5 Fascinating Startup Deals You Missed in November: Resilient Plants, Enhanced Protein, and Longer Lashes

Every month, this column will highlight five noteworthy startup funding agreements that may have gone unnoticed. View last month's entry here.

The holiday season is here, and everyone is busy.

That means it's easy to overlook some of the more intriguing rounds that are revealed. It doesn't matter. We've got you covered as we look at freshly funded firms doing anything from combating climate change to riding on the moon to growing longer lashes with AI.

Profitable Lashes

There are many things we don't know much about. (Okay, maybe I'm mostly talking about the author of this piece.)

The eyelash market is undoubtedly one of those things.

However, lash extension services appear lucrative, particularly when combined with AI and robotics. This is exactly what Luum does. The Oakland, California-based business raised a Series A round, bringing its total funding to $30 million.

Luum's AI lash extension robots, or Luum Lash, are exactly what they sound like: autonomous robots that apply eyelash extensions. Luum believes that due to the delicate and precise nature of such a job, the robot is safer and more accurate than people and does not utilize sharp equipment.

The startup has previously collaborated with Ulta Beauty (an investor) and Nordstrom, which is testing the eyelash extension service in San Jose retail locations.

Unsurprisingly, an AI robot can apply eyelash extensions, but $30 million is a lot of money for eyelashes. Then again, everyone has them.

Strengthening Plants to Combat Climate Change

According to WRI's Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, 25 countries—or almost one-quarter of the global population—experience extremely high water stress yearly. Water stress is predicted to affect around 23% of the geographical area in the United States.

With water becoming a scarcer commodity and the associated stress occurring more frequently, populations must enhance their food supply to compensate.

One business attempting to do so is Elicit Plant, which has secured $48 million in Series B funding from Carbyne Equity Partners.

The business created phytosterol-based solutions to help plants adapt to climate change. Plants naturally create phytosterols in response to water stress, which improves resistance and reduces water dependency.

Elicit's solutions can be administered as a spray early in the season to assist crops in mitigating environmental stress. Farmers who utilized the spray reported a 20% reduction in water consumption while boosting yields by up to 10%.

The corporation plans to use the fresh funds to expand in the United States. Since 2022, it has collaborated on field trials in the country's maize belt. The company plans to launch its product next year and expand its product line to soybeans and other crops by 2027.

Boosting Protein

Plantable Foods concluded a $30 million Series B round headed by Piva Capital and Siddhi Capital this month.

The San Diego-based global food supply chain company has created a patented agricultural production platform to generate Rubi Protein, a protein produced from duckweed, a rapidly growing aquatic plant.

According to the business, their Rubi Protein exceeds standard animal and plant-based proteins in terms of functional and nutritional qualities.

While the protein is plant-based and suitable for vegan diets, its characteristics are closer to animal protein and can be used in baked goods, sauces, meat substitutes, and other applications.

Duckweed may double in bulk every two days, making it very sustainable.

The company plans to use its new investment to develop production activities at its first commercial plant in West Texas.

Given duckweed's capacity to grow swiftly, that Texas plant might be very busy.

Advancements in Water Technology

Since 1970, water demand has increased 1.7 times while availability has decreased by 50%, and scientists predict that 5 billion people will be without clean drinking water by 2050.

That is a problem, and OceanWell, a water technology firm, hopes to help solve it. This month, the Los Angeles-based startup raised $11 million in a Series A round to scale its modular deep-sea water farm system. Kubota Corp participated in the round.

OceanWell is constructing deep-sea water farms that can use pressure at depths of 400 meters for reverse osmosis desalination. The farms consist of pods that may produce up to 1 million gallons of fresh water daily. The technology also provides "ultra-clean water" by filtering out salts, germs, and other contaminants.

While standard desalination techniques are energy-intensive, OceanWell claims that its farms minimize energy use by up to 40%.

The company plans to begin a California water farm trial with Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, facing a serious water problem shortly.

Expanding Space Infrastructure

While many people associate the future space industry with rocket launches, building out space will need more than merely propelling items from Earth.

Lunar Outpost hopes to be one of the firms that leads the charge with its lunar mobility products. The Golden, Colorado-based firm secured a Series A financing backed by Industrious Ventures and Type One Ventures. The value of the round was not disclosed. In 2022, the company raised a seed round of $12 million.

The business, which develops commercial LTVs and rovers for space exploration, has four missions to the moon, the first of which launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this year. That expedition will mark a commercial rover's first operation on another planet.

The business, which is also building a platform to generate oxygen from Mars' atmosphere, has contracts with NASA and the United States Department of Defense for various missions as part of its plan to participate in future space exploration and infrastructure construction.

Navigating to the moon is one thing, but navigating around on it is another.