The investors were “putting their trust in the concept of, we need a safe and responsible and controlled option for sunlight reflection, which for me is [a] very important step forward in the evolution of this field,” Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab said during an interview this week in POLITICO’s London office. He and co-founder Amyad Spector, who also flew in for the interview, are both nuclear physicists who formerly worked for the Israeli government.
The startup’s fundraising haul was led by Lowercarbon Capital, a Wyoming-based climate technology-focused firm co-founded by billionaire investor Chris Sacca.
It was also backed by the Agnellis’ firm Exor, a Dutch holding company that is the largest shareholder of Chrysler parent company Stellantis, luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari and Italy’s Juventus Football Club. Ten other firms — hailing from San Francisco to Berlin — and one individual, former Facebook executive Matt Cohler, also joined Stardust’s fundraising round, its second since being founded two years ago.
The firm has now raised a total of $75 million. It is registered in the U.S. state of Delaware and headquartered outside Tel Aviv but is not affiliated with the state of Israel.
The surge of investor enthusiasm for Stardust comes amid stalled political efforts in Washington and other capitals to reduce the use of oil, gas and coal — the main drivers of climate change. Meanwhile, global temperatures continue to climb to new heights, worsening wildfires, floods, droughts and other natural disasters that some U.S. policymakers have baselessly blamed on solar geoengineering.
The new influx of cash is four times the size of the startup’s initial fundraising round and, Yedvab argued, represents a major vote of confidence in Stardust and its strategy to land government contracts for deploying its technology at a global scale. It also shows that a growing pool of investors are willing to bet on solar geoengineering — a technology that some scientists still consider too dangerous to even study.