Unshackled Ventures is the only early-stage venture capital fund that enables unrecognized and excluded immigrant founders to start companies in the U.S. Since its founding in 2014, Unshackled has proven its thesis that investing and supporting this population drives strong investment returns across key industries, including American infrastructure, generative AI, healthcare, space, and enterprise SaaS. To date, the firm has invested in 80 companies and over 200 entrepreneurs.

Unshackled Ventures

PolyGone Systems, Inc

PolyGone Systems is a cleantech company that removes microplastic pollutants from waterways.  PolyGone Systems was founded in 2021.

PolyGone Systems develops technology solutions to capture and remove microplastic pollutants from waterways. The company's flagship product is the Plastic Hunter, a modular floating station equipped with patent-pending Artificial Root Filters. These filters use hydrophobic silicone fibers that mimic aquatic plant roots to trap microplastic particles between 100 microns and 1mm in diameter, including pellets, films, fragments, and fibers. The biomimetic filters can be deployed without electricity or mechanical systems and achieve a 72% removal success rate within 24 hours. The system is designed to float on water and target buoyant microplastics while allowing marine life to swim freely underneath.&nbsp;

Systematic Solutions for Microplastic Pollution

Revolutionizing Microplastic Pollution Solutions: PolyGone Systems' Innovative Artificial Root Filter Technology

Conservation Tech

PolyGone Systems is a company focused on addressing microplastic pollution in water bodies. The company's primary offering is the biomimetic 'Artificial Root' filter, designed to capture microplastic particles in water without using electricity. This filter is modeled on the fibrous structure of aquatic plant roots and is capable of entrapping small aquatic sediments, including microplastics, from flowing water due to its fibrous structure and hydrophobic quality. The filter primarily targets microplastic particles between 100 microns and one mm in diameter, including pellets, films, fragments, and fibers.
The company's modular floating station, nicknamed "The Plastic Hunter," hosts these artificial root filters and is designed to monitor and capture microplastic particles in water. PolyGone Systems aims to deploy these devices at wastewater treatment plants and drinking water treatment channels to remove microplastics from water sources before they enter broader aquatic environments. The device is positioned to be affordable and environmentally friendly, utilizing relatively inexpensive materials like silicone fibers for the filter media.
PolyGone Systems has developed a staining and fluorescence imaging protocol to identify microplastics that are difficult or impossible to detect using conventional visual analysis methods. This protocol enables rapid analysis of field samples for microplastic concentrations without the intensive labor and human error risks associated with manual counting protocols. The company also utilizes FTIR imaging for additional verification.
Key customers and partnerships
PolyGone Systems has formed partnerships with several organizations for research and deployment of its technology. The company partnered with the Willistown Conservation Trust for its first field test deployment at the Ashbridge Preserve, a Delaware tributary area. They are collaborating with Professor Tae Seok Moon at Washington University St. Louis to explore potential upcycling of collected microplastics. Additionally, PolyGone Systems is performing a full-scale pilot deployment at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority's wastewater treatment facility in Atlantic City. The company is also working with the New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program between the State University of New York, Cornell University, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on a project funded by a USD 1.9 million grant from the National Sea Grant Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Marine Debris Challenge Competition as of August 2023.

PolyGone Systems develops technology solutions to capture and remove microplastic pollutants from waterways. The company's flagship product is the Plastic Hunter, a modular floating station equipped with patent-pending Artificial Root Filters. These filters use hydrophobic silicone fibers that mimic aquatic plant roots to trap microplastic particles between 100 microns and 1mm in diameter, including pellets, films, fragments, and fibers. The biomimetic filters can be deployed without electricity or mechanical systems and achieve a 72% removal success rate within 24 hours. The system is designed to float on water and target buoyant microplastics while allowing marine life to swim freely underneath.&nbsp;PolyGone offers comprehensive microplastic management services including analysis, monitoring, removal, and recovery. In September 2024, the company launched its first large-scale industrial pilot at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) wastewater treatment facility, a 40 million gallon-per-day treatment plant, serving approximately 225,000 residents.Key customers and partnershipsPolyGone Systems established its first field testing partnership with the Willistown Conservation Trust, conducting trials at the Ashbridge Preserve. The company worked with the Washington University St. Louis' Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering Department to upcycle collected microplastics. The company also partners with community groups and educational institutions in the Hudson and Delaware watersheds.

Treedom is an Italy-based investment company that offers a digital platform enabling individuals and businesses to plant trees and monitor their growth online. It finances local farmers worldwide and offers them expertise and technical assistance for tree planting and management. Each tree is assigned an online page with geolocation and photographs and progress updates are shared in a virtual Tree Diary that can be gifted via messages or email. In addition to Italy, Treedom has offices in Germany, the UK, France, Kenya, the US, and the Netherlands. Treedom is reportedly the world’s first online agroforestry project funding platform. The company offers pricing tiers: Starter: Three trees/month at EUR 54.79/month (~USD 58.59/month); Essential: Five trees/month at EUR 87.73/month (~USD 93.82/month); Professional: Eight trees/month at EUR 142.63/month (~USD 152.53/month); and One tree per day: 30 trees/month at EUR 482.39/month (~USD 515.89/month). As of August 2023, over three million trees have been planted, with over one million people and more than 11,000 companies choosing to plant trees with Treedom. Key customers and partnershipsIn October 2022, Treedom partnered with Moore Global to plant hundreds of trees in locations in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and beyond, with a three-year agreement to continue the work with Treedom. Companies that have worked with Treedom to plant trees include Pinko (June 2019), Voihotels (June 2022), TERRAEVENTS (May 2022), Altamira (February 2021), leBebè (May 2021), Cambridge &amp; Counties Bank (December 2022), Electrosonic (October 2022), Marcolin (September 2021), Scutum (July 2022), and Sedex (June 2023). Other notable customers include Nespresso, Timberland, and Lo Studio. In April 2024, Leasys teamed up with Treedom to enforce positive and sustainable practices in improving environmental impact.

Treedom

Ecologi is a UK-based for-profit social enterprise, where customers can calculate emissions, set reduction goals, fund reforestation, high-quality carbon avoidance, and removal projects, and share their impact dashboard. The Ecologi Zero carbon footprinting tool is an offering that enables the calculation of carbon footprints for free. Once emissions are measured, users can identify their emission hotspots using the Ecologi Zero dashboard and establish goals to reduce them. Ecologi also provides a marketplace and tree and impact APIs, facilitating the integration of climate action into ecommerce platforms. This integration enables automatic funding of tree planting for every order or supporting verified climate projects with each transaction. The company offers Climate Action Workforce on a subscription model, allowing clients to actively engage and reward their employees, while the subscription funds certify carbon avoidance and tree planting projects. Ecologi extends its impact to individuals through the Climate Positive Individual program, allowing individuals to contribute to the restoration of the planet through a monthly subscription. As of August 2023, the company has planted over 15 million trees and funded around 70 million trees, leading to the avoidance of 2.8 million tons of CO2e. As of the same date, Ecologi had over 40,000 members (individual customers) and around 19,000 business customers. The majority of these trees have been planted across Madagascar, Mozambique, Nicaragua, the US, Australia, the UK, and Kenya. As of August 2023, the company’s B2B business offers subscription plans that begin with the Starter Plan at GBP 5.35 (~USD 5.72) per employee per month, followed by the Essential Plan at GBP 10.70 (~USD 11.4) per employee per month, and the Ultimate Plan at GBP 21.40 (~22.9) per employee per month. Notable customers of the company encompass Krystal Hosting, Albert, and Your Coop.

Ecologi

Cultivo is a California-based climate-focused FinTech that identifies high-quality projects and forecasts the natural capital returns using proprietary algorithms, including the Natural Capital Search Engine, and geospatial remote sensing technologies. It calculates, measures, and assesses the value of large properties, including land degradation, soil moisture potential, land cover/vegetation changes, species biodiversity, water balance, and the potential for droughts and floods. Cultivo partners with NGOs and local landowners to ready these assets and offer them to financial partners to attract significant investments in projects that restore and protect nature while integrating local communities. The company works on regenerative land projects worldwide, including Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Madagascar, the US, and Indonesia. The company is able to either 1) unlock and expand the natural capital value of clients' existing land portfolios, 2) build new portfolios of natural capital using customers’ financial and impact criteria, or 3) offer carbon offsets from existing portfolios. Cultivo’s <a href="https://cultivo.land/company/our-approach">project types </a>include forests, wetlands, grasslands, and regenerative agriculture. As of September 2023, the company <a href="https://cultivo.land/documents/Public_Benefit_Report_Cultivo_Land_PBC_Dec_2021.pdf">aimed </a>to regenerate 1% of the world’s land into healthy ecosystems by building portfolios of natural capital assets with high-regeneration potential. Key customers and partnerships• In August 2022, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-world-banks-ifc-taps-blockchain-carbon-offsets-2022-08-17/">partnered </a>with Cultivo, sustainability finance company Aspiration, and blockchain technology firm Chia Network to launch the Carbon Opportunities Fund, which aimed to provide carbon offsets on blockchain.• In December 2020, the company partnered with Nature For Justice to combine their technologies to help vulnerable communities affected by climate change generate sustainable income from natural capital.• In August 2024, Cultivo partnered with Conserve to regenerate the Kunene Highlands in Namibia

Cultivo

Single.Earth is an Estonia-based tokenization platform for forests and wetlands to create profit for landowners through carbon and biodiversity credits, using data science and AI for environmental modeling and blockchain for secure MERIT token transfers. The company works with landowners across Europe and in Brazil. The company accepts landowners with at least three hectares of mature forest located within the European Economic Area (EEA). The company builds a digital twin of nature that reveals how much any area of ecological significance in the world absorbs CO2 and retains biodiversity. Using satellite imagery, Big Data analysis, and machine learning to build global carbon models, Single.Earth tokenizes the planet’s resources, including forests and swamps. The tokens generate profits through carbon compensations, emitting a new MERIT token for every 100 kg of CO2 sequestered in a specific forest or biodiverse area. The tokens can be used to trade as an investment instrument and compensate for CO2 footprint. Single.Earth also developed a risk assessment tool for its digital twin, detecting near-harvesting-age forests. The company also introduced Ecosystem Integrity Index (EII) which assesses the health, integrity, and resilience of ecosystems beyond carbon. A MERIT token is priced at EUR 3 (~USD 3.2). The company opened early-access sales of MERIT tokens in September 2022, after nearly two years of R&amp;D and partnering with landowners. Key customers and partnerships In December 2022, Single.Earth collaborated with Salv, a regulatory technology firm, to utilize Salv's screening processes against high-risk customers among landowners and token buyers, thereby preventing the exploitation of their GeenTech business for financial crime.

Single.Earth

Terraformation is a Hawaii-based forest restoration company that provides early-stage financing and customized design for biodiversity-based carbon projects. Since 2019, the company has launched 19 restoration pilot projects across 12 countries.The company combines local expertise and AWS Cloud computing tools, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and AWS Secrets Manager to help regrow plants. Once in the climate-controlled environment, the seeds are monitored by sensors that send data on temperature, humidity, and seed health to the cloud. As of November 2022, Terraformation and its partners have planted over 350,000 new plants and trees, with plans to plant over 1.6 million in the coming years.The company has also introduced localized seed collection and storage as a solution to the bottleneck in sourcing native seeds for reforestation projects. Terraformation’s modular, off-grid seed banks can process and store millions of seeds per year. These <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/solutions/seed-bank?">seed banks </a>can be placed in any remote location and clean, dry, store, and test seeds, using methods that preserve seed viability to ensure native seed availability and diversity for reforestation projects.The company has also developed its open-source <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/solutions/software?">Terraware software </a>, which allows partners to remotely monitor all aspects of restoration, including seed bank conditions and inventory, nursery or planting sites, globally. The company was also developing a mobile app for seed collectors to easily keep track of the number and types of seeds they gather, which automatically updates the seed bank’s database. As of August 2023, 37 forestry organizations across 47 countries use Terraware.‍In November 2022, the company launched the Seed to Carbon Forest Accelerator, reportedly the world’s first biodiversity-focused, carbon-funded forest accelerator program. The program supports early-stage forestry teams to launch, build, and scale biodiverse reforestation projects and produce high-quality, verified carbon credits.Key customers and partnerships• In March 2022, Terraformation partnered with <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/bitkraft-ventures-partners-with-terraformation?">BITKRAFT Ventures </a>, an investment platform for gaming and interactive media, where the company was to support two Terraformation projects: ReClimate in Ukraine to plant 10,000 trees and the Kilimanjaro Project in Tanzania to support a reforestation seed bank.• In January 2022, Terraformation partnered with <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/bgci-terraformation-launch-seed-partnership-for-global-reforestation?">Botanic Gardens Conservation International </a>(BGCI), the world’s largest plant conservation network, to increase access to seeds by equipping botanic gardens with seed banks that can be shipped anywhere in the world.• Terraformation has also partnered with and supported <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/eden-reforestation-projects?">Eden Reforestation Projects </a>, <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/new-partner-sana-tanzania?">Saving Africa’s Nature </a>(SANA), <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/humans-for-abundance-ecuador-partner-announcement?">Humans for Abundance </a>, <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/new-partners-worldview-impact-india?">Worldview Impact </a>, <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/new-partner-reclimate-ukraine?">ReClimate </a>, and <a href="https://www.terraformation.com/blog/new-partner-uganda-environmental-defenders?">Environmental Defenders </a>by providing seed banks and nursery designs.• In September 2022, Terraformation acquired certain assets of <a href="https://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2022/09/26/terraformation-forest-restoration-company-expands-on-hawai%CA%BBi/#:~:text=Terraformation%2C%20a%20global%20forest%20restoration,well%20as%20native%20forest%20restoration.">Agro Resources </a>, a Hawaii-based agroforestry company, to scale its on-the-ground operations in the country.• In June 2024, the company partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/30648">Grosvenor Property UK</a> on the sale of the ReDAW project, the first Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) from Terraformation's Seed to Carbon Forest Accelerator.

Terraformation

Companies focusing on monitoring oceans and ocean activity using drones, surface, and subsurface devices.

Companies focusing on observing and tracking changes in forest ecosystems using satellite imagery, AI, etc.

Companies providing supportive technologies for businesses whose activities involve forests and oceans, so that they can be more sustainable. (e.g. timber tracking, LIDAR mapping, AI and innovative products reducing bycatch)

Companies focusing on the regeneration of depleted ecosystems such as forests through innovative solutions such as cocoons, seed balls, genetically modified trees, etc.

Companies that finance conservation efforts through offering products, tokens or assets to consumers.

Companies that engage in removing salt from seawater using renewable energy sources.

Companies focusing on the regeneration of depleted ecosystems such as coral reefs through innovative solutions such as reef cubes, and drones. Also includes companies focusing on preventing macro and micro plastics from entering the oceans.

Tech coupled with conservation, biodiversity tracking, and sustainable usage to promote ecosystem regeneration and balance

Uses AI/ML to monitor oceans and forest degradation as well as reduce bycatch

PolyGone Systems, Inc

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