Newsletter - June 2026

Welcome to the 28th edition of the AFI Ventures’ newsletter.

As a reminder, AFI Ventures (fund managed by Ventech) is an impact VC fund that invests in pre-seed/seed startups with a strong environmental and social ambition, producing a systemic change. We invest once a month in France & Europe tickets ranging from €250K to €500K.

Each month in this newsletter, you’ll find:

1. 🔍 A focus or key resources on an impact-related theme

2. 📰 Our Top must-read articles on the impact ecosystem

3. 🌱 Even more news from the AFI: portfolio updates, and (new) where we’ve been spotted (at events) & where you can catch us next, plus a job board featuring open roles at our amazing startups.

More insights, more opportunities, more ways to connect. Let’s dive in! 💚

On July 2, AFI Ventures hosted a roundtable at our offices with three people building Europe's answer to critical-materials dependence: Michael Haddad (Alstom, who has led the group's critical-materials resilience strategy), Julien Vaïssette (co-founder & CTO, Recupere Metals) and Marc Pousthomis (co-founder & CTO, Magn'up), with a framing question: how do we exit dependency? Five takeaways.

• Europe must electrify 30M vehicles by 2030, and an EV needs 6× more critical materials than a combustion car (an offshore wind turbine, 9× more than a gas plant), while China controls 85–100% of rare earths and 70–80% of refining, and Europe recycles under half of the 62 Mt of e-waste it produces yearly. Two forces set the equation: planetary limits (the IEA projects too little copper by 2030, too little lithium by 2035) and geopolitics: China now wants to sell finished modules, not ore. It's now about value capture, not just resources.

• There will be no green or sovereign premium. The binding constraint is economic, not technical. Recycled copper has to match primary on price (clients won't pay more), and for magnets the cost of adoption often dwarfs the material cost, as requalifying or redesigning a rotor for a new magnet can take 4–5 years. As long as primary material is cheaper than recycled, the recycling industry won't stand up, and won't be there when Europe finally needs it.

• You don't out-build China; you bypass its bottleneck. A conventional copper refinery costs ≥ €1bn, so Europe won't build them. Recupere Metals skips refining altogether (lower input purity, equivalent output conductivity), working on the low-grade copper that doesn't leave for China, targeting 200,000 t/yr by 2035. Alstom's complementary lever: rewrite specifications so copper is judged on conductivity, not origin, unlocking secondary metal that norms currently block.

• Substituting a critical material isn't just swapping one dependency for another. Magn'up replaces NdFeB magnets (>90% China-dependent) with cobalt-nanoparticle magnets (20 years of CNRS research), assembled at room temperature in minutes and integrated in situ. Magn'up stays <1% of EU cobalt use (400 t/yr by 2040), and no metal-free alternative works yet.

• Sovereignty is a critical asset, and the state's job is to fund what isn't profitable yet. Recycling vs. substitution is a false choice. Recycling delivers mid-term impact but needs an entire value chain; substitution sits at lower TRL with longer time-to-market but less ecosystem dependence. The panel's consensus: public capital should finance these not-yet-profitable industries, not subsidise demand; the precondition for Europe's CRMA 2030 targets of ≥10% extraction, ≥40% refining, ≥25% recycling on European soil.

📥 If you’re curious or building in that space, send us an email at sarah@afi.ventures

Days after a record heatwave, France froze €162.5M in climate-adaptation commitments, even as Allianz warned the country faces up to $240bn in heat-related losses by 2030, reported Le Monde.

At London Climate Action Week, the EU helped launch "Electrify Now", a global platform to accelerate electrification of transport, industry and buildings, alongside new methane commitments, said the European Commission.

Europe's heatwave drove solar output to records and power prices below zero in France and the UK, even as the heat cut wind, hydro and nuclear availability and strained grids, reported Euronews.

The Bonn Climate Conference closed with thin progress on tripling adaptation finance and 59 new indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation, teeing up decisions for COP31 in Antalya, reported Carbon Brief.

Tesla and NatPower struck a $5B deal for 25 GWh of battery storage across Italy and the UK, Europe's largest Megapack agreement and the first phase of a 100 GWh-plus pipeline, reported Electrek.

Fusion developer Helion raised a $465M Series G led by Thrive Capital at a $15.5B valuation, funding construction of Orion, its first power plant, said GeekWire.

The EU launched a €1.5B Battery Booster Facility offering interest-free loans from ETS revenues to scale EV battery cell production in Europe, with a first call due in Q3, said the European Commission.

Luxembourg took a final investment decision on its first green hydrogen project, the €39M, 5MW LuxHyVal electrolyser set to produce 650 t/yr of renewable hydrogen for industry and mobility from late 2026, reported Fuel Cells Works.

American Airlines and Google signed the largest-ever corporate SAF certificate deal, unlocking 35M gallons of sustainable aviation fuel over three years for 300,000 t of CO₂e reductions, reported Metropolitan Airport News.

Metal production is being rewritten from heat-and-scale to precision, as AI, electrochemistry and focused-energy tools replace fossil-fired furnaces across the metals value chain, argues Voyager Ventures.

Pharma's space race is accelerating as drugmakers head to low Earth orbit, with Varda flying its sixth autonomous manufacturing capsule on SpaceX and Redwire spinning out SpaceMD to make medicines in microgravity, reported CNBC.

The FDA approved Lumvoa (veligrotug) for thyroid eye disease, the first therapy labelled for both active and chronic TED, with proptosis reduction as early as three weeks, reported Ophthalmology Times.

WellSpan Health signed a seven-year alliance with Philips to scale AI and imaging across its 12 hospitals, Philips' first R&D tie-up with a US community health system, targeting 450,000 hours of clinician time reclaimed in 2026, reported Fierce Healthcare.

The UK will ban under-16s from social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and X, backed by 9 in 10 parents, with legislation due before Christmas and protections in force by Spring 2027, said the UK Government.

AI biotech isn't one category but three (model builders, learning engines and asset-first biotechs) argues Kurma Partners in a framework for pricing the very different risks behind AI drug discovery, a field that raised $3.8bn in 2025, said Kurma Partners.

Estuaire was selected by ESA Space Solutions for a feasibility study on satellite-based contrail measurement (CONSAT), fusing GOES, MTG and Himawari data to detect contrails in near real-time and attribute them to specific flights. Learn more

Spotlight Earth demonstrated on the Ruby CCS project (Denmark, with CarbonCuts and Nordsøfonden) that focused seismic monitoring can detect CO₂ plumes, a 29% near-offset amplitude increase, matching conventional methods at a fraction of the cost. Learn more

Prolong expanded its post-purchase / after-sales operating system with two new retail clients: Louis Pion (Galeries Lafayette group) went live with native Cegid Y2 integration plus quotation and warranty management, while Vanessa Bruno is rolling out across 80 boutiques, e-commerce and B2B for a unified omnichannel after-sales journey.

Poppins was named one of Europe’s 50 impact startups to watch by 4P Capital and Impact Shakers, selected from 520 nominations across 35 countries; recognition for the rental-over-ownership usage economy after just one year. Learn more

TaiSan won Gold at the Micromobility Europe 2026 Startup Awards in Berlin for its quasi-solid-state sodium-ion battery, 30% more compact and 25% lighter than first-gen sodium cells while keeping their inherent safety, with first partner LOIs already signed. Learn more

REVCOO hit a key milestone for its CarbonCloud® technology, measuring 99.99% purity CO₂ at the outlet of its post-combustion pilot running on real lime-kiln flue gas, delivering specification-ready CO₂ directly at the capture site. Learn more

Dionymer was voted most innovative startup of 2026 at France Innovation Plasturgie (FIP) for its Orpel range of biodegradable PHA polymers made from biowaste and agricultural co-products for injection and extrusion. Learn more

Elsee.Care expanded its family-health platform with three new partnerships: JODY on workplace prevention (absenteeism is up 50% since 2019), Ainoha on peri/menopause care, and Jami App on teen menstrual health (80% of Jami users say they better understand their bodies).

Moonwatt commissioned the world’s first modular sodium-ion battery directly coupled to a solar plant, a commercial-scale project in Arnhem (Netherlands) with Cleantech Park Arnhem and Veolia; passively cooled, forklift-installable, with first deliveries across Europe in 2027. Learn more

Bohr Energie partnered with POWEEND on a pioneering next-gen wind turbine in Saint-Python (Hauts-de-France) designed for collective self-consumption, letting nearby businesses consume locally produced power through a short energy circuit. Learn more

Special mentions to Stokelp, Co-Reactive, Ed.ai, Equitable Earth and Paladin currently on a strong hiring ramp with multiple roles open. More than 60 open roles this month!

👉 Job board accessible here

Don’t hesitate to reach out to the teams to unlock great opportunities.

• Paris-Saclay Spring – June 2, 2026, Paris ⚙️
  The deeptech showcase of the Paris-Saclay cluster; Axel scouted early-stage science-based startups.

• HEC Speed Dating DeepTech/VC – June 9, 2026, Paris 🎓
  Rapid founder–investor matchmaking; Constantin met several HEC-alumni deeptech teams.

• AI & Climate Breakfast – June 16, 2026, Paris 🤖
  A panel (Norton Rose Fulbright & Bombellii Ventures) on the AI–climate intersection and US/EU divergence; Sarah took part.

• VivaTech Founders Breakfast – June 17, 2026, Paris ☕
  Cathay Innovation & Founders Future’s rooftop kickoff to VivaTech week; Constantin joined for early-morning networking.

• Financing Deep & Clean Industrial Innovation – June 17, 2026, Paris 🏭
  A breakfast roundtable (RAISE Sherpas, Cleantech France, Supernova) on funding gaps in clean industrial innovation; Charles and Axel represented AFI.

• VivaTech – June 17–19, 2026, Paris 🚀
  Europe’s largest tech gathering. Constantin and Axel worked the floor and side events all week, meeting founders and co-investors.

• Penser la Transition par l’empreinte territoriale – June 25, 2026, Paris 🗺️
  Zenon Research’s members’ dialogue at Mines de Paris–PSL on territorial-footprint approaches to the transition; Constantin joined.

• Break into Critical Minerals Fast – July 2, 2026, Paris 🧲 – hosted by AFI Ventures

  

  Our own morning session with Alstom, Recupere Metals and Magn’up on whether Europe can build metal-recycling and next-gen magnet industries. The whole AFI team was there.

• Les Deeptech SEED - Demo Day (Bpifrance) – July 6, 2026, Paris 🌱
  Bpifrance’s first Deeptech Seed cohort pitches 20 startups to investors (Space/Defense, Agritech/Foodtech, Energy/Greentech, Biotech/Medtech); Sarah will be in the room.

🗣️ Feel free to reach out if you’d like to connect onsite!

• Charles Fourault - charles@afi.ventures

• Constantin de Chaudenay - constantin@afi.ventures

• Sarah Laznowski - sarah@afi.ventures

• Axel Chaumel - axel@afi.ventures

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re an impact entrepreneur or just interested in any of these topics. 🍃