Five NorthX portfolio companies started in labs, garages and small teams.
Ask what shaped their journeys and the answers keep coming back to one moment.
Every industry starts small. In climate hard tech, the road from a promising idea to a working facility is long and capital intensive, and securing capital can be challenging before a company has demonstrated what its technology can do. Companies NorthX funded early share what that road can look like.
Moment Energy built its first battery systems in a family garage. Today, they’ve settled into an impressive factory in Surrey, BC which is now the world’s largest EV battery repurposing facility with a team of more than 80 people. Mangrove Lithium began with Tupperware containers and milk jugs in a UBC lab and now operates North America’s first electrochemical lithium refinery, in Delta. Cascadia Seaweed went from exploring the idea of seaweed as an industry in BC to creating the value chain to specifically unlock value for the agricultural industry. Today they operate a commercial plant on BC’s North Coast, with customers across Canada and the US and first sales into Mexico.
“Companies don’t start as mega factories,” says Sarah Goodman, President & CEO of NorthX. “They start as an idea in a lab, a conversation in a coffee shop, or late-night tinkering in a garage. What those entrepreneurs need is someone willing to take an early bet.”
Bill Shmygol, a Senior Associate at Evok Innovations, one of Canada’s leading hard tech venture funds which led Moment Energy’s Series B in May, says Canada does well at research but needs more capital to help companies hit the physical milestones that institutional investors need to see.
“Fundamentally, climate tech is hard tech, and it’s capital intense,” he says. “Where we really need catalytic capital is to fund those first physical proof points.”
Nick Harterre of Skyward Wildfire Technologies sees the same gap from the founder’s side. Skyward forecasts where lightning is likely to ignite wildfires and is modernizing lightning-reduction science first explored in the 1960s. Turning decades-old experiments into a field-ready tool takes research and development that equity investors aren’t built to fund. “Partners like NorthX help fill that gap where equity investors can’t,” he says.
For Cascadia Seaweed, timing was everything. NorthX’s non-dilutive investment arrived as the company let go of its food products line to focus entirely on agricultural biostimulants. “It was a super risky time for us,” says Robert Napoli, Cascadia’s CFO. “NorthX helped us bridge that valley of death to get us to this new market, which has turned out to be fantastic.” Cascadia has since grown from two customers to 14 in a year and quadrupled its sales. “I can honestly say we could not have got to where we are without NorthX’s support.”
Why does one early investment carry so much weight? Bill explains it as compounding. Funding that helps a company hit stronger milestones lets it raise a larger Series A from a better group of investors, which carries it further toward a Series B. “Catalytic capital provides a compounding advantage early in a company’s life cycle that continues to compound as they grow and scale,” he says. It also brings companies into view. Venture firms often follow a company for two to five years before investing, and early NorthX funding is frequently what starts that relationship.
“A group like NorthX funding a company early is a stamp of approval.”
Moment Energy shows how early support can lead to further investment. NorthX backed the company in its first Call for Innovation, while the team was still building its core battery energy storage system. Moment went on to become the first company in North America to earn UL1974 certification needed to deploy repurposed batteries. Evok followed the company closely over several years. By the time it led the Series B, Moment had addressed every concern Evok had raised.
“At every stage along a startup’s journey, someone has to have the conviction to take the risk that others won’t,” Sarah says. NorthX exists to take those early risks, so that more companies started in BC become industries that grow here.
Hear more from these founders and others, featured in our NorthX Builders Series, at Converge November 25th