Investable Universe, the world’s first and leading trade news platform dedicated to strategic innovation and transformational investment topics in real assets, is taking an editorial break! After three years of almost-daily page updates, a raft of amazing interviews with industry leaders on the Investable Universe podcast, and even a special audio series on Arctic news topics, the platform will be coming back with new media offerings, services, and a new look. For information on advertising partnerships and sponsorships, or to pitch the staff, please contact editor@investableuniverse.com ..read more

This week, C-Zero, a California-based natural gas decarbonization startup, announced it has raised a $34 million dollar financing round led by SK Gas, a subsidiary of South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, the SK Group. SK Gas was joined by two other new investors – Engie New Ventures and Trafigura, one of the world’s largest physical commodities trading companies – in addition to participation from all existing investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eni Next, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and AP Ventures. C-Zero says it plans to use the funds to support continued co ..read more

On Thursday, listed global satellite and communications giant Viasat announced it has received an award from U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) through its Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP) to conduct research on the use of 5G to support communications for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). The research will focus on network enhancements, command and control (C2) and delivering advanced processing through the integration of digital twin and agile software defined network (SDN) capabilities. According to a company announcement, this marks the third award Viasat has recei ..read more

On Thursday, OhmConnect, a California startup that pairs interactive technology and financial incentives to promote residential energy efficiency, announced that it has raised a $55 million Series D venture capital round. The round was led by ClearSky, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), and TELUS Ventures. Investors also include OhmConnect’s existing strategic business partners Carrier and SunPower.  OhmConnect’s value proposition is based on a gamification strategy, which pays residential energy customers via an interactive platform to limit their electricity usage during peak d ..read more

This week, Swedish private equity and real assets investment manager EQT announced it has teamed up with Abu Dhabi’s $284 billion sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company to acquire Envirotainer, a Swedish-headquartered provider of cold-chain logistics for the transportation of biopharmaceuticals. The sellers were European private equity investor Cinven and Novo Holdings, the holding company for Danish biotech firms Novo Nordisk and Novozymes. Deal terms imply an enterprise value for Envirotainer of EUR 2.8 billion (about $3 billion). Envirotainer was founded in 1985 in Stockholm ..read more

On Thursday, Chicago’s Intelligent Medicine Exchange (IMX) announced that it has filed for regulatory approval with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch the first financial exchange for futures contracts based on the U.S. health care ecosystem. Specifically, the company is seeking official status as a Designated Contract Market (DCM), enabling it to facilitate the trading of contracts by individual and institutional market participants for purposes of risk management and investment. Per IMX, health care represents nearly 20 percent of the U.S. gross domestic produ ..read more

On Wednesday, the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, a non-partisan advocacy group led by U.S. business, academic, and labor leaders along with leaders of the U.S. national laboratories, together with the Japan Innovation Network (JIN) announced a new initiative to spur private sector innovation between the two countries. The newly formed U.S.-Japan Commission on Innovation and Competitiveness will develop bilateral science and technology business partnerships based on principles of competitiveness, resilience, invention, innovation, sustainability, inclusivity and shared democratic val ..read more

On Tuesday, Vade, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm that uses artificial intelligence to develop threat detection and response technology for enterprise and general consumer clients, announced that it has secured a major funding round from high-level French backers. The EUR 28 million (around $30 million) round was led by Tikehau Ace Capital, a French private equity firm that targets aerospace, defense and technology investments, along with the Government of France, investing through French Tech Souveraineté, which is part of the France 2030 initiative, led by the General Secretaria ..read more

This week, TDK Ventures, the next-generation materials and “hard-tech” venture capital arm of Japanese electronics giant TDK, announced that it has invested in San Diego 5G wireless company XCOM Labs. The investment will expedite the development of XCOM’s 5G and wireless communications solutions, which emphasize bandwidth capacity, latency reduction/elimination, and compute load balancing. XCOM is working to apply their technology to the future of work and Industry 4.0, where wireless technologies could enable smart factories, automation, off-site training, and more immersive telework expe ..read more

On Wednesday, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the global independent infrastructure investor with $81 billion in managed client assets, announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with TotalEnergies focused on the U.S. renewable energy sector. Under terms of the partnership TotalEnergies will acquire half of GIP’s interest in Clearway Energy Group, a privately held renewable development company that owns a controlling stake with a 42 percent economic interest in listed energy provider Clearway Energy, Inc.  In return, GIP will receive $1.60 billion in cash, plus an ..read more