Meet the start-ups turning climate solutions into reality
(From left) Ms Heng Li Lang, head of Climate and Liveability at Temasek Foundation, Krosslinker chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Gayathri Natarajan, Ayrton Energy co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Brandy Kinkead, Krosslinker co-founder, CTO and engineering director Mahesh Sachithanadam, and Temasek Foundation executive director and CEO Ng Boon Heong. Each start-up won $1 million in catalytic funding as winners of The Liveability Challenge 2025. PHOTO: TEMASEK FOUNDATION
BRANDED CONTENT From passive cooling paint to accessible hydrogen storage: Meet the start-ups turning climate solutions into reality The winners of The Liveability Challenge are turning climate science into real-world solutions – making buildings cooler, energy cleaner, and our net-zero future closer
As temperatures soar and carbon emissions grow, two innovative start-ups have emerged with groundbreaking solutions to help combat global warming.
Krosslinker and Ayrton Energy – the winners of this year's edition of The Liveability Challenge (TLC) – are tackling climate change with technologies that transform how we cool our buildings and power our industries respectively.
Through TLC, each start-up secured $1 million in catalytic funding to scale their innovations: Krosslinker's aerogel-based paint that provides passive cooling to keep buildings cooler and Ayrton Energy's system that makes it easier and more affordable to store and transport hydrogen, a zero-emission fuel crucial for industry decarbonisation.
The eighth edition of TLC, which is presented by Temasek Foundation and organised by Eco-Business, attracted over 1,200 submissions from 100 countries – a record that signals the growing global momentum behind climate tech innovation.
In addition to the grand prize, both start-ups received further funding from TLC's strategic partners to support their scale-up efforts. Krosslinker received $100,000 from the Octave Well-being Economy Fund, while Ayrton Energy secured a total of $200,000 – with $100,000 each from TRIREC and Valuence Ventures.
'At Temasek Foundation, we believe in the urgency of supporting bold and deep-tech innovative solutions that can drive real progress in decarbonising our planet, and keeping our environment cool even with rising temperatures,' says Ms Heng Li Lang, head of Climate and Liveability at Temasek Foundation.
'Our catalytic funding shows our commitment to helping innovators turn promising ideas into working prototypes that can scale.'
Here's how these two climate innovations are accelerating the world's journey towards a net-zero future by 2050.
Helping to cool the planet
Real-world testing in Abu Dhabi showed Krosslinker's paint reduced surface temperatures by 30 deg C in extreme desert heat. PHOTOS: KROSSLINKER
In cities like Singapore, rising temperatures have driven up air-conditioning use – which, ironically, adds to global warming. According to the National Environment Agency, air-conditioning accounts for a significant share of carbon emissions from homes and offices.
Krosslinker, a Singapore-based start-up, aims to tackle this with its aerogel-based paint that passively cools buildings. Made from a special formula of advanced materials, the paint reflects heat, insulates and emits infrared radiation to lower surface temperatures – reducing the ambient indoor temperature and easing the load on air-conditioners.
'We're expecting the surface temperature to drop by at least 10 deg C, which could lower indoor temperatures by more than 5 deg C,' says Dr Gayathri Natarajan, co-founder of Krosslinker. 'That means air-conditioners won't have to work as hard, leading to significant savings on electricity – around 10 per cent in energy use.'
The impact goes beyond homes and offices. Industrial buildings like data centres and storage facilities stand to benefit significantly from reduced cooling demand and lower emissions.
To make widespread adoption possible, Krosslinker is working to improve both the performance and affordability of its aerogel products. Producing thermal materials is typically energy-intensive and costly – a challenge the start-up is addressing through its proprietary manufacturing technology.
(From left) Temasek Foundation CEO Ng Boon Heong presents the TLC award to Krosslinker co-founders Gayathri Natarajan and Mahesh Sachithanadam. PHOTO: TEMASEK FOUNDATION
'Cooling is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Yet over one billion people do not have access to affordable cooling,' notes Dr Gayathri.
'We need to create a solution that is not just technically-savvy, but also accessible to anybody. We don't want aerogel to stay in labs or to be locked in patents; we want them on rooftops and shipping containers, doing real work.'
Beyond paint, the company is developing aerogel-based coatings and panels for pipelines, storage tanks, refrigerated trucks and battery protection in electric vehicles. It is also setting up a dedicated production facility in Singapore to scale up output.
Support from platforms like TLC is crucial, says Dr Gayathri, as deep-tech start-ups often face high uncertainty.
'If technology pioneers do not have platforms and policies to support them, these solutions would die at a very early stage,' she says.
New way to store and transport hydrogen
Ayrton Energy staff being briefed on hydrogen storage in liquid form at room temperature. PHOTO: AYRTON ENERGY
Hydrogen is a clean, abundant fuel with vast potential to replace traditional, emission-heavy energy sources. But despite its promise, the high cost and complexity of transporting and storing hydrogen have held it back from mainstream use.
Canada-based start-up Ayrton Energy is tackling this problem head-on. The company has developed a chemical process that binds hydrogen with a carrier oil, forming a stable liquid that can be stored and transported like diesel – safely, at room temperature and pressure, using existing infrastructure.
'It's very safe and can be handled like diesel. So it can be stored in standard tanks, trucks, pipelines and rail cars. You can store it for a long duration, or take it for a long distance,' says Ms Natasha Kostenuk, one of the two co-founders.
While the use of liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) is not new, Ayrton's method is more efficient and cheaper than current LOHC systems, which typically require high pressures and complex equipment. Ayrton's process fits into a shipping container-sized unit that can produce and store up to 3 tonnes of hydrogen daily – a fraction of the footprint of chemical plants usually needed for traditional methods.
(From left) Ayrton Energy co-founders Natasha Kostenuk and Brandy Kinkead. PHOTO: AYRTON ENERGY
'That dramatically reduces the adoption costs for the industry,' says Ms Kostenuk. 'If we can decouple the production of hydrogen from end-use, it will drive the cost of hydrogen down and increase energy security for regions that don't currently have the ability to make their own energy or are relying on imports of oil and gas.'
Ayrton's journey began when Ms Kostenuk and co-founder Dr Brandy Kinkead set out to build hydrogen generators but ran into storage issues.
'Everywhere we looked, we couldn't find a good answer for storage,' recalls Ms Kostenuk. 'Then we came up with our own solution.'
The TLC catalytic funding will help Ayrton scale up starting in Canada and the US. From transporting 0.3kg to 30kg of hydrogen per day, Ayrton now aims to reach 1 to 3 tonnes per day to serve commercial users like refuelling stations.
'Hydrogen is going to be a big part of the energy space,' says Ms Kostenuk. 'We envision helping energy security and decarbonisation, and leave the planet better for our children.'
Driving global climate tech innovation
Beyond The Liveability Challenge (TLC), Temasek Foundation has spearheaded global platforms – including the Climate Impact Innovations Challenge in Indonesia, Net Zero Challenge in Vietnam and Green Future Innovation Challenge in China – to crowdsource for disruptive solutions to tackle urgent sustainability challenges.
Since 2018, this network of global challenges has crowdsourced more than 6,600 submissions from over 100 countries, through a network of more than 200 partners. Twenty-one solutions were supported with $15 million in funding to help them scale up and commercialise their innovations to make a long-lasting global impact, attracting close to $600 million of further investments.
Read more about Temasek Foundation and The Liveability Challenge.
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Straits Times
2 days ago
- Straits Times
Meet the start-ups turning climate solutions into reality
(From left) Ms Heng Li Lang, head of Climate and Liveability at Temasek Foundation, Krosslinker chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Gayathri Natarajan, Ayrton Energy co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Brandy Kinkead, Krosslinker co-founder, CTO and engineering director Mahesh Sachithanadam, and Temasek Foundation executive director and CEO Ng Boon Heong. Each start-up won $1 million in catalytic funding as winners of The Liveability Challenge 2025. PHOTO: TEMASEK FOUNDATION BRANDED CONTENT From passive cooling paint to accessible hydrogen storage: Meet the start-ups turning climate solutions into reality The winners of The Liveability Challenge are turning climate science into real-world solutions – making buildings cooler, energy cleaner, and our net-zero future closer As temperatures soar and carbon emissions grow, two innovative start-ups have emerged with groundbreaking solutions to help combat global warming. Krosslinker and Ayrton Energy – the winners of this year's edition of The Liveability Challenge (TLC) – are tackling climate change with technologies that transform how we cool our buildings and power our industries respectively. Through TLC, each start-up secured $1 million in catalytic funding to scale their innovations: Krosslinker's aerogel-based paint that provides passive cooling to keep buildings cooler and Ayrton Energy's system that makes it easier and more affordable to store and transport hydrogen, a zero-emission fuel crucial for industry decarbonisation. The eighth edition of TLC, which is presented by Temasek Foundation and organised by Eco-Business, attracted over 1,200 submissions from 100 countries – a record that signals the growing global momentum behind climate tech innovation. In addition to the grand prize, both start-ups received further funding from TLC's strategic partners to support their scale-up efforts. Krosslinker received $100,000 from the Octave Well-being Economy Fund, while Ayrton Energy secured a total of $200,000 – with $100,000 each from TRIREC and Valuence Ventures. 'At Temasek Foundation, we believe in the urgency of supporting bold and deep-tech innovative solutions that can drive real progress in decarbonising our planet, and keeping our environment cool even with rising temperatures,' says Ms Heng Li Lang, head of Climate and Liveability at Temasek Foundation. 'Our catalytic funding shows our commitment to helping innovators turn promising ideas into working prototypes that can scale.' Here's how these two climate innovations are accelerating the world's journey towards a net-zero future by 2050. Helping to cool the planet Real-world testing in Abu Dhabi showed Krosslinker's paint reduced surface temperatures by 30 deg C in extreme desert heat. PHOTOS: KROSSLINKER In cities like Singapore, rising temperatures have driven up air-conditioning use – which, ironically, adds to global warming. According to the National Environment Agency, air-conditioning accounts for a significant share of carbon emissions from homes and offices. Krosslinker, a Singapore-based start-up, aims to tackle this with its aerogel-based paint that passively cools buildings. Made from a special formula of advanced materials, the paint reflects heat, insulates and emits infrared radiation to lower surface temperatures – reducing the ambient indoor temperature and easing the load on air-conditioners. 'We're expecting the surface temperature to drop by at least 10 deg C, which could lower indoor temperatures by more than 5 deg C,' says Dr Gayathri Natarajan, co-founder of Krosslinker. 'That means air-conditioners won't have to work as hard, leading to significant savings on electricity – around 10 per cent in energy use.' The impact goes beyond homes and offices. Industrial buildings like data centres and storage facilities stand to benefit significantly from reduced cooling demand and lower emissions. To make widespread adoption possible, Krosslinker is working to improve both the performance and affordability of its aerogel products. Producing thermal materials is typically energy-intensive and costly – a challenge the start-up is addressing through its proprietary manufacturing technology. (From left) Temasek Foundation CEO Ng Boon Heong presents the TLC award to Krosslinker co-founders Gayathri Natarajan and Mahesh Sachithanadam. PHOTO: TEMASEK FOUNDATION 'Cooling is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Yet over one billion people do not have access to affordable cooling,' notes Dr Gayathri. 'We need to create a solution that is not just technically-savvy, but also accessible to anybody. We don't want aerogel to stay in labs or to be locked in patents; we want them on rooftops and shipping containers, doing real work.' Beyond paint, the company is developing aerogel-based coatings and panels for pipelines, storage tanks, refrigerated trucks and battery protection in electric vehicles. It is also setting up a dedicated production facility in Singapore to scale up output. Support from platforms like TLC is crucial, says Dr Gayathri, as deep-tech start-ups often face high uncertainty. 'If technology pioneers do not have platforms and policies to support them, these solutions would die at a very early stage,' she says. New way to store and transport hydrogen Ayrton Energy staff being briefed on hydrogen storage in liquid form at room temperature. PHOTO: AYRTON ENERGY Hydrogen is a clean, abundant fuel with vast potential to replace traditional, emission-heavy energy sources. But despite its promise, the high cost and complexity of transporting and storing hydrogen have held it back from mainstream use. Canada-based start-up Ayrton Energy is tackling this problem head-on. The company has developed a chemical process that binds hydrogen with a carrier oil, forming a stable liquid that can be stored and transported like diesel – safely, at room temperature and pressure, using existing infrastructure. 'It's very safe and can be handled like diesel. So it can be stored in standard tanks, trucks, pipelines and rail cars. You can store it for a long duration, or take it for a long distance,' says Ms Natasha Kostenuk, one of the two co-founders. While the use of liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) is not new, Ayrton's method is more efficient and cheaper than current LOHC systems, which typically require high pressures and complex equipment. Ayrton's process fits into a shipping container-sized unit that can produce and store up to 3 tonnes of hydrogen daily – a fraction of the footprint of chemical plants usually needed for traditional methods. (From left) Ayrton Energy co-founders Natasha Kostenuk and Brandy Kinkead. PHOTO: AYRTON ENERGY 'That dramatically reduces the adoption costs for the industry,' says Ms Kostenuk. 'If we can decouple the production of hydrogen from end-use, it will drive the cost of hydrogen down and increase energy security for regions that don't currently have the ability to make their own energy or are relying on imports of oil and gas.' Ayrton's journey began when Ms Kostenuk and co-founder Dr Brandy Kinkead set out to build hydrogen generators but ran into storage issues. 'Everywhere we looked, we couldn't find a good answer for storage,' recalls Ms Kostenuk. 'Then we came up with our own solution.' The TLC catalytic funding will help Ayrton scale up starting in Canada and the US. From transporting 0.3kg to 30kg of hydrogen per day, Ayrton now aims to reach 1 to 3 tonnes per day to serve commercial users like refuelling stations. 'Hydrogen is going to be a big part of the energy space,' says Ms Kostenuk. 'We envision helping energy security and decarbonisation, and leave the planet better for our children.' Driving global climate tech innovation Beyond The Liveability Challenge (TLC), Temasek Foundation has spearheaded global platforms – including the Climate Impact Innovations Challenge in Indonesia, Net Zero Challenge in Vietnam and Green Future Innovation Challenge in China – to crowdsource for disruptive solutions to tackle urgent sustainability challenges. Since 2018, this network of global challenges has crowdsourced more than 6,600 submissions from over 100 countries, through a network of more than 200 partners. Twenty-one solutions were supported with $15 million in funding to help them scale up and commercialise their innovations to make a long-lasting global impact, attracting close to $600 million of further investments. Read more about Temasek Foundation and The Liveability Challenge. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
AsiaOne
22-05-2025
- AsiaOne
Cool paint, clean power: These are the sustainable innovations that Temasek Foundation are backing for $2m, Singapore News
Imagine a Singapore where our buildings stay cool 24/7 without turning to air conditioning. What if I told you we could also run entire industries where electricity is powered by hydrogen - a sustainable, clean energy source that primarily produces water as a by-product - as opposed to harmful greenhouse gases as we burn through fossil fuels? Temasek Foundation has granted $2 million in catalytic support to turn these ideas into a reality for Singapore. Earlier in May, eight finalists presented a case for their disruptive technologies to address the pressing environmental challenges that plague the world including Singapore: firstly, adopting decarbonisation strategies to minimise adverse impact on the environment, and second, creating a cooler earth where people and nature can thrive. The winning teams were Krosslinker from Singapore, recognised for their energy-saving and cooling aerogel paints, and Ayrton Energy from Canada, whose technology makes it cheaper, easier and safer to transport hydrogen as a clean energy source. We spoke to the winners of The Liveability Challenge 2025 to find out more about their journey to developing their innovations, and their plans to scale their impact with catalytic funding. Dr Gayathri Natarajan, CEO of Krosslinker, grew up in Chennai in India, where temperatures are hot and humid all year long. Fifteen years ago, she moved to Singapore to complete her PhD in Chemical and Bio-molecular Engineering at National University of Singapore. "I grew up in a region that's hotter than Singapore... I have always lived in hot regions," she said with a hearty laugh. This gave her an acute understanding of the real-world impact of urban heat and how not everyone can afford to beat it, with segments of society like construction workers having to toil in the relentless sun. "For me, why you do something could be more important than what you do," she remarked. Her lived experience, great passion for material sciences and chemical engineering, and her natural go-getter personality inspired Dr Gayathri to start Krosslinker, specialising in transformative aerogel technologies to deliver high impact solutions. Plans for cool paints to coat commercial buildings, data centres in Singapore Krosslinker's winning solution of cooling aerogel paints responded to The Liveability Challenge's Cool Earth theme, as they presented a viable solution to heat mitigation with a pilot in Singapore as a global reference. The product has already been tried and tested. In partnership with a leading insulation company in Abu Dhabi, the paint was put to test under extreme desert conditions. A storage container was coated with Krosslinker's proprietary aerogel paints, and measurements of the ambient and surface temperatures were taken. In contrast to the control containers, a maximum reduction of close to 30-degrees celsius in surface temperature was achieved with Krosslinker's paints. Since their presentation and win at The Liveability Challenge, the Krosslinker team has garnered the attention of many commercial partners who have expressed interest in harnessing their transformative innovation. "This is the best outreach we could have asked for," Dr Gayathari remarked, acknowledging the level of credibility and visibility of Temasek Foundation's backing has given their cause. While the team expressed a keen interest in working to coat data centres, commercial buildings and even HDBs, they are assessing their current standing to see where they can deploy their resources to deliver the greatest impact for better liveability, sustainability and economic viability. 'Tackle the hard problems first' When it comes to decarbonisation, sometimes progress means looking the other way - not in ignorance, but to explore alternative solutions. And that's exactly what the team at Ayrton Energy did. "Our vision for the company is to see hydrogen achieve broad adoption," the team shared with an earnest belief that hydrogen energy could be adopted as the diesel of tomorrow. Hydrogen is widely recognised as viable clean energy - so why aren't we all using it? "The biggest challenge is getting hydrogen to site," Dr Brandy Kinkead, founder of Ayrton Energy presented as her opening note at The Liveability Challenge, detailing how its costs and logistical challenges have put up barriers to widespread adoption. And while a great deal of investment and research has gone into hydrogen production, less attention has been paid to how hydrogen is stored and transported. Ayrton Energy's puts forth a product that addresses exactly that, looking to overcome the large barrier of hydrogen distribution and allow for lower cost, easy-to-manage hydrogen storage to transport globally. As a company, Ayrton's philosophy is to "tackle the hard problems first", believing that their breakthrough has been propelled with a high-performance team and strong network of support from partners and funding providers. Different energy, same storage solutions Ayrton Energy's proprietary carrier oils enable delivery of hydrogen using the same infrastructure as traditional fuel. At the site of hydrogen production, hydrogen is chemically bound to its carrier oil, with bound hydrogen transported and stored as a room temperature liquid, like how companies would typically transport diesel. At the site of hydrogen use, hydrogen is then safely released from the carrier. With this technology, Ayrton enables a much simpler transportation process with no need for high-pressure tanks, cryogenic cooling, or specialised transport equipment, allowing industry partners looking to make the switch to more sustainable energy sources to do so seamlessly. "Ayrton Energy is excited to support Singapore in their sustainability goals through providing cost-effective long duration and long-distance storage and transport of hydrogen," the team noted. It plans to leverage on funding from The Liveability Challenge's to pilot its use in Singapore to deliver zero-emissions energy. The Liveability Challenge incubates ideas for impact Now in its eighth edition, The Liveability Challenge presented by Temasek Foundation is a global sustainability innovation competition that allows for crowdsourcing of global innovations to benefit Singapore and the greater environment. "We are excited about scaling impact and enabling mass adoption," commented Dr Gayathri on her team's win, hopeful that on top of delivering a sustainable solution, the product's economic incentive with projected energy savings will create a win-win situation for its partners. "At Temasek Foundation, we believe in the urgency of supporting bold and deep-tech innovative solutions that can drive real progress in decarbonising our planet, and keeping our environment cool even with rising temperatures. Our catalytic funding reflects this important commitment - helping innovators move from promising innovations to operational prototypes with potential to scale," said Heng Li Lang, Head of Climate and Liveability at Temasek Foundation. Past winners of the challenge included Equatic, which sought to build the world's largest ocean-based carbon removal plant in Singapore, as well as CricketOne, which addressed food resilience through a low-carbon, crickets-based protein for human consumption. READ MORE: 'Anyone who has eaten today should care about the food that we're eating': Climate changemakers delve into disruptive solutions for food security and carbon emissions in Singapore This article is brought to you in partnership with Temasek Foundation.
Straits Times
12-05-2025
- Straits Times
Boost for fund supporting new non-profits that help school dropouts, the vulnerable
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