Can this Temasek-backed geothermal startup power all of Singapore?

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Hi readers,

The issue of climate change took centre stage a few weeks ago when a United Nations panel put out a report stating that the earth is basically screwed if we don’t stop emitting greenhouse gases at the same rate as we currently do – I’m paraphrasing here but that was the gist of it.

Producing enough clean energy will be key to tackling climate change, and a Canadian startup backed by Temasek is planning to do exactly that by building “a giant loop in the ground.”

Today we look at,

• Why this startup’s clean technology could be game-changing for both Temasek and the world
• Southeast Asia’s first revenue-based financing firm
• Other newsy highlights, including a lot more Southeast Asian startups in Y Combinator’s program and an Indian ecommerce enabler that raised US$42.5m

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Its co-founder thought it was “the dumbest idea” but now this company aims to change the world

When talking about “clean energy,” most would immediately think of solar panels or wind turbines. But the four-year-old Eavor Technologies is looking somewhere else: It wants to produce geothermal energy, which is drawn from the heat under the earth’s surface.

But it’s not just a dream; Singapore state investment firm Temasek, global venture capital firm Vickers Venture Partners, and even oil majors BP and Chevron are backing the Canadian startup in its goal to deliver endlessly renewable energy from anywhere in the world.

• The clean idea: Eavor is planning to build a closed-loop, underground conduction-based system to absorb heat from the Earth’s core. The company estimates that a single pipe system could generate enough industrial-scale electricity to power at least 16,000 homes.
• ”The dumbest idea”: Constructing a closed-loop system had long been considered to be prohibitively inefficient and expensive by industry experts. One expert had even contested that such systems would “inevitably fail.”
• The MVP: To prove the naysayers wrong, Eavor spent US$8 million in August 2019 to build a minimum viable product, and it turned out to be a success. The geothermal startup managed to connect kilometers of pipes underground and generate enough heat to be viable for commercial purposes.

Read more: How Singapore can be 100% powered by geothermal energy

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Meet the first revenue-based financing firm in Southeast Asia

The name GuavaPass may be familiar to fitness enthusiasts in Singapore. Though the fitness subscription company is no longer around, its co-founders have gone on to launch a new revenue-based financing firm called Jenfi, which recently raised US$6.3 million in a series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

How WeChat mini-programs can open doors for cross-border ecommerce in China