVC partic­i­pa­tion, bringing the round to $33 million to support the critical role Reality Defender plays in combating the growing threats posed by deepfakes and AI-generated content — such threats cost banks and their customers alone $12 billion in 2023, and that number is projected to increase to $40 billion by 2027.

Slip Robotics raised a $28 million Series B round, led by DCVC, to automate loading dock operations for a massive improve­ment in supply chain efficiency.

DCVC Bio

Chroma Medicine announced its $75 million funding, joined by DCVC Bio, and merger with Nvelop to form nChroma Bio, a new company that combines epigenetic editing capa­bil­i­ties with in vivo delivery tech­nolo­gies.

Fable Ther­a­peu­tics’ $53.5 million fundraise, joined by DCVC Bio, wascovered in Endpoints. The company is using state-of-the-art machine learning models to create custom-build protein drugs. 

OTHER NEWS

DCVC Flagship & DCVC Climate

Capella Space and Impulse Space were both selected by the Space Development Agency to join the Hybrid Acquisition for Prolif­er­ated Low Earth Orbit (HALO) pool to support future missions under the Prolif­er­ated Warfighter Space Archi­tec­ture (PWSA).

CH4 Global (also backed by DCVC Bio) announced a research partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanog­raphy to accelerate global scaling of Asparagopsis seaweed production. CH4 Global’s approach was also validated by peer-reviewed research, which showed that whole dried Asparagopsis is signif­i­cantly more effective at reducing cattle methane emissions than bromoform alone. CH4’s research intensity is paying off: it just signed a deal with global sustainable Ag company UPL to bring CH4’s Methane Tamer feed additive to millions of cattle in India, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, which collec­tively have more than 40% of the world’s cattle, opening the possibility of unprece­dented agri­cul­tural CO2e remediation.

Fervo Energy received approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior to expand its Cape Station Geothermal Power Project in Utah to a total of 2 GW.

Lumafield launched its Ultra-Fast CT technology, a ground­breaking advancement in manu­fac­turing that reduces inspection time by more than 99%. The national security impli­ca­tions for Lumafield in an era of chip-level and electro­mechan­ical systems-level sabotage, supply chain ​“poisoning,” and general nation-state dirty tricks, is huge.

Oklo announced its proposed acquisition of DCVC-backed Atomic Alchemy to integrate radioiso­tope production to support critical needs in cancer treatment, diagnostic imaging, and clean energy appli­ca­tions. A week later, Atomic Alchemy and DCVC-backed Zeno Power announced their partnership to supply radioiso­topes for commercial Radioiso­tope Power Systems: a trifecta of DCVC-backed nuclear physics appli­ca­tions working to provide resilience and abundance to the world. But Oklo’s biggest news of the quarter came just a few days ago: its deal to provide 12 GW (!) of power to data center company Switch.

Relation Ther­a­peu­tics announced its research partnership with phar­ma­ceu­tical giant GSK — in what is likely the largest deal ever for a seed-stage biotech/techbio company — to create new treatments for fibrosis and osteoarthritis. This validation of Relation’s ​“lab-in-the-loop” platform could be worth billions of dollars for the company.

Pivot Bio, in peer-reviewed research done with the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Purdue University, demon­strated how gene editing enhances its microbes’ ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and transfer it to cereal crops.

Agility Robotics, Fervo Energy, and Pivot Bio were all featured on Time’s annual list of the year’s best inventions — with Agility’s ​‘Digit’ nabbing the cover!

DCVC Bio

Orca Bio presented stellar data on the use of Orca‑Q, its inves­ti­ga­tional second-generation allogeneic T‑cell immunotherapy, without the use of any graft versus host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis in patients with diverse hema­to­log­ical conditions. It’s absolutely thrilling to see such great progress toward making blood cancers and similar afflictions go from lethal to manageable.

Solu Ther­a­peu­tics announced positive preclinical data on STX-0712, its novel CCR2-CyTAC™ (Cyto­tox­i­city Targeting Chimera), for the treatment of chronic myelomono­cytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia.