Mick Liubinskas speaks with Tom from Bearhug, a climate-tech startup tackling the hidden environmental cost of plastic pallet wrap

Climate Salad Newsletter for the 9th of September, 2025

The 12 participants for Founder’s Factory accelerator programs in WA have been announced.

Tom Kline is a Partner at climate-focused VC firm Climate Tech Partners (CTP). In June this year they announced a $50m raise for their Fund 1, which included $15m each from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and super fund Australian Ethical Super, along with $15m in a joint investment by Airbus and Qantas. We spoke to him about CTP’s investment mandate and their unique model of connecting start-ups and industry.

Hi Climate Salad’ers. We’re back with the usual round-up of climate news and events, along with a feature on Lachlan Nixon from Motion Capital where we touch on his article “Climate-Tech in 2025: Don’t use the ‘C’ Word.” We’ve also got two programs by EnergyLab: one for companies in the lithium-battery space, and another for early-stage climate founders. Dive in below 👇

Robert de Burgh-Day is the founder of Brightspace, a start-up that uses occupancy tracking to reduce energy usage from HVAC systems in commercial buildings. He’s also a Climate Salad member and went through our GGP program. Brightspace has since scaled massively with a focus on the SEA market, with plans to install their product in largest shopping mall in Asia. We spoke about the advice he had for hard-ware founders, and tips for companies looking to scale overseas.