!["I have come to believe that [it] is the best emerging solution for the majority of problems in those categories."](https://www.thecooldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/image-recjuK5BQSF3b6I3z.jpg?w=1920&h=800)
Michael Luciani is trying to shift the scales in climate-smart investing. While over half of sustainability tech investment dollars are going into energy and transportation, those industries are responsible for less than half of climate impacts.
"The big contributors are how we make things, the industrials and chemicals and plastics, as well as food and agriculture and buildings," Luciani told TechCrunch. "I have come to believe that engineered biology is the best emerging solution for the majority of problems in those categories."
This is why Luciani co-founded Juniper Ventures. It focuses on small investments in early-stage climate biotech companies that are trying to make the leap from the lab to the market. Luciani used to invest with Climate Capital but decided to zero in on biologists with this new $10.6 million fund.
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One of the companies Juniper has invested in is Wild Microbes, which is using microbially grown materials in chemicals, cosmetics, food ingredients, and fragrances. Juniper has also invested in California Cultured, which is growing coffee and cocoa beans in a lab. These crops are becoming harder and harder to grow naturally.
While there is a lot of proven technology available to deploy today that can help the climate and generate profit for entrepreneurs, new technologies can help overcome the bigger challenges out there. That research and those launches require investment, which has been on the upswing in the United States.
If you're interested in helping climate companies become successful, take a look at our stock-buying guide.
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One of Juniper's more interesting investments is in Cache DNA, which has found a way to store DNA at room temperature.
"We are building a lot of data centers, and they are not the most sustainable way for our world to grow digitally. If we were to store all the data in the world today in DNA, it would only take a shoe box of DNA," Juniper co-founder Jennifer Kan said. "The difference is massive."
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