On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

There’s a number that’s circulating in investor inboxes this week: $26 billion. That’s how much climate tech raised in the first half of 2026. Up 55% on the same period last year. The best first half since 2022.

If you’ve seen it, you may have felt a flicker of something. Hope, maybe. Or relief. A sense that the sector is back.

I want to sit with that feeling for a moment - and then complicate it.

Because the same report that contains the $26 billion number also contains this: deal count fell 25% to a five-year low. Seed and pre-seed activity is at its lowest proportion of total investment in a decade.

The top 10 deals - ten individual investments - captured 42% of all capital raised in the entire half-year.

One of those ten: DayOne raised $4.5 billion to build low-carbon data centres. The largest single climate deal since 2020. One company. One deal. That is what a 55% recovery looks like when you zoom in.

What’s happening in climate tech is not a recovery. It’s a sorting.

And the question that matters for every founder reading this is not “is the sector back?” It’s: which side of the sort am I on?

What the numbers actually show

The CTVC H1 2026 Climate Tech Investment Report - released this week - is the most comprehensive climate VC data package of the year. It paints a picture that is simultaneously more optimistic and more difficult than most headlines suggest.

At the top of the market, the numbers are extraordinary. Series C had its biggest half on record: $10.5 billion, up 4x year-on-year. The exit window has opened for the first time since 2021: Fervo Energy IPO’d at $12.4 billion (35% pop on debut), X-Energy raised $1 billion in its IPO (27% pop), General Fusion completed a SPAC at $1 billion. The climate companies that have reached commercial scale and proven their technology are attracting institutional capital at a pace not seen since the peak of the 2021 boom.

At the early stage, the picture is the opposite. Pre-seed and seed deal counts are at record-low proportions. The bar for a first meeting has risen sharply. Investors who once backed founding teams with a strong slide deck now want a working product, a named first customer, or — ideally — both.

The gap between these two markets has never been wider.

The sector breakdown: who won, who lost, and why

Built environment surged 800%.

Not because of a construction boom, because of data centres. DayOne’s $4.5 billion raise, NScale’s $2 billion, and a wave of AI infrastructure deals pushed the Built Environment vertical ahead of Energy as the largest climate tech sector for the first time. The AI-energy nexus is no longer a thesis. It’s the biggest single capital flow in the sector.

Clean firm power had its exit moment.

Fervo, X-Energy, General Fusion, Quaise ($134M for superhot geothermal drilling), Proxima Fusion (€411M from Google and others). The common thread: 24/7 baseload power with no intermittency. Every hyperscaler on earth needs it. That need is now pulling public market capital into technologies that were considered too long-cycle for traditional VC just two years ago.

Carbon equity collapsed.

Down 61% in H1 — the weakest half since 2020. Low-carbon fuels fell 56% as US subsidies sunset and European buyers await 2027 policy reviews. This is not a temporary dip. The funding mechanism is changing structurally: Amazon’s 2-million-ton nature-based carbon removal deal this week — one of the largest corporate offtake agreements ever signed — signals what replaces VC equity as the primary carbon market funding source. Corporate procurement is the new carbon VC.

Climate adaptation quietly had its best half since 2022.

ICEYE raised $521 million for radar satellites that monitor floods, wildfires, and crop failure in real time — the largest non-energy, non-transport climate deal of the half. Tomorrow.io raised $175 million. Earth observation funding tripled. Pension funds are, for the first time, seriously grappling with what JPMorgan is calling “climate black swan risks.” The investors are arriving before the media coverage.

The policy layer: what the Big Beautiful Bill changes

Layered on top of the investment picture is the most consequential US policy development of the year for climate founders: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Solar and wind face a compressed window: projects must be operational - not just started - by December 31, 2027. Early-stage developers in these sectors face a choice between accelerating to meet the deadline or pivoting their commercialisation geography. Green hydrogen and offshore wind are most exposed: the US subsidy floor has been removed, and the financial models built on it no longer close.

What the “sorted in” founders have in common

I’ve been watching closely which founders are closing rounds in this environment. Five patterns show up consistently:

They have a working product.

• Not a deck. Not a concept. Something that works in the real world, however early. The bar at pre-seed has moved permanently - investors who once funded ideas now fund evidence.

They have commercial specificity.

• A named first customer. A letter of intent. A pilot partner. A signed offtake agreement. The demand-side risk is the first thing investors price. Founders who reduce it before asking for capital close faster.

They are in sectors the AI economy needs.

• Clean firm power, grid flexibility, cooling, water management for data centres - the commercial urgency AI is creating is pulling capital faster than any policy mandate ever did. Founders who can articulate their technology’s relevance to AI infrastructure are accessing a pool of capital that didn’t exist two years ago.

They have updated their pitch language.

• “Energy security” and “grid resilience” open doors that “sustainability” and “ESG” are now closing. This isn’t a betrayal of mission - it’s a translation. The founders closing rounds lead with the commercial and operational case, then let the mission be visible to the investors who value it.

They are not dependent on a single geography.

• The founders treating the UK and Europe as co-equal commercialisation targets - not as fallbacks - are finding more active investor conversations. The policy diversification makes them a better bet.

What to do if you’re raising right now

If you’re at pre-seed or seed, the most important thing you can do is close the product gap.

An MVP, a working pilot, a letter of intent from a first customer - whatever gets you from idea to evidence. The investors who are still writing early-stage cheques want that one proof point before they move.

If you’re in solar, wind, or green hydrogen, remodel your financial assumptions now.

Don’t wait for your next investor meeting to discover that the policy tailwinds you built around no longer exist. Some of these business models still work, in Europe, with different customer bases, with different revenue structures. But the remodel needs to happen before the raise, not during it.

If you’re in carbon removal, study the Amazon deal.

The question isn’t whether to raise VC - it’s whether corporate offtake might be the more direct path. Long-term purchase agreements with large corporates provide the capital certainty that VC rounds were supposed to provide. Build the business model that makes corporates your primary customer, and the funding follows.

If you’re in adaptation - heat resilience, earth observation, agricultural water management, coastal infrastructure - you are, perhaps for the first time, operating in a mainstream asset class.

The pitch that lands right now leads with the operational cost savings and the insurance risk reduction, not the climate benefit. Both are real. Lead with the one investors are currently pricing.

The platform question

One pattern I keep coming back to is the discovery problem.

The investors who are still writing early-stage climate cheques exist, but they’re harder to find than they were three years ago, when the sector had more generalist VC attention. The specialisation of climate capital is real: the investors who know geothermal from grid flexibility from carbon removal are not the same investors who funded your friend’s solar company in 2021.

Climate Marketplace exists for this gap.

The active investors on the platform are there because they want curated dealflow in climate - not because they stumbled across a cold email. If you’re raising in H2 2026 and you haven’t created a profile, that’s worth doing this week.

→ List your startup on Climate Marketplace. Free to list. Upgrade options include a Featured listing from €350 or an Active listing from €600. climate-marketplace.com

Subscribe now

Quality startups raising now on the Climate Marketplace:

🧪 Rhizo PTX
Sector: Green Chemistry | Industrial Decarbonization | Deep Tech
HQ: United Kingdom
Round: Pre-Seed/Early Seed - £2M equity (+£700k Innovate UK grant)
Traction: 2 signed LOIs including a 10,000 t/y Chemelot deployment finalizing, 3 wastewater LOIs in progress (Ofwat, Anglian Water, Surrey Wildlife Trust); backed by Zinc VC and Innovate UK; Oxford collaboration; founding team of ex-Ceres Power electrochemists plus an ex-Shell/BP chairman.

Opportunity: Single-step Direct Aqueous Electrosynthesis produces green ammonia on-site, on-demand at $550/tonne — no hydrogen step, no supply chain, no geopolitical risk — a 45% cost advantage over the €1,000/t imported benchmark. Targets industrial chemical buyers (plastics, rubber, resin, nylon) facing acute Scope 3 and CBAM pressure amid a 7.2M t/y European ammonia supply deficit by 2030.

Rhizo PTX

♻️ Ionic Desalination

Sector: Water & Desalination | Clean Energy | Agriculture HQ: United States Round: Seed 3.5€M ($4M) Traction: $6M+ raised from HNWIs and strategic partners including a major citrus grower; University of Tennessee validated, commercial pilots launching 2026.

Opportunity: Ionic’s membrane-based desalination system extracts freshwater from saline sources using low-grade heat or solar, at 25% of the cost of reverse osmosis. First commercial pilots launching 2026 across agriculture, brine management, and mine de-watering.

View Ionic & Contact

👉 To connect with the founders just reply to this newsletter, or email them directly by logging in as an investor on Climate Marketplace.

Subscribe now

“Through Climate Marketplace, we connected with multiple relevant climate investors and generated valuable conversations during our raise. We’re now progressing to our next round and would recommend the platform to other climate founders looking for targeted investor access.”

- Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO — Sunnified

“The Green Techpreneur brings together people who believe that technology and sustainability must advance together. For Swiss Vault, it’s been inspiring to connect with investors and partners who share our vision. We’ve met a number of investors and partners through the Climate Marketplace platform, which has opened up new opportunities for our development.”

- Bhupinder Bhullar, CEO — Swiss Vault

“Climate Marketplace creates a dedicated space for climate-focused founders within a growing impact ecosystem. I value the intention behind building a platform specifically for climate-driven businesses and the importance of strengthening these channels over time.” - Beatriz Ovalle, Founder — O

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of verified climate investors.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

“July is hot afternoons and sultry nights and mornings when its joy just to be alive. July is a picnic and a red canoe and a sunburned neck and a softball game and ice tinkling in a tall glass. July is a blind date with summer.”
— Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Only 2% of VC-backed founders ever ring the IPO bell. Michael Oster belongs to the 2% - he took a battery storage company to NASDAQ. Now he’s betting the same playbook can fix the 70-year-old technology gap standing between the world and usable water.

Four billion people now live somewhere water-stressed for at least part of the year. One in four cities already faces water insecurity. This is not a shortage of water - the earth has plenty of seawater as evidenced by our rising oceans. It is a shortage of pure water usable for crops, drinking, and even for industry, visible in our depleting ground water aquifers. And according to the World Economic Forum, global freshwater demand is on track to outstrip supply by 40% before the end of this decade - a gap that leaves an estimated 1.6 billion people without safely managed drinking water and a scary proportion of farmland that loses productivity or use at all. This isn’t a future problem. It’s a present-tense infrastructure deficit, and it’s getting worse every year.

Reverse osmosis (RO) - the technology the world leans on for water scarcity - has barely changed since the 1950s. Seventy years and billions of dollars have made the membranes better, but not the economics: high-pressure pumps, heavy electricity demand, capital costs that only pencil out for drinking water in wealthy countries.

Push RO toward agriculture, industrial water, or highly saline brine, and the math that works for a city’s tap water falls apart. The global desalination market is still set to roughly double by the early 2030s - proof the demand is there. It just can’t all be met by the technology currently serving it.

So why is Michael Oster - who took Eos Energy Enterprises from inception to NASDAQ, and whose team built Convergent Energy and Power into a $1 billion-plus energy asset business - choosing to spend his next chapter on water, instead of staying in the energy storage market he already knows how to win?

What does a battery storage entrepreneur see in desalination that the incumbents don’t?

Ionic’s bet is a working fluid, invented by CTO and co-founder George Adamson, that behaves like a liquid sponge. The company is targeting the huge swathe of agricultural and industrial water use that RO has always priced itself out of. A commercial-scale pilot is going in later this year in Almería, Spain, one of the most water-stressed agricultural regions in Europe.

We asked Michael to walk us through why RO hit a ceiling, what Ionic’s chemistry actually does differently, and what happens to the world’s water problem if this works at scale.

Subscribe now

♻️ Ionic Desalination

Sector: Water & Desalination | Clean Energy | Agriculture HQ: United States Round: Seed 3.5€M ($4M) Traction: $6M+ raised from HNWIs and strategic partners including a major citrus grower; University of Tennessee validated, commercial pilots launching 2026.

Opportunity: Ionic’s membrane-based desalination system extracts freshwater from saline sources using low-grade heat or solar, at 25% of the cost of reverse osmosis. First commercial pilots launching 2026 across agriculture, brine management, and mine de-watering.

View Ionic & Contact

👉 View Ionic’s investment opportunity, to connect with the founders just reply to this newsletter, or email them directly on Climate Marketplace.

Water is a very different bet from energy storage. What made you look at desalination and decide this was where you needed to go next?

It is important to build something meaningful for the world: we like multi-hundred-billion-dollar industries where the legacy technologies have not evolved to match the critical nature and scale of the problem. Energy storage was certainly one, and water desalination is another one clearly.

This solution is also rooted in chemistry, which is our core competence. Our partner/co-founder George Adamson thinks about things in a unique way, and when he had some novel and compelling ideas about water a little over a half dozen years ago, I always find his enthusiasm to be exciting.

Your CTO George Adamson holds a PhD in Chemistry from MIT and invented the Eos zinc/saltwater battery technology. What was the scientific insight that made you believe you could unlock something RO never could?

We start by deeply understanding the problem and its limiting factors - if water is the issue, energy is often the constraint. You can’t assume someone else will supply all the energy you need. But Mother Nature has fewer limitations: thermal energy is abundant (more so in hot summers, exactly when water demand is highest in scarce regions), even though electrical energy is constrained and used elsewhere during those times. The wise move is to sync the type and amount of energy used with what’s naturally already available.

From there, we look to history - what smart people already figured out that’s newly relevant given today’s bigger problem and modern materials science. Older working fluids absorbed less than 10% of their weight and needed a larger temperature swing to move from absorption to desorption. George’s working fluid absorbs 400%, with a fraction of that temperature differential - turning liquid extraction (once too expensive to be viable) into something far cheaper than RO is today.

What did you get wrong early on - an assumption about the technology, the market, or the customer - that cost you time and forced you to rethink?

That’s an interesting question which gets at the heart of our invention philosophy… Edison famously expressed, and I’m paraphrasing: I have not failed a thousand times. I have successfully found 1,000 ways that won’t work. In other words, it’s a process and it can only be successful if you take risks, which means you cannot avoid mistakes. Rather you should embrace and learn from them.

Our variation on Edison’s philosophy is that it is necessary to fail - just fail quickly and cheaply, and learn from it. We fail at things every day, but one breakthrough can create far more value than a thousand quick and cheap failures would cost.

There is another element that we consider that I have learned from George. Scientists often don’t understand truly and fully why things don’t work. The cause might seem obvious which then shifts the risk-averse inventor to a safer direction; but dive deeper and you often find a different problem and therefore a whole new solution set.

If Ionic works - really works, at scale - what changes in the world?

At large enough scale, water could cease to be a limiting factor in the process of human flourishing. Water is a big problem for many people at least part of the year. You will see statistics that billions of people already suffer from water scarcity for several months every year.

In parallel crops also suffer from water scarcity and diminished water quality, so we will have difficulty feeding our population. It is happening today in regions that may not be as visible to many of us and it is also happening in developed countries where economic realities do not allow the use of water in all regions.

How do you get from lab numbers to a system a Spanish farmer is actually willing to sign a 15-to-35-year water purchase agreement with?

Our special fluid acts like a liquid sponge: it soaks up pure water from saltwater when cool, then releases it when warmed slightly - using only small amounts of low-grade ambient heat. Since the fluid separates naturally from water once warm, it can be reused continuously.

We’ve proven the breakthroughs in the lab - absorption performance, independent salt-rejection validation - but lab results don’t get farmers to sign long-term water deals. Field proof does: quality, reliability, safety, economics. That’s why our Almería deployment matters.

We’re moving from chemistry to system engineering, with partners on board for manufacturing and finance, and expect to demonstrate real-world performance by late this year with our first commercial-scale system in Spain, in a region that knows water stress firsthand.

Why do you offer Water-as-a-Service, and what makes the business model work right now?

Most clients already treat water as an operating cost, so we meet them there instead of asking them to buy a new, unproven asset. With no upfront capital cost, there’s less risk for the client, more upside for us, and a clear incentive for us to keep the system running well over its whole life.

Why launch in Spain’s agricultural water market?

Spain is one of the world’s largest agricultural markets, producing about a quarter of Europe’s high-value fruit and veg, with a climate for multiple harvests a year. The problem is usable water is scarce and getting pricier. We can supply it far cheaper than current costs while still earning strong returns for investors.

Spain also has the institutional financing to support assets like ours at scale, and regulators and clients there already understand desalinated water. It’s our first market, but the model is built to go global from here.

What’s the critical path to your scale-up vision, and the biggest risk?

Once we demonstrate the first system in the field – its performance, manufacturing cost, a resulting real order book - we’ll have shown the model scales. We’ve already proven the technology at smaller scale, so the remaining risk is engineering for volume manufacturing. That just needs strong partners, not new invention.

Picking the right partners and aligning incentives is key to growing fast and profitably as a young company. We’re not trying to be everything to everyone - our core business is pulling water out of salt water. The same chemistry applies whether we’re turning brackish groundwater into irrigation water or concentrating hyper-saline brine that RO can’t handle, so it works for industrial users too.

What do investors consistently misunderstand about Ionic - the objection or misframing you have to correct before the real conversation can start?

Investors often default to thinking of desalination for drinking water and don’t understand the scale of agricultural or industrial water consumption. They also tend to benchmark against reverse osmosis on all specifications when many applications do not need the same kind of water specs as drinking water. The real conversation starts when investors understand that

Ionic is not trying to replace RO everywhere for every use case; we are targeting the applications where our technology provides the client with what is needed at a fraction of the cost.

What is your actual investable thesis in three sentences - the version that makes the right investor lean in?

Why has capital been so slow to back genuinely new desalination technology, and what’s changing?

Capital - institutional, conglomerate, even venture - is risk-averse and craves scale, preferring technologies already proven in the field.

That leaves the earliest, riskiest stages to individuals and startups, and it’s rare to find a team experienced enough to take a technology from concept to scale, let alone one willing to bridge those early stages with its own resources.

You’ve taken a battery chemistry company from inception to a NASDAQ listing. What is the one lesson that you’re applying most deliberately to building Ionic?

In the early stages of a deep tech company, the biggest risk is capital raising risk. The main lesson is not to grow beyond your capacity to fund until you have the right financial and strategic partners.

You need to be ambitious about the mission but disciplined about burn, milestones, and when to scale the organization. Advancing at each stage removes a set of risks and takes the company closer to deploying at scale which liberates capital access.

You know what it takes to go from a lab bench to a listed company. Does that make starting again easier, or does knowing exactly how hard it gets make it harder?

They trust our integrity and ability. Importantly, they trust our stability to push through the tough weeks and months during the thousands of failures, which is the only way you get to the big successes.

What do you think most deep-tech founders underestimate about the gap between a validated lab result and a commercially deployable system, and what does it actually take to close it?

Founders often expect capital to sprint in after a proof of concept - but it only comes once you’ve pushed further than most investors’ risk tolerance allows, so spend your scarce resources like a poor founder in a garage. Just know that this scrappy instinct can become too automatic, so recognizing when to step back and elevate the next generation of management is a test most managers never face.

Rapid Fire

Mantra or line you come back to when it gets hard?

Fail quick and fail cheap, and we will only be mad if you blame someone else. If today has been a tough day, go home and push the reset button - tomorrow must be better. If it is not, lather/rinse/repeat.

One daily habit or ritual that keeps you sharp?

Balance is key. Exercise. Spend time with friends. Be outside as much as you can. An exhausted mind cannot be as objective or creative.

Who are your role models?

It is the people who do the right things for the right reasons. I am more impressed by a committed youth coach or a kind police officer than I am by a billionaire.

Do you have a favourite quote or motto?

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas Edison

Subscribe now

“Through Climate Marketplace, we connected with multiple relevant climate investors and generated valuable conversations during our raise. We’re now progressing to our next round and would recommend the platform to other climate founders looking for targeted investor access.”

- Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO — Sunnified

“The Green Techpreneur brings together people who believe that technology and sustainability must advance together. For Swiss Vault, it’s been inspiring to connect with investors and partners who share our vision. We’ve met a number of investors and partners through the Climate Marketplace platform, which has opened up new opportunities for our development.”

- Bhupinder Bhullar, CEO — Swiss Vault

“Climate Marketplace creates a dedicated space for climate-focused founders within a growing impact ecosystem. I value the intention behind building a platform specifically for climate-driven businesses and the importance of strengthening these channels over time.” - Beatriz Ovalle, Founder — O

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of verified climate investors.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

“July is hollyhocks and hammocks, fireworks and vacations, hot and steamy weather, cool and refreshing swims, beach picnics, and vegetables all out of the garden.”— Jean Hersey

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

$2.3 billion. That’s how much private capital has poured into direct air capture over the past decade, spread across more than 165 companies racing to build machines that pull carbon dioxide straight from the atmosphere.

Yet the industry’s journey has been defined as much by setbacks as breakthroughs. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy cancelled close to $1 billion in funding for flagship DAC hubs, including Project Cypress in Louisiana. Years earlier, Global Thermostat’s highly anticipated Alabama demonstration plant was shut down after failing to achieve its promised 4,000-tonne annual capture target.

Today, removing a tonne of CO₂ from the atmosphere still costs between $400 and $1,500. After a decade of innovation and billions invested, the economics have stubbornly refused to break through.

According to Cory Sanderson, co-founder of Sustaera, the industry’s failure was not that direct air capture was impossible - it was that the industry pursued the wrong blueprint: “the potential and promise are still true, but the approach has been wrong.”

That conviction comes from experience. Cory spent 17 years at Air Products working on CO₂ sorbent technologies, where he repeatedly saw a familiar challenge: promising chemistry alone was not enough. Many systems became too complex, too energy-intensive, or too expensive to scale.

The broader DAC industry followed a similar pattern - taking promising sorbents and solvents from the lab and integrating them into chemical engineering architectures borrowed from oil and gas, treating capture and release as separate systems and chasing incremental improvements in material performance rather than fundamentally rethinking how energy was applied to the process. Many also built projects far from where captured CO₂ could be permanently stored, creating additional infrastructure and permitting challenges.

For Cory, the answer was not another small improvement. It was a complete redesign.

Sustaera has developed a fundamentally simpler DAC system that integrates capture and regeneration into a single process, aiming to dramatically reduce equipment complexity and cost.

Against the odds, Cory is pushing direct air capture innovation forwards: “I focus on my kids and my strong desire for them to have a healthy, habitable environment for them to have the same or better experiences that I’ve been able to have.”

Sustaera has a lower-capital, more scalable business model: it’s not planning to own and operate carbon removal plants itself. Instead, it sells the equipment to developers building those facilities. The company already has commercial relationships with Deep Sky and Return Carbon, representing a $59 million near-term pipeline, with first revenue expected in Q2 2027.

The stakes could not be higher. The world is expected to require billions of tonnes of carbon removal each year by the second half of the century, and many climate experts believe direct air capture will need to play a role.

The question is no longer whether the world needs DAC, it is whether someone can finally make it work.

We asked Cory to explain why previous generations of DAC struggled, what Sustaera is doing differently, and whether the industry can still deliver on its original promise.

Subscribe now

♻️ Sustaera is Raising:
Direct Air Capture | Carbon Removal | Climate Hardware
📍 United States | 💰 Series A Extension, €5.3M

The opportunity:
A next-generation DAC system targeting 3–5× lower costs by eliminating steam infrastructure. Backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Grantham with $6.46M raised, 7 patents filed, and a $700M commercial pathway by 2032. A validation unit is set to deploy with Deep Sky in Q4 2026.

👉 View Sustaera’s investment opportunity and contact the founders on Climate Marketplace, or reply to this newsletter for a direct intro.

You spent 17 years deep inside CO₂ sorbent projects at Air Products. What did you see from that vantage point that most people on the outside couldn’t?

The technology to capture CO₂ from point sources has worked for years. The problem was never simply the chemistry; it was the economics and infrastructure. Most CO₂ sources - power plants, refineries, and chemical facilities - were built where their products were needed, not where CO₂ could be used or permanently stored. Transportation infrastructure such as pipelines or trucking often became too costly or difficult to permit.

I learned that small improvements of 5–25% to existing approaches would never bridge that gap. I knew CO₂ would become a critical commodity in the future, but the existing approaches to capture weren’t going to deliver at the scale or cost the world needed.

When we were developing dual-functional materials with Columbia University to capture and convert CO₂ in situ, the economics simply didn’t work. That forced us to ask a different question: what if we focused solely on direct air capture and designed backwards from the cost target needed to make it viable?

Once we identified a realistic path to achieve those economics, we knew we had something worth building.

Help us understand the core problem in plain language. Why has DAC been so expensive and difficult to scale?

Most DAC approaches took promising laboratory materials and applied conventional chemical engineering designs borrowed from oil and gas. The result was systems that were too complex, separated CO₂ capture and release into different pieces of equipment, and relied on incremental improvements in sorbent performance rather than fundamentally rethinking how energy was applied to the process.

That approach has not produced costs low enough for a mass market.

Walk us through what Sustaera does differently. Not the technical specification - the “why does this change the equation?” version.

We built the solution from the inside out. By placing the energy for CO₂ release directly next to the sorbent, we can heat the system faster and more efficiently using direct electricity.

Our technology combines adsorption and desorption into a single, electrically conductive structured sorbent. That reduces the complexity of the system and lowers the cost of construction and operation.

The result is a DAC system designed to operate with low-cost renewable electricity, including intermittent excess generation from solar and wind, with the potential to deliver carbon removal at dramatically lower costs. Independent third-party analysis validated the potential for our system to achieve 3–5× lower unit costs than leading DAC approaches.

You chose to sell equipment to carbon removal developers rather than build and operate plants yourself. Why?

One of the biggest lessons we learned from previous technology transitions is that trying to develop a breakthrough technology while simultaneously developing large infrastructure projects can cause companies to lose focus.

As the market matured, independent developers with expertise in building and operating sequestration projects emerged as natural customers for our technology. This allows us to focus on what we do best - advancing the technology and engineering - while serving multiple projects and markets with a lower-risk business model.

You already have commercial relationships with Deep Sky and Return Carbon. What have they taught you about what the market actually needs?

They confirmed that there is still significant demand for DAC credits, but only if the technology can actually deliver.

That means getting costs below roughly $500 per tonne in the near term, with a long-term pathway below $200 per tonne. It also means building systems that can be financed, deployed, and operated reliably in real-world conditions.

What needs to happen between now and first revenue?

Fundraising is our immediate priority to maintain our commercialization timeline. We are also focused on scaling manufacturing of our conductive structured sorbent and developing strategic partnerships.

Once we deliver our first commercial equipment systems, we expect Sustaera to become profitable and self-sustaining, allowing us to grow without requiring significant additional equity financing.

Every early-stage company reaches a point where it has to make a difficult decision. What was that moment for Sustaera?

In 2024, we realized the first-generation product we had spent years developing was not good enough to meet the market requirements.

We made the difficult decision to pivot toward our current nano-structured generation, which we believed was necessary to remain competitive.

What has been the hardest call you have had to make as a founder?

Laying off key contributors and early employees when funding was insufficient to support the full team.

Every person who has worked at Sustaera has contributed to where the company is today, so letting talented and passionate people go has been one of the hardest parts of the journey.

DAC as a sector has taken significant credibility hits. What do investors and the market still get wrong?

Many assume that our technology is just an incremental improvement on previous DAC attempts or that the market for DAC credits will never grow enough to justify the investment.

But the future of DAC requires a genuine breakthrough in cost and performance. The sector will regain credibility when technologies prove they can deliver real carbon removal at the costs and reliability the market demands.

There are over 100 DAC companies today, but there will not be 100 winners. Consolidation is necessary and healthy for the industry to mature.

If Sustaera succeeds at the scale you envision, what does that future look like?

You could have done many things with your career. Why is this mission worth the sacrifice?

We have built a society that extracts enormous value from fossil fuels and releases the consequences into a place where it becomes harmful to humanity.

We need to change that system if we want to continue thriving within our planet’s boundaries. I believe I have the skills to contribute to that change, and when I think about my children and wanting them to experience the same or better world than I have, it makes the sacrifice of my time and energy worth it.

Rapid Fire

A mantra you keep coming back to?

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Where does your optimism still come from?

The nerdy stuff - the data we have generated, the engineering studies we have completed, the progress with our commercial partners, and the conversations with investors and mentors who understand our differentiation and believe in the future we are trying to build.

Is there a book you recommend other climate founders read?

For climate action: Cheaper, Faster, Better by Tom Steyer.

For climate fiction: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

And for founders: Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance On You by Suneel Gupta.

…………………………..If you could teleport yourself into the future and be anywhere, doing anything - where would you be, and why?

“Surfing in Hawaii with my family (current and future) on the beach or in the water with me in 2050 when we’ve transitioned to a sustainable economy and balanced emissions with removals.”

Subscribe now

“Through Climate Marketplace, we connected with multiple relevant climate investors and generated valuable conversations during our raise. We’re now progressing to our next round and would recommend the platform to other climate founders looking for targeted investor access.”

- Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO — Sunnified

“The Green Techpreneur brings together people who believe that technology and sustainability must advance together. For Swiss Vault, it’s been inspiring to connect with investors and partners who share our vision. We’ve met a number of investors and partners through the Climate Marketplace platform, which has opened up new opportunities for our development.”

- Bhupinder Bhullar, CEO — Swiss Vault

“Climate Marketplace creates a dedicated space for climate-focused founders within a growing impact ecosystem. I value the intention behind building a platform specifically for climate-driven businesses and the importance of strengthening these channels over time.” - Beatriz Ovalle, Founder — O

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Airbuild Inc (Utah, United States) – decentralised wastewater-to-biochar platform converting nutrient pollution into fertiliser, carbon credits, and EPA compliance (€2.7M Seed).

CircKit (Manchester, UK) – AI-powered circular toolkit built to unf*ck fashion & footwear (€400K Seed).

Ionic Desalination (Greeneville, TN, United States) – solar-powered desalination at 25% of the cost of reverse osmosis, delivering Water-as-a-Service for the $50Bn+ agricultural water market (€3.5M Seed).

Biochar Meridian (Mbombela, South Africa) – mobile cluster model unlocking carbon income for 700+ macadamia farms across South Africa (€121K Pre-seed).

Starstone Biomaterials (Rehovot, Israel) – biogenic cement platform replacing kilns and quarries with scalable low-energy biomineralisation technology (€900K Pre-seed).

MODM Limited / DWTurbine (Hong Kong) – concealed blade ducted wind turbine replacing conventional horizontal-axis turbines with large rotating blades (€1.11M Seed).

Rhizo PTX (Guildford, UK) – patented one-step electrochemical technology producing cheaper green ammonia directly from air, water, and electrons (€2.3M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of verified climate investors.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

“June is the time for being in the world in new ways, for throwing off the cold and dark spots of life.”
— Joan D. Chittister

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Walk into any dental clinic on any given morning and the ritual is the same. Gloves on, light adjusted - and a disposable paper mask pulled from a box that looks almost identical to the one used a century ago. By lunchtime it’s clinical waste.

GP and dental practices discard around 4 billion masks a year. Each one takes 450 years to break down, shedding microplastics the whole time. And in real-world conditions - not lab conditions - surgical masks filter as little as 10 to 15% of airborne particles. The global medical mask market is worth €14.8 billion, and it has seen almost no fundamental product innovation in a hundred years.

Benny Shoham noticed. A serial founder with 25 filed patents and a background spanning hardware, medtech, and controlled-environment agriculture, he’d spent years working with Negative Air Ion (NAI) technology when a conversation with a dentist changed everything. The dentist had shut his clinic for a week after catching flu from a patient. He’d been pulling his mask down during long procedures because of heat and fogging - choosing comfort over protection because the mask forced him to.

That conversation revealed a serious problem facing healthcare professionals using masks. Benny believed he could build a better solution, and SCUDOdoc was born: the world’s first digitally controlled ion-plasma filter mask.

In lab tests, SCUDOdoc's mask filters out 93.6% of harmful particles - even when air pollution is three times worse than the legal indoor limit - compared to 71.6% for the best N95 mask tested under the same conditions. Customers pay around €400 per reusable mask per year - this saves money and prevents millions of single-use masks landing in landfill. The initial target market is France's 47,000 private dental practices. SCUDOdoc is raising $2 million in pre-seed funding.

We sat down with Benny to hear the full story.

Subscribe now

Explain negative air ion technology to someone who has never heard of it.

Negative Air Ions (NAIs), which are released naturally in forests, are charged molecules that SCUDOdoc generates at high density to actively inactivate and remove airborne particles, pollen, and viruses rather than simply trapping them in a filter.

They work by damaging viral protein envelopes through oxidation and electrostatic forces and causing particles to clump together and fall out of the air. Independent studies in Japan and Europe have shown strong results, including rapid inactivation of major respiratory viruses and more than 99% removal of airborne pollen and allergens in both lab and real-world conditions.

Take us back to the beginning. You were building NAI-based solutions - what made you think this technology could be applied to face masks?

The optimism comes from proof-of-concept data and years of direct experience working with ion-plasma and NAI systems. In my previous venture, GreenOnyx, NAI was used in our novel QantumFarm indoor farming platform, where it showed strong air-sanitising performance against viruses, bacteria, and airborne fungi while also improving plant growth rates.

During early proof-of-concept testing, the NAI-based filter was tested at three times the EPA maximum indoor air-particle threshold. The device achieved more than 90% particle filtration and outperformed the best high-grade protected face masks (N95s) tested under the same conditions, which reached 70%. That result changed the question from whether the technology could work to why no one had yet turned it into a clinical wearable product.

The likely answer was simple: no one had seriously attempted to miniaturize NAI into a commercially viable mask format.

Surgical masks filter as low as 10–15% in real-world conditions. Why has this gap been tolerated for so long?

Medical masks have historically been assessed against laboratory standards that measure filtration in controlled, static conditions rather than during a full clinical shift.

The gap between certified performance and real-world protection was difficult to measure at scale, and certification frameworks were not built to capture it. Greater scrutiny during and after COVID-19 brought that gap into sharper focus. SCUDOdoc addresses this by treating filtration as an active, continuously operating system rather than a passive barrier.

This is your third startup as co-founding CEO. What did you get wrong before that you’re doing differently now?

In earlier ventures, regulatory compliance was treated as something to address after the technology had been validated. In medtech, that approach is a mistake because the regulatory path helps define the product itself.

With SCUDOdoc, the CE and MDR pathways were mapped before finalising the product architecture. The second change was go-to-market discipline: instead of chasing the broadest possible use case, the focus is on a precise first segment - the French private dental sector.

Who is your initial customer, and what does the purchasing decision actually look like?

The initial customer is the owner-operator of a private dental clinic in Europe, with general practitioners as a possible next segment. For that buyer, the decision is direct: adopt SCUDOdoc through an annual upgrade program priced to match the clinic’s existing yearly spend on disposable masks while delivering better protection, greater comfort, higher operational efficiency, and no clinical waste.

There is no long hospital procurement cycle or committee approval process; it is a single professional purchase based on performance, cost, and values alignment.

Traction & Business Model

You’re pre-seed, seeking $2 million. Where is the product at today?

SCUDOdoc has a proof-of-concept device that has completed bench-level filtration testing under controlled conditions. At three times the EPA indoor maximum, the device achieved 93.6% particle filtration, compared with 71.6% for the best N95 tested under the same conditions. What has not yet been completed is independent third-party certification or the CE/MDR filing process.

The $2 million pre-seed round is intended to fund independent validation, begin regulatory submissions, and deploy the first pilot units with EU clinical partners.

The device is priced to sit within the annual disposable-mask spend of a typical dental or GP professional, which for N95 masks is between €500 to €1,000 per year. The ECO loyalty program frames that spend as an annual upgrade: the clinician returns the previous device, it is refurbished and donated, and the user receives an updated unit. Because the product is built around miniaturised electronics and a recyclable frame rather than consumable media, its cost structure is fundamentally different from conventional masks. The target gross margin of roughly 90% reflects commercial-scale production, not current prototype economics.

You chose to start with private dental clinics in France. Why France, why dental, why private?

Those three choices reinforce each other:

• Dental practice creates some of the highest aerosol exposure in clinical care.

• Private clinics have faster purchasing autonomy than public or institutional buyers.

• France is the largest private dental market in Europe, with about 47,000 private dentists - which also creates a practical path into the wider EU market.

Together, these factors make private dental clinics in France the most efficient beachhead for both clinical evidence generation and commercial traction.

What do investors consistently misunderstand when they look at SCUDOdoc?

The most common misread is to see SCUDOdoc as a conventional PPE company. Traditional PPE is a low-margin, high-volume commodity business with supply concentrated in Asian manufacturing.

SCUDOdoc is positioned instead as a patent-protected medtech platform with recurring revenue, active filtration technology, and a very different margin profile. Establishing that distinction early is essential to a serious investor conversation.

What is your actual investable thesis?

The global medical mask market is a €14.8 billion category with limited fundamental product innovation in the past century, despite the growing disparity between certified performance and real-world protection.

SCUDOdoc replaces a disposable commodity with a reusable active-filtration device that aims to surpass existing masks, reduce the lifetime cost for clinical practices, and mitigate the environmental impact of non-recyclable PPE waste.

It adheres to key ESD criteria by addressing a highly contaminating product with a clean one that can be profitably manufactured locally, thereby freeing our healthcare system from the dependency on inexpensive, highly polluting imports.

GP and dental clinics discard around 4 billion masks a year — hazardous waste breaking down into microplastics for 450 years. What does that number mean to you personally?

The number reflects a deep contradiction: clinicians work every day to protect health, yet the tools they rely on also contribute to long-term environmental harm. Four billion masks a year from GP and dental practices alone, each persisting as microplastic pollution for centuries, is not a marginal problem.

Why do you feel it’s essential that your innovation exists in the world?

Clinical professionals carry a disproportionate airborne exposure risk over the course of their careers. The tools available to them today still leave a measurable gap between expected protection and actual protection. SCUDOdoc’s purpose is to close that gap with a device that also avoids creating a lasting environmental burden. Protection and sustainability should not be trade-offs.

What is the one lesson from building hardware companies that every early-stage hardware founder should hear?

The gap between a working prototype and a reliable product in the hands of a real customer is usually larger and more expensive than founders expect.

Across multiple ventures and 25 filed patents, the consistent pattern is that the decisive challenge is rarely the core engineering alone; it is the stretch between technical validation and operational deployment.

That includes regulatory timelines, supply-chain assumptions, and adoption cycles that are often modelled too optimistically. The key discipline is to map that full path honestly and fund it adequately.

Rapid Fire:

A favourite mantra?

What if we fail? Right - but what if we fly?

One daily habit that keeps you sharp?

Find your north and remember why you are doing this.

If you could teleport yourself into the future and be anywhere, doing anything - where would you be, and why?

Most likely still happily working on a new ‘Zero to One’ venture from a coffee shop in Tokyo, a city I feel at home in after living there for many years, I often re-visit and it’s also where I incepted SCUDO.

SCUDOdoc is one of the more genuinely novel hardware plays I've come across - active filtration in a space that hasn't changed in a century. If you'd like an introduction to Benny, just reply to this newsletter.

Subscribe now

“Through Climate Marketplace, we connected with multiple relevant climate investors and generated valuable conversations during our raise. We’re now progressing to our next round and would recommend the platform to other climate founders looking for targeted investor access.”

- Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO — Sunnified

“The Green Techpreneur brings together people who believe that technology and sustainability must advance together. For Swiss Vault, it’s been inspiring to connect with investors and partners who share our vision. We’ve met a number of investors and partners through the Climate Marketplace platform, which has opened up new opportunities for our development.”

- Bhupinder Bhullar, CEO — Swiss Vault

“Climate Marketplace creates a dedicated space for climate-focused founders within a growing impact ecosystem. I value the intention behind building a platform specifically for climate-driven businesses and the importance of strengthening these channels over time.” - Beatriz Ovalle, Founder — O

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Airbuild Inc (Utah, United States) – decentralised wastewater-to-biochar platform converting nutrient pollution into fertiliser, carbon credits, and EPA compliance (€2.7M Seed).

CircKit (Manchester, UK) – AI-powered circular toolkit built to unf*ck fashion & footwear (€400K Seed).

Ionic Desalination (Greeneville, TN, United States) – solar-powered desalination at 25% of the cost of reverse osmosis, delivering Water-as-a-Service for the $50Bn+ agricultural water market (€3.5M Seed).

Biochar Meridian (Mbombela, South Africa) – mobile cluster model unlocking carbon income for 700+ macadamia farms across South Africa (€121K Pre-seed).

Starstone Biomaterials (Rehovot, Israel) – biogenic cement platform replacing kilns and quarries with scalable low-energy biomineralisation technology (€900K Pre-seed).

MODM Limited / DWTurbine (Hong Kong) – concealed blade ducted wind turbine replacing conventional horizontal-axis turbines with large rotating blades (€1.11M Seed).

Rhizo PTX (Guildford, UK) – patented one-step electrochemical technology producing cheaper green ammonia directly from air, water, and electrons (€2.3M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of 2,000+ verified climate investors.

We’ve updated our business model so you don’t pay to list on the site or for visibility - only pay when you get real traction and results.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

“June is the time for dreams to take flight and soar into reality.”
– Emma Racine de Fleur

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

By 2030, global water demand is expected to exceed supply by 40%.

Yet the solution to that crisis may already be flowing through our cities’ sewers.

For decades, water has sat quietly in the background of climate conversations, overshadowed by energy, mobility and carbon. But water underpins them all - public health, food production, industry, ecosystems and increasingly the digital economy.

That reality is now catching up with us.

More than two billion people lack access to safe drinking water, while groundwater - which supplies roughly half of the world’s households - is being depleted faster than it can recharge.

At the same time, a new pressure is emerging: AI infrastructure. The rapid expansion of data centres is placing enormous new demand on water systems through cooling and power generation.

In other words, the future of AI is also a water story.

That is why circular water systems - treating wastewater as a resource rather than waste - are becoming one of the most important climate infrastructure solutions of the coming decades.

In this edition of The Green Techpreneur, I spoke with Dr Anand Vashi, Managing Director of Enviro Control — a top-15 global supplier of recycled water projects that has delivered more than 400 water treatment systems across India over the past 45 years.

Dr Anand Vashi has spent much of his career thinking about a resource most people rarely consider until it fails: water.

For more than four decades, Enviro Control has designed and operated treatment plants across India, quietly building one of the world’s largest operational wastewater reuse systems. Now, with a new innovation hub in the UK, Vashi believes the same circular water model could help modernise ageing infrastructure and prepare cities for a more water-constrained future.

Enviro Control has built one of the most compelling circular water stories in the sector - turning sewage into industrial-grade water, municipal revenue and long-term water security.

Subscribe now

How did Enviro Control begin?

Our story started in academia. My father was an environmental engineering professor in the 1970s, when India was industrialising and new environmental laws were coming into force.

Industries began approaching universities for environmental assessments. But soon they started asking a simple question: if you design the treatment plant, who will build it? That led my father to leave academia and start a consultancy. Over time it evolved into designing, constructing and operating treatment plants across India.

What shaped the company’s early growth?

We worked on more than 200 industrial wastewater treatment plants across sectors like textiles, chemicals, fertilisers and pharmaceuticals. Every plant teaches you something new. Wastewater is complex and each stream behaves differently. So sustainability for us didn’t start as a concept. It came from decades of solving real engineering challenges.

When did the big turning point happen?

The major shift came in the mid-1990s when we moved from industrial treatment into municipal wastewater. India produces enormous volumes of sewage, and new regulations created the opportunity to rethink how that water could be treated and reused. That decision shaped the next three decades of our work.

Why do we need to rethink wastewater?

Most people think of wastewater as something to dispose of. But the average person uses about 150 litres of water per day, and 70–80% becomes wastewater. If untreated, it damages rivers and ecosystems. But if treated properly, it becomes a valuable resource.

You’re known for pioneering large-scale water reuse. How does that work?

In the city of Surat we produce 115,000 cubic metres of industrial-grade water every day from treated sewage.

Instead of discharging wastewater into rivers, we treat it using advanced filtration systems until the quality is extremely high. The municipality then sells that recycled water to textile industries. Industries get cheaper water, the city generates revenue, and freshwater resources are protected.

What impact has that model had?

Surat Municipal Corporation has generated more than £50 million in revenue from recycled water. We operate three large reuse plants that have been running successfully for more than five years. This is not a pilot. It’s fully operational infrastructure.

The bigger shift underway

What Enviro Control built in Surat is more than a successful wastewater project. It represents a shift in how cities think about water itself. For decades, wastewater treatment was designed around a simple goal: clean the water enough to discharge it safely.

But in a world of water scarcity, that model is no longer enough. Cities are beginning to treat wastewater as a recoverable resource - one that can supply industries, support new digital infrastructure, and relieve pressure on freshwater systems.

That shift is why water reuse is rapidly moving from experimental sustainability projects to core climate infrastructure. And it is also why companies that have spent decades quietly perfecting these systems are suddenly finding themselves at the centre of the global conversation.

Was there a moment that really tested the system?

Yes. During one of our early plants we discovered illegal industrial discharge entering the sewage network. The plant had been designed for domestic wastewater, but suddenly we were receiving highly acidic industrial effluent.

We could have walked away and said it wasn’t our responsibility. Instead we upgraded the plant at our own cost and solved the problem. That experience shaped our culture - when challenges arise, we stay and fix them.

Enviro Control recently announced a major investment in the UK. Why now?

We have completed more than 400 projects across India, and now we want to make the UK a global platform for innovation. The UK water sector faces several challenges - ageing infrastructure, water scarcity, pollution and emerging contaminants like PFAS. We believe our experience upgrading treatment systems can help address these challenges.

What kind of upgrades are possible without rebuilding infrastructure?

With advanced filtration and ceramic membrane technology we can significantly upgrade existing plants.

For example, we can increase the capacity of a 50 million litre per day plant to 160 million litres without constructing a new facility.

At the same time we improve treatment quality and remove contaminants like PFAS.

PFAS contamination is becoming a major issue globally. What role can your technology play?

We already have systems capable of removing long-chain PFAS using advanced membrane technologies. The bigger challenge is destroying PFAS molecules in a cost-effective way. That is something we hope to solve through research collaborations with UK universities and water utilities.

You’ve also spoken about AI and data centres becoming a water issue. Why?

Large data centres can consume around 19 million litres of water per day. That’s roughly the water demand of a town of 50,000 people.

Water is used for power generation, cooling and maintaining stable processor temperatures. As AI expands globally, that water demand will increase significantly.

What is the most sustainable solution?

“We cannot stop technological progress. AI contributes to economic growth.

But we must balance growth with sustainability.

One of the best solutions is using recycled municipal wastewater for data centre cooling instead of freshwater.

We are already producing industrial-grade recycled water at scale, and it is perfectly suitable for those applications.”

What message would you share with investors?

“Water infrastructure is one of the most critical sectors for the future.

Demand is growing, challenges are increasing, and solutions require long-term thinking.

Investors who support innovation in water treatment and reuse will play a major role in building climate-resilient societies.”

…and to policymakers?

Water infrastructure should be treated as climate-resilient infrastructure. Governments should encourage pilot projects and technology adoption so utilities can implement better solutions faster. The challenges are urgent — but the solutions already exist.

What advice would you give to young climate leaders?

Have perseverance, above all else. Have passion for the problem you are solving and patience to work through complex challenges.

Water infrastructure projects are difficult, but if you combine passion with innovation you can create real impact.

For decades, water infrastructure has been treated as invisible - essential but rarely innovative. But as climate pressures intensify and new industries reshape global demand, water is moving rapidly to the centre of the sustainability conversation.

And if the next decade of climate innovation is about building resilient systems rather than isolated technologies, then circular water infrastructure may prove to be one of the most important foundations of all.

Subscribe now

“Through Climate Marketplace, we connected with multiple relevant climate investors and generated valuable conversations during our raise. We’re now progressing to our next round and would recommend the platform to other climate founders looking for targeted investor access.”

- Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO — Sunnified

“The Green Techpreneur brings together people who believe that technology and sustainability must advance together. For Swiss Vault, it’s been inspiring to connect with investors and partners who share our vision. We’ve met a number of investors and partners through the Climate Marketplace platform, which has opened up new opportunities for our development.”

- Bhupinder Bhullar, CEO — Swiss Vault

“Climate Marketplace creates a dedicated space for climate-focused founders within a growing impact ecosystem. I value the intention behind building a platform specifically for climate-driven businesses and the importance of strengthening these channels over time.” - Beatriz Ovalle, Founder — O

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Airbuild Inc (Utah, United States) – decentralised wastewater-to-biochar platform converting nutrient pollution into fertiliser, carbon credits, and EPA compliance (€2.7M Seed).

CircKit (Manchester, UK) – AI-powered circular toolkit built to unf*ck fashion & footwear (€400K Seed).

Ionic Desalination (Greeneville, TN, United States) – solar-powered desalination at 25% of the cost of reverse osmosis, delivering Water-as-a-Service for the $50Bn+ agricultural water market (€3.5M Seed).

Biochar Meridian (Mbombela, South Africa) – mobile cluster model unlocking carbon income for 700+ macadamia farms across South Africa (€121K Pre-seed).

Starstone Biomaterials (Rehovot, Israel) – biogenic cement platform replacing kilns and quarries with scalable low-energy biomineralisation technology (€900K Pre-seed).

MODM Limited / DWTurbine (Hong Kong) – concealed blade ducted wind turbine replacing conventional horizontal-axis turbines with large rotating blades (€1.11M Seed).

Rhizo PTX (Guildford, UK) – patented one-step electrochemical technology producing cheaper green ammonia directly from air, water, and electrons (€2.3M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of 2,000+ verified climate investors.

We’ve updated our business model so you don’t pay to list on the site or for visibility - only pay when you get real traction and results.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.”
— Emily Brontë

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Two things happened in climate tech this week.

X-energy went public on Nasdaq. The company raised $1B in an upsized IPO, with shares jumping 25% in the first hour of trading. Fervo Energy filed for its own IPO at a ~$3B private valuation. The headlines were celebratory. Climate hardware is back. The IPO window is open.

The same week, Heatmap News published a detailed analysis, drawing on data from Sightline Climate, SVB’s Future of Climate Tech report, and J.P. Morgan, confirming that seed and Series A investment as a share of total climate capital has hit a 10-year low. Early-stage VC funds’ proportion of total climate capital raised has fallen from ~20% in 2021 to under 8% in 2025. Only 39% of climate-focused early-stage VC funds that tried to close last year actually succeeded.

These two facts seem to contradict each other. They don’t.

They describe the same market, from two very different vantage points.

Subscribe now

The K-Shape, Explained

TechCrunch named it well: the climate market is K-shaped. Two tracks, moving in opposite directions simultaneously.

The upward track: nuclear, geothermal, AI-adjacent energy infrastructure, long-duration storage. These are the companies that public markets and large infrastructure funds can underwrite. X-energy and Fervo are the proof. Nearly 28 cents of every climate equity dollar now goes to AI-enabled solutions. Three quarters of new climate fund capital in 2025 went to energy infrastructure. The IPO market is pricing these companies through the lens of AI energy demand, data centres need baseload clean power, and nuclear and geothermal can provide it. That’s a story institutional capital can invest behind.

The downward track: software, agriculture, food systems, industrial materials, the blue economy. Early-stage founders in these sectors are raising in a fundamentally different market. One where only 8% of climate capital reaches them. One where the median fund is smaller, LP patience is shorter, and the bar for commercial traction has doubled since 2021. One where 39% of the funds that were supposed to back them couldn’t even close.

This isn’t bad news for the whole ecosystem. It is, however, bad news for a very large number of founders, and it is being systematically underreported in the coverage of the “climate tech is booming” narrative.

What the data actually shows

$40.5 billion went into global climate tech VC and growth investment in 2025. That sounds significant. But follow the money:

• 42 infrastructure funds raised 75% of all new climate capital

• Seed and Series A combined account for under 8% of that total

• The One Big Beautiful Bill has contracted non-dilutive capital: DOE grants and federal incentive pathways that early-stage founders built into their models have shrunk or disappeared

• 50% of investors now cite regulatory uncertainty as their top threat

The founders most exposed: those who built financial models around IRA incentives that are now partially rolled back, and those raising in sectors where the K-shape is working against them.

Three tactical implications for founders raising right now

1. Know which track you’re on

If you’re building in software, agriculture, or industrial materials, the X-energy IPO is not your story. Retrofitting an AI energy narrative onto your pitch when it doesn’t fit costs you credibility with the exact investors you need. The specialist early-stage climate funds still actively deploying, Footprint Fund I, Burnt Island Ventures, MCJ Collective, Climate Capital Angels, are looking for founders who understand their market clearly.

2. The investor you need is not where you think they are.

The investors still writing early-stage climate cheques in 2026 are not on the first page of Google. They’re specialist, often community-linked, and they discover founders through warm introductions, not cold outreach. The gap between a 2–10% cold response rate and a 10–34%+ warm intro response rate is real and widening. The founders raising in this market are inside the right rooms.

3. Reframe your traction metrics before your next pitch.

Series A companies in 2026 need approximately double the revenue that was required in 2021 before investors commit. If you’re a hardware or deeptech founder who can’t yet show revenue, translate it: pipeline value, letters of intent, pilot agreements, manufacturing progress, offtake conversations. Make the commercial trajectory legible in language investors can underwrite.

What we’re building

The Green Techpreneur’s Climate Marketplace is helping connect qualified climate founders to the investors still actively deploying at seed and pre-seed, through introductions that actually close.

If you’re a climate founder navigating this bifurcated market, your profile belongs on the platform.

Apply via 'sign up' here

“The Climate Marketplace helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

May is the most beautiful month of the year, a month alive with warm colour. The flowers and trees are in full bloom, and even the sun joins this rhapsody by emitting warmer rays. - Lillian Berliner

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

South Africa experienced 332 days of load shedding in 2023, the worst on record, costing the economy an estimated R2.8 trillion. In Johannesburg, almost half of all utility-supplied water is lost through ageing pipes before it reaches a tap.

But this isn’t just a South African story.

In February 2021, a severe winter storm caused Texas’s grid to collapse, leaving millions without power, causing 246 deaths and more than $195 billion in property damage. In April 2025, a sudden cascading failure cut electricity across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France and Germany — Spain alone lost roughly 60% of its power supply in five seconds. Bank of America warns that 30% to 46% of America’s grid infrastructure is now beyond its useful life, and grid reliability is worse today than in the early 2000s.

Blackouts are no longer rare anomalies, they are structural risks. A typical utility experienced more than 1,500 cyberattacks per week in 2024, and the US grid will need to double or triple its transmission capacity by 2050 just to meet growing demand. Meanwhile, globally, more than 2.8 billion people live in inadequate housing, and buildings account for 37% of all CO2 emissions.

Large portions of the world’s centralized infrastructure aren’t just failing slowly. They’re failing now.

Most people are still waiting for someone to fix it. Ansie van Dyk stopped waiting and started building. Vida Nova is her answer: factory-built, modular, fully off-grid homes that assume infrastructure will fail and are designed to function anyway. Each home ships with solar, battery storage, rainwater harvesting, filtration, and SAINT, a proprietary AI platform that monitors and manages the whole system in real time.

The founding team is a family unit, Ansie as CEO, alongside a CFO, COO, and Head of Construction, lean, trusted, and built for the long game. The proof-of-concept is being built on family land in South Africa, with expansion to Canada planned once the first homes are in the ground.

In 2026, Vida Nova won the Global Recognition Award from a field of over 15,000 applicants. Not bad for a company that hasn’t yet broken ground.

Subscribe now

Why did you take the leap into green techpreneurship?

I didn’t start with climate. I started with frustration.

I kept seeing the same contradiction everywhere: housing getting more expensive, infrastructure getting less reliable, and yet we were still building homes like water, power and sanitation were guaranteed forever. They aren’t, especially not in places like South Africa.

The moment it really clicked for me wasn’t dramatic. It was gradual. Watching load shedding become normal. Watching water issues become normal. Watching people accept lower and lower standards while costs kept rising. At some point I just thought: why are we still building houses that depend completely on systems we already know are failing?

The leap wasn’t about confidence. It was about reaching a point where not trying bothered me more than the risk of failing.

You’ve said housing is built for a world that no longer exists. What does that look like on the ground?

It looks like people buying generators because the grid isn’t reliable. Buying water storage tanks because the municipal supply isn’t consistent. Spending money retrofitting homes for problems that should have been solved at the design stage. Vida Nova starts from a different premise: what if instability is the baseline? What would you build then?

Affordability and sustainability are often treated as separate problems. I think that’s a mistake. If it isn’t affordable, it doesn’t scale. If it doesn’t scale, it doesn’t matter.

The pilot homes are on family land. Why structure it that way?

It was intentional from the start. Pilot participants get complete off-grid homes. Vida Nova gets a live laboratory with full control over the build environment and timeline, eliminating the biggest unknown in any construction project before it becomes a commercial one.

What do investors consistently misunderstand about Vida Nova?

A lot of it is pattern recognition. Investors say they want innovation, but they feel safest funding people who look like founders they’ve funded before. If you don’t fit that pattern, you have to be twice as persistent.

SAINT is built and running internally. Both prototype homeowners are confirmed. The Ottawa development has partners lined up and budgets finalised. We’re one funded pilot away from proof.

What would you do differently about fundraising if you were starting again?

Build something physical sooner. Even a small, real thing. Vision convinces some people. Reality convinces everyone.

Have there been moments where you questioned whether to continue?

Absolutely, anyone building something difficult who says otherwise probably isn’t being honest. What kept me going was simple: the problem doesn’t disappear just because I get tired. So the real question became whether I wanted to be someone who stopped or someone who adapted. So far I’ve chosen to adapt.

Where does housing fit in the broader climate transition?

It’s central, and it’s underestimated. Buildings account for 37% of global emissions and we’re still adding to the stock every day with the same design assumptions. We don’t need more concepts designed to look good in presentations. We need solutions designed to survive contact with reality. If the climate transition is going to happen at street level, which is the only level that matters, housing has to change.

Rapid Fire

What’s your Mantra?

Build something real as early as possible. Reality convinces people faster than vision ever will.

Your daily ritual?

Stripping out complexity. Every day, finding the clearest version of the problem I’m solving.

Source of optimism?

There are founders already doing this in harder conditions than mine. If they found a way, I can find a way.

…………...If you could teleport yourself into the future and be anywhere, doing anything, where would you be and why?

In a world where off-grid, resilient housing is the default, not the premium option, not the niche product for the environmentally motivated. Just the sensible way to build a home. Where the question isn’t why would you build a house that doesn’t depend on the grid, but why on earth would you build one that does.

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“The Climate Marketplace helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.”
— Emily Brontë

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

The Microsoft Signal: What the CDR Pause Actually Means

80%

That is the total market share of all contracted carbon removal that Microsoft has purchased. Not twenty. Not forty. Eighty.

This week, Microsoft paused all new carbon removal purchases while it reviews its climate strategy. Contracts already signed continue to be honoured. But no new deals are being written.

That single fact - 80% market concentration in a single corporate buyer - is not a new fact. It has been visible in the CDR market structure for years. What this week revealed is that it was also a risk. A structural risk that almost nobody named plainly while the deals were flowing.

Now it is very plain.

Subscribe now

What actually happened - and why

Microsoft’s pause was first reported by Bloomberg on April 11 and widely confirmed since April 22. The company is reviewing its climate strategy, which sources describe as an internal process with no fixed timeline for resolution.

What Microsoft has not said: they are exiting the carbon removal market.

What Microsoft has said: they are not signing new deals while they review.

The distinction matters. This is not a corporate abandonment of climate commitments. It is a strategic pause, driven by a combination of Microsoft’s growing AI energy demand (which is straining its own net-zero commitments), US policy uncertainty, and the rising bar for proof of carbon durability and permanence in the CDR sector itself.

The pause is not permanent. But its effects are immediate.

Who is most exposed

The CDR startups most acutely affected are those who:

• Built forward revenue projections that depend on new Microsoft contracts signed in 2026

• Have no diversified buyer pipeline beyond Microsoft and its affiliates

• Are approaching a fundraising round where revenue trajectory is a key investor data point

• Are in direct air capture, which Microsoft has favoured disproportionately

The startups least exposed have signed, multi-year offtake agreements already in place (which Microsoft continues to honour), or diversified corporate buyer portfolios across multiple companies and sectors. Climeworks and Varaha - which raised $20M with offtakes from Google, Microsoft, Lufthansa, and Swiss Re - have the kind of diversification that makes a single buyer’s pause survivable. Most smaller CDR startups do not.

What this signals about the voluntary carbon market

The Microsoft pause is not just a CDR story. It is a voluntary carbon market story.

A functional market does not have 80% of its contracted volume running through a single buyer. That is not a market, it is a dependency. And dependencies fail.

The VCM has known this for years. The concentration was visible in the data. What changed this week is that the theoretical risk became concrete operational reality for dozens of CDR startups.

What comes next, in order of likelihood:

What founders should do in the next 90 days

Map your exposure precisely. How much of your projected 2026-2027 revenue runs through Microsoft or Microsoft-affiliated purchasing vehicles? Be exact. Investors will ask.

Diversify your buyer pipeline - now. Google, JPMorgan, Stripe, Shopify, and Swiss Re are actively purchasing carbon removal. None of them are Microsoft, but they are real, contracted demand. Prioritise the conversations that lead to signed offtake, not LOIs.

Communicate proactively with your investors. Do not wait for them to ask about your Microsoft exposure. Send a note this week: here’s our exposure, here’s our plan. Proactive communication in a market shock is a credibility signal, not a weakness.

Reframe your offtake narrative. If you have signed contracts from multiple buyers - even smaller ones - lead with the diversification explicitly. In the current climate, a portfolio of 10 smaller offtakes is a stronger investor story than a single large one from a buyer now under strategic review.

Assess your fundraising timeline. If you are 6-12 months from a raise and a material portion of your revenue trajectory depends on new Microsoft contracts, your investor conversations just became more complex. Address this now, in the model, not in the meeting.

What investors should be asking

If you’re an investor evaluating CDR companies right now:

• What is the company’s direct and indirect exposure to Microsoft as a buyer?

• Does the company have signed, multi-year contracts in place - or forward commitments that require new deals to be signed?

• What is the buyer diversification? How many corporate buyers, across how many sectors?

• What is the company’s runway at current revenue, without new Microsoft contracts?

• What is management’s specific plan for the next 90 days?

The CDR companies worth backing in this environment are the ones whose founders can answer these questions with precision and without hedging.

The Microsoft pause is not the death of carbon removal. The underlying need - for durable, verifiable carbon removal at scale - has not changed. The technology is real. The climate imperative is real.

What changed this week is the market structure. And market structure changes require founder response.

If you’re a CDR founder navigating this, Climate Marketplace can help connect you with the investors who are still active in the space and haven’t changed their thesis.

If you found this useful, forward it to a CDR founder or investor who needs it. The conversation it starts is worth more than the forward.

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“The Climate Marketplace helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Plastics Pirate (Australia) – turning ocean plastic into the fuel that powers ocean recovery and coastal resilience missions (€750K Pre-seed, fundraising from March 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Climate builder moment 🌱

The Microsoft pause revealed something that was always true: 80% of contracted carbon removal ran through a single buyer. That fact was visible in the data for years. It just didn’t feel like a risk while the deals were flowing.

This is one of the quieter dangers in climate building. When something is working, it’s easy to build toward it rather than around it.

So this week, sit with the honest version of these questions: How much of your revenue runs through one relationship? If your biggest buyer paused tomorrow, what’s your runway? Do you have multiple offtake agreements, or one that feels solid? Is your commercial case built on policy tailwinds that could shift — or on fundamentals that hold regardless?

These aren’t comfortable questions. But the founders who survive market shocks are the ones who asked them before the shock arrived.

Take a breath before you react to the news. Then use it as a prompt to stress-test what you’ve built.

The strongest climate companies aren’t the ones that never get hit. They’re the ones built to absorb it.

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.”
— Emily Brontë

Our Audience

What sponsorship gets you

• Qualified reach with people actively reviewing climate deals and opportunities — not a generic business list

• Trust by association — your brand sits alongside content investors and founders already read and respect

• Inbound from a warm, niche audience of decision-makers

• Global credibility across the net-zero ecosystem

Three ways to partner

🌱 Community Supporter — £250 per issue

Ideal for ecosystem partners, service providers and startups

• Logo + spotlight in The Green Techpreneur newsletter

• Reach 6,000 founders, accelerators and ecosystem leaders

🌿 Newsletter Sponsor — £550 per issue

For brands and funds seeking visibility with investors and founders

• Sponsored mention across both newsletters — 16,000 subscribers

• Reach 10,000+ climate investors at 34% open rate

• Logo + link in email

• One featured LinkedIn post promoting the partnership

🌳 Platform Partner — £1,000/month or £10,000/year

Serious, consistent exposure for accelerators, funds and corporates leading climate innovation

• Featured logo on Climate Marketplace

• Two sponsored spotlights per month across both newsletters

• Two LinkedIn Partner Highlight posts per month

• Co-branded founder story or interview feature

• Limited to 2 partners per year

Only one sponsored slot per newsletter issue is available. Slots are allocated first-come, first-served.

Ready to talk?

Drop Marianne a message and she’ll come back to you within 24 hours with availability and next steps.

📩 Get in touch. mailto: hello@climate-marketplace.com.

The Green Techpreneur · Climate Marketplace

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Andres Anijalg was running a $2.3 billion power plant project in the Middle East when he decided to leave it all behind and start making roofs.

Not panels. Roofs. The distinction matters. Roofit.Solar, the Estonian cleantech company he co-founded in 2015, makes building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) roofing - metal panels with solar cells embedded directly into them, designed to replace the roof itself rather than sit on top of it. One product, one installation, a roof that quietly generates electricity without looking like it does.

The market he’s building in is accelerating fast. Valued at $24 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $90 billion by 2030, the BIPV sector is being driven by tightening energy efficiency regulations, rising electricity costs, and a generation of homeowners and architects who are done accepting the trade-off between aesthetics and clean energy. Last year, North America alone was expected to account for 39% of global BIPV adoption - which is precisely why Roofit.Solar has just made its US debut.

In ten years, Roofit.Solar has installed more than 3,000 roofs across 30 countries, grown export volume by 90% in 2024, and raised €6.45 million in Series A funding. It has also won the Red Dot ‘Best of the Best’ design award, hit break-even, restructured its team, and learned some hard lessons about what it actually takes to scale a hardware company. Andres talked us through all of it.

Subscribe now

You left a $2.3 billion power plant project to start making solar roofs. What actually happened?

“The idea started from a very personal need. I was planning a new roof for my own home but didn’t like the ‘spaceship-style’ solar panels typically mounted on top. Around the same time, I met a scientist who had built exactly the kind of integrated solar roof I had imagined, in his garage. That moment didn’t feel like a coincidence. It felt like the beginning of something.

Professionally, the timing also made sense. I was working as CEO on that power plant project in the Middle East, but by then solar had already become significantly cheaper than fossil energy and was clearly scaling fast. I decided to leave that role and start building something from scratch.

You’ve just hit ten years - in a sector where many startups haven’t survived. What’s been the defining difference?

One element is simple: clean energy hardware companies need patience. It always feels like you can be growing faster, but successful scaling takes time and the right approach.

Another aspect is that some hardware startups are trying to disrupt their industries from the outside, competing with tradition instead of collaborating. We learned along the way that we should be trying to develop our offering from the inside - by engaging those already operating in the solar industry, installers, architects and roofers, we’ve been able to educate the market more broadly and help it evolve to meet innovation, rather than trying to force change.

You focus heavily on aesthetics - how important is design in driving adoption beyond early adopters?

The benefit of choice certainly helps the developing solar market reach a wider audience, and the appearance of our roofs is what helps us get noticed. It’s an example of solar being done differently and exceeding expectations.

While well-designed solar needn’t be a luxury, solar that looks good almost makes it aspirational to those who appreciate aesthetics but aren’t so swayed by the environmental or energy cost saving elements. It also helps architects, who increasingly have energy efficiency criteria to meet but are often keen to explore the most aesthetically pleasing solutions.

Nevertheless, most homeowners who reach us are actually not specifically interested in a beautiful solar roof, they just want a new roof. However, when they find out that their new roof can also generate clean energy and look discreet and stylish, Roofit.Solar becomes more interesting. Solar roofing is clearly being increasingly considered alongside standard roofing options, rather than as a specialist solution only for those with an interest in clean energy.

“Solar doesn’t have to mean compromising on aesthetic standards anymore.”

What did you get wrong in the early years that shaped how you build the company today?

We tried to grow too fast. We hoped to replicate the 3x annual growth that many software companies had achieved, but soon realised that it’s a different ball game with a hardware company. This influenced our spending decisions and, with the best intentions, we hired too many people too quickly and then had to do what no founder wants to - letting some go later down the line. We took our learning from that, restructured our whole operations and managed to reach break-even in 2025.

Was there a moment where you genuinely thought Roofit.Solar wouldn’t make it?

You made a strategic shift from selling direct to homeowners to selling through distribution partners. What triggered that?

As we scaled internationally, selling direct to homeowners became a bottleneck — the communication and customer care became too taxing for our team. We would have needed many more employees at a time when we actually needed to be making the team leaner.

You’ve recently entered the US market with UL certification - why now, and why the US?

The US is one of the largest roofing markets globally. It has consistently been the biggest source of inbound enquiries from homeowners, even before we expanded there. The only reason we didn’t enter the market earlier is because we simply lacked the resources and funding to gain the necessary certifications and invest in the move.

However, the existing market demand combined with the opportunity to work with an on-the-ground distribution partner, ArcEdge, which had shown serious interest in officially partnering, made now a perfect time to finally move in. We’re now at ten roofs installed in the US with many more in progress.

How different is the US market compared to Europe?

The US has always been quite a strong market for solar roofing and the market is moving faster commercially than it is in Europe. With Tesla being a household name and supplier of integrated solar roofing, the market is more educated on the 2-in-1 integrated solar roofing solution and, it seems, open to innovation and adopting new ideas when it comes to clean energy.

There has been some evolution though - cheap materials have been popular for replacing roofs in the US historically, but consumers are realising that, with the 2-in-1 solution, making more of an investment now helps the roof to last longer and be resilient against extreme weather.

What have investors consistently misunderstood about your business?

Many investors we’ve spoken to over the years understand hardware well, and yet have not invested in us. Hardware takes longer to scale and is more capital intensive, which makes it harder to convince investors. The stumbling blocks have not been so much to do with the technical aspects of our solution, but more in explaining the operational challenges of gaining certifications, building supply chains and training installers.

Of the investors who have invested into Roofit.Solar, around a third actually have their own Roofit.Solar roof. Some got their solar roof installed and then came to us asking to invest because they could see for themselves how it looked. The difference with those who did invest was that they had a belief both in the product and in the vision that the future will be roofs that become power plants, and trusted our team to deliver.

What actually makes a climate hardware company investable today?

It’s a combination of things. In the early stages, it’s about storytelling and building trust - making investors see and believe in your vision and ability to deliver on it as a team. Then, as your business grows, you need to be able to demonstrate viability and potential with real numbers: margins, market trends, and strategy for how you will react to difficult times - fluctuating energy prices and the financing market. Your successes and navigation of startup life become proof points of your ability to continue scaling.

What’s the most common mistake you see climate founders making right now?

Companies running out of money too quickly. Too often, you have a strong idea and capable team, but they fail to keep their capital going or raise more. Closing a financing round is a great feeling, but also a great responsibility because it’s your time to start delivering, all while being careful with the funds.

Successful founders keep a long runway and make sure their financial decisions are the right ones. I learned this from my experience of hiring too fast with new capital. It’s also important that founders just keep going despite the hiccups and refuse to give up. That’s the approach I take and I’m still here ten years later.

When you meet a founder, what signals tell you they’ll actually execute?

A strong track record and having had a journey in entrepreneurship already is always promising. But there is also a spark that you see in some founders that says they genuinely love and believe in what they are doing. You can see it on their face when they talk about it. If they seem unsure and don’t show that enthusiasm, it’s harder to be convinced. So it’s largely a gut feeling.

Rapid Fire

Your Mantra? “Slowly, slowly catch your monkey.” A Malaysian saying that’s guided me for the last 15 years.

Daily habit? Prioritising my wellbeing - making daily time for exercise, fresh air and family.

Source of optimism? That the transition is still happening. There is so much geopolitical uncertainty, some countries are even removing subsidies, but we are still growing. People have seen that solar is easy and affordable. Right now, fuel prices are going up but renewables are staying stable. It’s a strong proof point for the importance of energy independence.

…………………………….if you could teleport yourself into the future, where would you be?

Every building will be a power station, and it will be normal and expected. There was a time when it was common for people to smoke indoors, now it’s unheard of. This is how I envision rooftops without solar in the future: something we look back on as a distant memory.

Ten years ago, that sounded like the kind of thing founders say to keep themselves going. Today, with 3,000 roofs across 30 countries, a Red Dot award, a US debut, and break-even reached - it sounds more like a forecast.

One roof at a time.

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“The Climate Marketplace helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Plastics Pirate (Australia) – turning ocean plastic into the fuel that powers ocean recovery and coastal resilience missions (€750K Pre-seed, fundraising from March 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Climate builder moment 🌱

Andres Anijalg hired fast when the funding came in. It felt like the right move, capital in the bank, momentum building, a market to chase. Then came the restructure, the difficult conversations, and the slower, leaner path that actually led to break-even.

Most climate founders will face a version of this. The money arrives and the pressure to deploy it quickly is real. More people, more markets, more everything. But hardware doesn’t scale like software, and the founders who survive long enough to find out if they’re right are the ones who spend carefully and build patiently.

This week, before you make the next hire or open the next market, ask yourself: is this decision building something durable? Speed is not the same as progress. Andres is still here ten years later because he learned the difference.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is far.

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
— William Shakespeare, Sonnet XCVIII

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Here’s something that should change how every climate founder and investor reads the market right now.

Climate tech VC hit $40.5 billion globally in 2025.

That’s an 8% increase. Growth. Momentum. Good news, right?

Here’s the other number: deal count fell 18% — to 1,545 transactions. The lowest since 2020.

More money. Fewer deals.

Average round size: $61.5 million.

The capital didn’t leave climate tech. It concentrated. And where it concentrated tells us almost everything about where the opportunity, and the friction, lives in 2026.

Where the money actually went

Energy storage and batteries absorbed more cumulative capital than any other climate subsector, $11 billion and counting. Grid-scale sodium-ion, long-duration storage, and battery management systems are all attracting serious institutional attention.

Nuclear and geothermal surged, not because of a policy breakthrough, but because of AI. Data centres consumed 78% of built-environment climate funding in 2025. Hyperscalers need clean, reliable baseload power that solar and wind alone can’t deliver at the scale and reliability they need. Fervo Energy’s IPO filing in January 2026, after a $462M Series E, put next-gen geothermal on the mainstream map.

Europe vs the US: this is the shift most founders haven’t fully absorbed. Europe now commands 54% of new climate fund capital. The US dropped to 16%. Energy Impact Partners closed their $1.36B Fund III last October. Germany’s DTCF is deploying up to €1B into climate and deep tech. The LP appetite in Europe is structurally different, and right now, more active.

What this means for founders

The playbook that worked in 2022 - “early stage, big vision, large TAM” - is not the playbook that’s working in 2026.

Investors are writing bigger checks into companies with proven technology or clear de-risked milestones, revenue or credible off-take agreements, infrastructure or grid-scale relevance, and founders who understand both policy and commercial dynamics.

Federal funding cuts hit parts of the carbon removal sector hard. The IRA still holds, but the grant landscape is more competitive. The founders getting meetings right now aren’t necessarily the ones with the best technology. They’re the ones with the sharpest market positioning.

“We’re solving carbon” doesn’t cut through.

“We sit at the intersection of AI data centre energy demand and grid scarcity - and we have an LOI with a utility” opens doors.

If your sector isn’t on this list

The sectors above are where the largest pools of VC capital are concentrating right now. But that’s not the whole picture, and it’s definitely not the whole opportunity.

Here’s what the concentration trend actually creates: less competition for investor attention everywhere else.

The funds chasing AI-energy deals are oversubscribed and moving fast on a narrow set of bets. That leaves a meaningful gap of investors - particularly in Europe, impact-first LPs, corporate venture arms, and family offices - who are actively looking for differentiated deals outside the crowded categories.

A few things worth knowing if you’re building outside the hot sectors:

Corporate strategics are often more relevant than VC for founders in sectors like sustainable food, water, biodiversity, and circular economy. They move differently, but they’re writing cheques.

The “unfashionable” angle can actually be a pitch. Investors who are tired of seeing the same grid storage deck will sit up for a founder who comes in with a clear market, real customers, and no competition for their attention.

The fundamentals haven’t changed: strong positioning, a credible path to revenue, and the right room. The right room just looks different depending on what you’re building.

The capital hasn’t left. It’s just moved somewhere more specific.

Here’s the good news

The long-term trajectory looks good. The climate tech market is on course to reach $79.45 billion by 2029 - a compound annual growth rate of 25%. At the sector level, year-on-year growth is running at 4.33% and accelerating. The market you’re building for is getting bigger, not smaller.

Still Worth Building

Step back from the metrics and timeline for just a moment.

You chose to work on something that matters beyond a balance sheet. The air, the water, the land, the climate that every human being on this planet depends on. That’s what you show up for every day.

Someone will breathe easier because of what you’re building. A community will be more resilient. A species will have habitat it wouldn’t otherwise have. A child born ten years from now will inherit something better.

They won’t know your name. But they’ll live in a world you helped shape.

That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

Until next week,

Marianne

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“The Climate Marketplace helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Plastics Pirate (Australia) – turning ocean plastic into the fuel that powers ocean recovery and coastal resilience missions (€750K Pre-seed, fundraising from March 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Climate builder moment 🌱

The market just got more selective. Fewer deals, higher bar, more pressure on every founder conversation. That kind of environment has a way of quietly convincing you that rest is a liability.

It isn’t.

The founders who navigate hard markets aren’t the ones who worked the hardest through them. They’re the ones who stayed clear-headed enough to make good decisions when it mattered.

This week, notice where your energy is actually going - not just in your calendar, but in your body. Sleep. Movement. A meal that isn’t eaten at your desk. These aren’t indulgences. They’re how you stay capable of thinking straight when the stakes are high.

Protect your capacity. That’s not soft advice. That’s strategy.

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“April is the sweetest month of the year, the mellow season of rebirth and renewal.”
— Mary Sojourner

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Nigeria grows enough food to feed itself. The problem is that nearly half of it never reaches a plate.

Post-harvest losses cost Nigeria’s agricultural sector an estimated $9 billion every year. Smallholder farmers lose up to 30% of their income not to bad harvests, but to heat and time. Tomatoes rot on the roadside. Peppers spoil in transit. Market women sell at a loss just to beat the clock. The country’s cold chain infrastructure meets approximately 4% of total logistics demand, so Nigeria spends roughly $10 billion annually importing food it already produces, simply because it cannot keep that food fresh long enough to reach a buyer.

Babajide’s background was in advocacy and sustainability consulting, not engineering. But the deeper he went into Nigeria’s food systems, the more this one problem kept surfacing: smallholder farmers had no viable cold storage options. Diesel-powered refrigeration was expensive, unreliable, and concentrated in cities. The rural periphery, where most of the country’s food is actually grown, was completely exposed.

The moment that sparked his journey into green techpreneurship came during fieldwork in Ogun State. Farmers were offloading tomatoes and peppers at a fraction of their market value, not because demand was low, but because they had no way to hold the produce long enough to negotiate. Panic selling was the only rational response to a broken system.

“The defining moment was seeing farmers in Ogun desperately selling their produce at way below market value just to reduce their loss. I wanted to create something that would not only save food but restore dignity and economic value to farmers.”

He built Ecotutu as a direct response, not to build another urban cold store, but to take cooling to the farm gate. Off-grid, modular, and affordable enough for the traders and farmers who had always been priced out.

The early days were hard. “Building a climate hardware startup in Africa is not for the faint-hearted,” Babajide says. “The early days were filled with cultural dynamics, technical challenges, and the struggle to convince investors that solar cooling could work at scale. What sustained us was a belief in proof over promises: build it, show it works, then scale.”

Each Ecotutu Hub is a solar-powered, IoT-enabled walk-in cold room with 10-tonne capacity. A 13kWh solar array powers the system; phase-change materials act as an ice battery, maintaining stable temperatures even during outages or cloudy days. Farmers and traders pay 250 Naira per crate per day, roughly $0.20, with no upfront capital commitment and no long-term contract. Produce that would spoil within two days without storage stays fresh for significantly longer, giving farmers control over when and where they sell.

The timing is no accident. Nigeria’s diesel subsidy removal has made conventional refrigeration prohibitively expensive - diesel costs over 1,050 Naira per litre. Grid blackouts lasting days are routine across the country. Solar-powered cooling is no longer just the sustainable option; it is increasingly the only viable one.

Beyond the flagship hubs, Ecotutu has built a full cold chain product suite: refrigerated transport (Ecotutu Express), solar dairy chillers (Ecotutu Dairy), lease-to-own solar freezers for micro-businesses (Ecotutu Chest), and portable cooler bags with reusable ice packs for last-mile distribution. Everything is designed, assembled, and manufactured in Nigeria, with specialist cooling components sourced from German partner SelfChill.

Institutional validation is growing. Partners include HortiNigeria (Dutch-funded), the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, Rocky Mountain Institute, GIZ, and Husk Power Systems. Each hub reaches payback in 12 to 18 months, a return profile that is increasingly attracting development finance institutions and impact investors to the space.

The impact data is equally compelling. Users of Ecotutu facilities see up to a 60% reduction in spoilage and a 40% increase in income. Kehinde, a tomato trader at Lagos’s Mile-12 Market, reduced her post-harvest loss by almost 100% and grew her income by nearly 40% after joining the platform, and has since expanded her supply volume through Ecotutu’s market linkage support.

Five years in, the numbers are hard to ignore. Ecotutu has deployed 25 solar cold rooms across 8 Nigerian states, saved over 35,000 tonnes of perishable food from spoilage, mitigated 41,000+ metric tonnes of GHG emissions, and served more than 4,800 farmers, traders, and aggregators - raising their average incomes by around 30%. All of this on $450,000 in combined grant and debt funding.

GT sat down with Babajide to understand how he built a climate hardware company in one of the world’s most challenging environments, and why the cold chain may be the most undercapitalised climate opportunity on the continent.

Subscribe now

IN CONVERSATION WITH BABAJIDE OLUWASE

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR CAPITAL & INVESTOR REALITY

What do investors consistently misunderstand about Ecotutu?

“The biggest misconception is that hardware in Africa can’t be capital-efficient. People hear ‘climate hardware startup in Nigeria’ and assume high capex, long timelines, and unpredictable returns. The reality is that our payback per hub is 12 to 18 months. Our infrastructure is modular and scalable. And the demand is not speculative, it is structural. We are not creating a market; we are serving one that has existed for decades with almost zero adequate supply. Once investors understand the unit economics and see the utilisation data, the conversation changes completely.”

What makes Ecotutu genuinely investable right now?

“Three things. Proven hardware at scale - 25 deployed hubs across 8 states, not a pilot. A demonstrated business model with real customers paying real money. And a macro tailwind that is only accelerating: diesel costs have surged, grid reliability has worsened, and climate stress is intensifying heat across the region. The window for solar cold chain infrastructure has never been wider. We are not asking investors to believe in a future market. We are asking them to back a working solution into an already-failing system.”

What would you do differently if raising today?

“Seek blended finance structures earlier. The combination of grant capital for hardware development and debt for deployment is a proven model in off-grid energy - we applied it to cold chain with good results, but it took time to find the right partners. I’d also have invested earlier in quantifying our impact metrics rigorously. Impact-aligned capital responds to data. The story was always strong; the numbers just needed to be told more systematically from day one.”

FOUNDER PLAYBOOK

What’s the most common mistake founders make building climate tech in Africa?

“Building for the investor rather than the user. It is easy to design a product that sounds compelling in a pitch deck but does not survive contact with the reality of your customer’s life. The farmers and traders we serve do not have reliable internet, consistent income flows, or tolerance for complexity. If your product does not work in their context, it does not matter how impressive the technology is. Start with the deepest possible understanding of the problem before you touch a single component.”

What signals tell you a founder has real execution ability?

“Speed of learning, not speed of building. Founders who absorb feedback fast, adapt without losing their core vision, and make decisions with incomplete information, those are the ones who survive. I also look at how they handle their first major failure. The response to adversity tells you more about a founder than any pitch deck ever will.”

If a founder had 60 seconds to pitch you, what should they say?

“Tell me who is suffering from this problem right now, how many of them there are, why existing solutions have failed them, and what your non-obvious insight is that nobody else has acted on. That is it. If you can say all of that clearly in 60 seconds, I know you understand your market. Everything else, technology, team, financials, I can dig into. But without that foundation, no amount of polish will save you.”

RAPID FIRE

Your Mantra?

Be stubborn on vision, flexible on the details.

Daily ritual that keeps you going?

Time outdoors — it gives me space to reflect on why we started.

Source of optimism?

The farmers. When I see a market woman who no longer rushes to sell before her produce spoils, that is not a data point. That is the whole reason.

………………………………………if you could teleport yourself to 2035, where would you be?

“Ecotutu’s five-year target is 500+ hubs across West Africa, supporting 100,000 farmers and traders, and a connected, data-driven cold chain network that bridges producers to markets efficiently. Beyond agriculture, the model extends directly to pharmaceutical cold chain, a sector with identical infrastructure gaps and, arguably, even higher human stakes.

As climate change intensifies, renewable-powered cooling will be essential for food security, healthcare, and resilience. We see Ecotutu as part of that global transformation.”

“The cold chain is the missing link in a continent-wide food system. Solve it, and you change the economics of smallholder farming across Africa.”

Africa’s food future depends on infrastructure that works in the environment that actually exists, unreliable grids, rising temperatures, dispersed rural communities, and farmers who cannot afford to lose a single harvest. Ecotutu is building that infrastructure, one solar hub at a time.

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“Over the past year I have used multiple fundraising platforms while supporting portfolio companies through capital raises. The Green Techpreneur Marketplace stood out as particularly effective: onboarding was straightforward, the deal setup workflow captured the right level of information (enough for investor diligence without becoming burdensome), and we saw traction quickly.

Most importantly, the platform helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round. I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Ecopha Biotech (Australia) – co-producing sustainable aviation fuel and PHA bioplastics from Pongamia trees, unlocking a trillion-dollar market (€8.5M Series A, fundraising from April 2026).

SeaLumber (United States) – turning sargassum seaweed, agricultural waste and recycled plastics into durable, cost-competitive sustainable lumber, cutting carbon, waste and deforestation (€500K Pre-seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Scudo (United States) – a reusable medical mask eliminating 10,000x waste versus disposables, offering superior protection for dentists and GPs (€3.7M Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Plastics Pirate (Australia) – turning ocean plastic into the fuel that powers ocean recovery and coastal resilience missions (€750K Pre-seed, fundraising from March 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Climate builder moment 🌱

The founders who change the world aren’t the ones who burned the brightest for six months. They’re the ones who were still standing - still sharp, still hungry - five, ten, fifteen years in.

This week, notice what refuels you. A walk. A conversation that has nothing to do with your pitch deck. Whatever it is, protect it. That’s not time away from the mission. That’s how you stay capable of serving it.

The world needs your vision intact.

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“Amid April showers, find the courage to bloom like a resilient wildflower.”

On our Climate Marketplace, over 200 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

A note from Marianne before we dive in.

Starting this week, The Green Techpreneur is going weekly.

The climate market is moving fast enough that fortnightly no longer keeps pace, and there’s more worth sharing than our interview formats can hold. So from now on, you’ll get one edition every week. Alternating weeks will bring you a new format alongside the founder and investor conversations you already know: curated market intelligence translated into something genuinely useful - what’s shifting in climate tech, what investors are actually thinking, and what it means for how you build, position, and show up as a founder. Not just the fundraising side, but the full experience of building a climate company right now.

Same editorial standards. More valuable market-driven insight, more often.

If weekly is too much, no hard feelings - unsubscribe link is below. But if you’re in the thick of building in climate, I think you’ll find it worth it.

Now, to this week’s issue.

Subscribe now

The CBAM era has begun - here’s what it means for your climate business

On January 1, 2026, the European Union switched on one of the most significant mechanisms in the history of climate regulation.

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism - CBAM - entered its definitive operational phase. No pilot. No grace period. Live.

Three months in, the vast majority of climate founders still haven’t figured out what it means for them.

That’s a problem. It’s also a window.

What CBAM actually is

CBAM stands for the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. In plain terms, it’s the EU’s carbon border tax, a charge on goods imported into Europe that were produced in countries with weaker or no carbon pricing rules.

The logic is straightforward: EU manufacturers already pay for their carbon emissions under the EU’s Emissions Trading System. Without CBAM, a competitor importing the same goods from a country with no carbon price has an unfair cost advantage, and the emissions just move elsewhere rather than being reduced. CBAM closes that loophole.

It currently covers six sectors: cement, steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen.

Any company importing these goods into the EU must now submit verified data on the carbon embedded in what they’re importing, and pay for it if that carbon hasn’t already been priced at source.

The mechanism entered full operational phase on January 1, 2026. This is not a pilot, a transition period, or a future requirement. It is live, it is binding, and non-compliance carries financial penalties.

Here’s what to do about it right now

If you’re building in an affected sector - cement, steel, green hydrogen, electricity, or EU-facing supply chains - audit your pitch this week. If CBAM isn’t in it, add it.

The framing that’s landing with investors right now: “CBAM creates a legal requirement to do exactly what we enable. Our addressable market just became mandatory.”

That sentence does more work than any impact metric.

If you’re in adjacent sectors - climate data, carbon accounting, industrial software, supply chain - map which parts of your product serve CBAM compliance needs. This is usually a repositioning, not a pivot.

If you’re not sure whether CBAM affects you: start by asking your customers whether they’ve received compliance notices from EU counterparts. If they have, you’re closer to this than you think. The EU has already published its expansion roadmap, more product categories are coming. Get ahead of it now.

Every importer must submit verified emissions data

CBAM charges importers a carbon fee on goods entering the EU from countries with weaker carbon pricing. It currently covers cement, steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen - and every importer must now submit verified emissions data to prove compliance.

Which founders this directly affects

The obvious answer is industrial founders. But the second-order effects are broader than most people realise.

Carbon data and verification platforms are now infrastructure, not nice-to-have. The verification market didn’t exist at scale six months ago. It does now, with a legal mandate behind it.

Industrial decarbonisation tools that document actual emission reductions are suddenly highly commercial. Your customer’s procurement team has a budget line for this. That shifts the sales conversation entirely - from “sustainability initiative” to “compliance requirement.”

EU supply chain software tracking embedded carbon across borders is becoming a legal obligation. If you’ve been selling this as an ESG tool, you’re dramatically underselling it.

What this means if your business isn’t directly impacted

Even if you’re not building verification software or decarbonising steel, CBAM is worth understanding, because it’s reshaping the broader climate investment conversation in ways that affect every founder in this space.

Here’s the practical reality: investors are paying closer attention to regulatory tailwinds right now than at any point in the last five years. The question they’re increasingly asking isn’t just “is there a market for this?” but “what makes this market move now?” CBAM is one of the clearest answers available in 2026. If you can point to a regulatory mechanism - even an adjacent one - that creates urgency for your solution, your pitch becomes significantly stronger.

If you’re building a more sustainable way to manufacture, grow, transport, or power something, ask yourself: does your customer operate in an EU supply chain? Are they selling into Europe? Are they buying from suppliers who now face carbon costs at the border? If the answer to any of those is yes, your product may be solving a problem that just got a lot more expensive for them to ignore.

That’s not a CBAM pitch. But it is a commercial conversation, and that’s what investors and your clients are listening for.

More broadly, CBAM signals something important for every climate founder: the era of voluntary action is giving way to mandatory compliance. The market you’re building for is changing shape. The customers who were interested before are now, in many cases, under real financial pressure to act. That’s the tailwind - whether or not your product sits inside the six regulated sectors.

What investor conversations this opens up

Three months ago, a pitch about carbon verification software was a moderately interesting SaaS play. Today, it’s regulatory infrastructure with a mandatory customer base.

Reframe your pitch from “we help manufacturers reduce emissions” to “we automate the verification layer CBAM now legally requires” - and go from polite interest to term sheet conversations within weeks. The market has fundamentally changed in favour of climate founders.

The European competitive moat

While US founders navigate IRA wind-down and escalating tariff uncertainty, European founders in CBAM-adjacent sectors have something rare: regulatory tailwind with a defined timeline and a €1.5B projected revenue stream by 2028.

The compliance infrastructure has to be built. The market is not hypothetical. It is being created by law.

The bottom line

CBAM is not a trade policy story. It is a startup opportunity - and a narrow window for category ownership. The founders who understand this in Q2 2026 will be raising at stronger valuations in Q4 2026, because they’ll have a regulatory demand driver that most competitors can’t yet articulate.

If your startup is in an affected sector, listing on Climate Marketplace is the fastest way to get in front of investors actively tracking CBAM-adjacent dealflow right now.

Subscribe now

For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

“Over the past year I have used multiple fundraising platforms while supporting portfolio companies through capital raises. The Green Techpreneur Marketplace stood out as particularly effective: onboarding was straightforward, the deal setup workflow captured the right level of information (enough for investor diligence without becoming burdensome), and we saw traction quickly.

Most importantly, the platform helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round.

I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

CLIC RECYCLE (Spain) – turning human hair waste into patented smart biomaterials that replace plastic in agriculture and water, saving water, regenerating soil, and cutting pollution via a scalable circular supply chain (€700K Seed, fundraising from April 2026).

Plastics Pirate (Australia) – turning ocean plastic into the fuel that powers ocean recovery and coastal resilience missions (€750K Pre-seed, fundraising from March 2026).

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

Glanris (United States) – converting sargassum and waste biomass into low-cost clean energy and carbon-negative materials (€500K Seed - €200k already committed).

Curiouz (Portugal) – circular vintage furniture marketplace transforming sustainable procurement in the interiors industry (€1.5M Seed).

Namalab (Mexico) – biodegradable plant-based superabsorbents for cleaner hygiene & packaging (€1M Seed).

Flexdrill GmbH (Austria) – ultra-compact geothermal drilling system unlocking affordable ground-source heat pumps (€500K Seed).

PULPTRIX (Sweden) – on-demand molded pulp packaging platform for low-cost, sustainable production (€1M Series A).

FiberFlow (Germany) – proprietary textile recycling extracting pure fibers from blended waste (€400K Seed).

Invasive Species Corporation (United States) – nature-positive microbial solutions controlling high-impact invasive species (€1.5M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Climate builder moment 🌱

You didn’t start a climate company because it was easy. You started it because something had to be done, and you decided to be the one to do it. This Easter weekend, take a real break. The work will be there Tuesday. You’ll do it better if you’ve actually rested. The planet needs you in it for the long game.

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“April is a reminder that life is a beautiful, ever-renewing cycle.”
– E.E. Cummings

On our Climate Marketplace, over 190 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

In our last conversation, we explored a simple but often overlooked idea:

Capital should follow de-risking.

The founders who consistently raise, and raise well, aren’t just building strong technology. They’re building businesses that investors can actually understand, model, and trust.

Because in this market, the question has quietly shifted from “Is this exciting?” to:

“Is this predictable?”

So what does that look like in practice?

When founders align their business milestones with the right type of capital, equity, strategic investment, debt, or project finance, they unlock far more financing options over time.

In this second part of our conversation with Mitchell Possada, Partner at High Impact Capital Partners, we explore what actually makes a company more investable in practice and how founders can build that credibility step by step.

Subscribe now

Why do sales cycles matter so much for climate companies?

Because in climate, growth doesn’t look like SaaS. Sales cycles are longer, more complex, and often involve infrastructure, utilities, or industrial buyers. You’re not just selling software, you’re coordinating projects.

And that creates a mismatch with generalist VC expectations.

What investors really care about isn’t speed, it’s predictability. The more a company can standardise how deals move from first conversation to signed contract, the more confidence they have that revenue can scale.

How can founders actually make sales more predictable?

It usually comes down to three things. First, clarity on the ideal customer, not just who they are, but why they buy, consistently. Second, real control over the pipeline. Knowing exactly where deals stall, where they convert, and how long each stage takes.

And third, partner–market fit. In climate, you rarely scale alone. The companies that win are the ones that build strong delivery ecosystems, installers, distributors, strategic partners, and make those relationships repeatable.

When those pieces are in place, the conversation with investors changes. You’re no longer talking about potential. You’re showing a system that works.

How does customer-funded growth change the funding conversation?

It changes everything.

The narrative shifts from ‘this is what we could do’ to ‘this is what customers are already paying us to do.’ That de-risks demand immediately. Instead of relying on market projections, you’re showing actual revenue, actual behaviour.

It also changes leverage. If a company can generate revenue independently, it’s raising capital from a position of strength, not necessity. And importantly, it reframes what capital is for. You’re no longer funding discovery. You’re funding scale.

What do investors and lenders actually look for when assessing ‘bankability’?

They’re all trying to answer the same question: can this business reliably generate and manage cash?

So they look at three things.

• First, revenue predictability; how stable and repeatable the income is.

• Second, financial discipline; does the team really understand their numbers, especially cash flow.

• And third, credible projections; models that are grounded in reality, not optimism.

When those align, something shifts. You stop being seen as a startup. And start being seen as something closer to infrastructure.

Where do founders most often lose credibility?

Two places, again and again.

One is not fully understanding their financials; especially how cash actually moves through the business. The other is not understanding what investors themselves are optimising for.

Different capital providers have different expectations. If you don’t understand that, it’s very hard to structure a compelling raise. The best founders don’t just tell their story. They align it with the incentives of the person across the table.

How is the current market shaping all of this?

We’re seeing a clear flight to quality.

Capital hasn’t disappeared, but it’s become more selective.

Higher interest rates have made financing more expensive, and generalist funds are more cautious. But at the same time, policy and energy security are pushing serious capital into climate. So strong companies are still getting funded. Just with a much higher bar.

Climate founders are building the systems that will reshape energy, industry, and infrastructure.

But the companies that scale won’t just be the most innovative. They’ll be the ones that pair technical ambition with financial credibility, building businesses that can attract the right capital, at the right time, on the right terms.

Because in climate, bankability isn’t just a financial outcome. It’s a reflection of how well the business actually works

📩 For founders raising in climate

If you’re raising, you can apply to be featured on the Climate Marketplace, where investors actively discover and connect with startups.

In recent weeks:
• Multiple investors requested introductions to energy, geothermal, water, AI/data centre optimisation, and circular economy startups, particularly those with early commercial traction.
• Founders are getting direct inbound interest after being featured

If you already have:
– a live round or upcoming raise
– early commercial traction or pilots

👉 Apply below to get in front of investors

Apply via 'sign up' here

Quick fire

Who has influenced your approach to finance and entrepreneurship?

I tend to learn from operators who’ve actually financed and scaled hardtech businesses, people who understand both technology and capital formation.

What do you do when it’s time to unwind?

Sketching, painting, karaoke, and lately attempting stand-up comedy. Mixed results so far.

…………………………………..if Mitchell could teleport himself into the future and be anywhere doing anything he’d be…‘travelling across continents, exploring ecosystems, visiting ancient sites, and seeing how today’s climate solutions have actually scaled in the real world.”

Subscribe now

“Over the past year I have used multiple fundraising platforms while supporting portfolio companies through capital raises. The Green Techpreneur Marketplace stood out as particularly effective: onboarding was straightforward, the deal setup workflow captured the right level of information (enough for investor diligence without becoming burdensome), and we saw traction quickly.

Most importantly, the platform helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round.

I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

BOAS (Netherlands) – profitable circular fashion platform rescuing unsold and returned clothing to generate resale revenue, social jobs, and 90% profit for impact (€193K Seed, 65% of €500k raise already committed).

Glanris (United States) – converting sargassum and waste biomass into low-cost clean energy and carbon-negative materials (€500K Seed - €200k already committed).

Curiouz (Portugal) – circular vintage furniture marketplace transforming sustainable procurement in the interiors industry (€1.5M Seed).

Namalab (Mexico) – biodegradable plant-based superabsorbents for cleaner hygiene & packaging (€1M Seed).

Flexdrill GmbH (Austria) – ultra-compact geothermal drilling system unlocking affordable ground-source heat pumps (€500K Seed).

PULPTRIX (Sweden) – on-demand molded pulp packaging platform for low-cost, sustainable production (€1M Series A).

FiberFlow (Germany) – proprietary textile recycling extracting pure fibers from blended waste (€400K Seed).

Invasive Species Corporation (United States) – nature-positive microbial solutions controlling high-impact invasive species (€1.5M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“Every cold and dark phase ends, and hence begins a beautiful phase of warmth and vibrance. Don’t believe? Just notice March.”
– Anamika Mishra

On our Climate Marketplace, over 190 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Mitchell Possada is on a mission to help hardtech climate founders unlock better capital.

Hardtech climate innovation sits at the heart of the energy transition. From advanced batteries to carbon capture and next-generation manufacturing, these technologies tackle the “atoms problem” of climate change, the physical systems that power our world.

Yet the path to scaling these innovations is rarely straightforward.

Unlike software startups, hardware-heavy climate ventures often face long development timelines, expensive proof-of-concept stages, regulatory hurdles, and large capital requirements before revenue becomes predictable. Many founders focus on raising the next round of equity, but far fewer think deeply about the long-term structure of their capital formation.

For Mitchell, Partner at High Impact Capital Partners, helping founders navigate that complexity has become a mission.

“Hardtech innovation is some of the most interesting and pressing innovation,” he says, “yet it also has one of the hardest paths to success given the long trajectory to a liquidity event.”

After decades working with entrepreneurs, he’s come to believe that the companies that succeed aren’t just good at fundraising, they build their businesses in ways that make them increasingly bankable over time.

The key shift is subtle but powerful: instead of asking how do we raise the next round?, founders should ask how does our capital formation strategy shape the business we are building?

Because in hardtech climate ventures, the structure of capital can determine the speed of scale.

Subscribe now

What originally drew you into the world of hardtech and cleantech finance?

Hardtech innovation is some of the most interesting and pressing innovation, yet it has one of the hardest paths to success given the long trajectory to a liquidity event.

There is a lot of satisfaction in helping founders get unblocked and set on an accelerated path to success.

How do you define success, both for yourself and for the founders you support?

I encourage founders to define success themselves by asking a simple question:

What does success look like one year from now, three years from now, and five years from now?

That clarity becomes the foundation for building both the business and the financing strategy.

Why do hardtech climate startups need a different financing trajectory?

Hardtech cleantech businesses are predominantly hardware companies that need to plan their capital formation carefully as they grow.

That means mixing equity funding and debt financing at the right milestones and growth inflection points.

By the time a company reaches Series A, founders should already be thinking about how to accelerate their bankability, because capital stacking will increasingly become necessary.

At the Seed stage, founders may rely heavily on equity and non-dilutive grants. But those resources typically reach their limits early. After that point, building a venture-scale business requires demonstrating that the company can support more sophisticated financing structures.

What do most founders underestimate about financing hardware-based climate ventures?

Many underestimate the complexity of financing hardware ventures.

Capital providers often hold more leverage in these businesses because the risks are higher. Hardware companies frequently face regulatory hurdles, expensive proof-of-concept phases, and uncertainty around manufacturing scale.

In many cases, there is no prior example of the technology being produced at scale, which means investors and lenders must evaluate both engineering and operational risk.

Why do so many early-stage companies struggle to move beyond grants and equity?

Early-stage companies often need to navigate the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) journey just to reach a point where commercialization timelines can be validated.

First-of-a-kind technologies must demonstrate proof points across manufacturing, supply chains, and real-world deployment before capital providers become comfortable funding scale.

Until those milestones are achieved, access to more sophisticated financing remains limited.

What does “accelerating bankability” actually mean?

Accelerating bankability starts with organizational alignment.

Companies need to plan where revenue will come from and ensure that revenue becomes predictable and scalable enough to support financing structures.

This means disciplined execution around cash flow management, billing, and receivables, building the operational credibility required for lenders and investors to trust future projections.

What is capital stacking - and why does it matter?

Capital stacking is a strategy that combines different layers of equity and debt financing, each with different levels of risk and return.

The top of the capital stack is typically the most secure and lowest-risk debt. The bottom of the stack is equity, which carries the highest risk but also the highest upside.

For founders, this structure allows a company to control more of an asset while using less of its own capital, by bringing in different types of investors and lenders at different stages of growth.

But it requires careful planning.

Founders should be able to clearly communicate:

• who the next capital partner will be

• when they enter the capital stack

• and what milestone unlocks their participation

Why does capital efficiency matter so much for hardware startups?

Being capital efficient means not spending before you truly understand what the customer wants you to build.

Founders should align product development, market positioning, and financing with the stage of evolution of the business.

The cost of failing to plan capital effectively isn’t just financial. It can lead to a loss of momentum, missed customer opportunities, and reduced access to future capital.

What happens when founders don’t plan their capital formation early enough?

One common challenge appears when founders try to do too many things at once.

For example, a company might simultaneously try to acquire manufacturing capacity, buy out intellectual property licensing, and launch multiple products at the same time.

That complexity can quickly create confusion around the use of funds, making it harder for investors to understand how capital translates into milestones and value creation.

When that clarity disappears, financing becomes harder and growth slows.

If you had to sum up your philosophy on funding in one sentence?

Have your capital formation strategy drive your business plan and go-to-market strategy.

What’s a mantra you live by?

“Leave a wake of smiles, laughs, and people feeling loved.”

Hardtech climate startups are tackling some of the most complex challenges of the energy transition, and that complexity extends far beyond engineering.

Building the right technology is only half the battle. Designing the right capital structure can be just as critical.

In the next edition of this conversation, we’ll move from strategy to execution exploring how founders can shorten sales cycles, use debt intelligently, and communicate their capital strategy clearly to investors and lenders as they scale.

Subscribe now

Flexdrill is raising on the Climate Marketplace

Flexdrill: Unlocking affordable geothermal for every home

Most homes can’t access ground-source heat pumps because traditional drilling rigs are too large, costly, or disruptive. Flexdrill’s compact 1m²-footprint system changes that, making clean, efficient geothermal heating possible even in dense urban areas.

Based in Vienna, Austria, Flexdrill is pioneering equipment innovation in the Geothermal and Green Building sectors. The company is now raising a €500,000 Seed round to scale production and bring its breakthrough drilling technology to market.

With two investors already showing interest in co-investing, this is a rare opportunity to back a team redefining how we heat our homes sustainably.

Explore Flexdrill’s raise on The Climate Marketplace and see how they’re making geothermal accessible, one drill at a time.

“Over the past year I have used multiple fundraising platforms while supporting portfolio companies through capital raises. The Green Techpreneur Marketplace stood out as particularly effective: onboarding was straightforward, the deal setup workflow captured the right level of information (enough for investor diligence without becoming burdensome), and we saw traction quickly.

Most importantly, the platform helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round.

I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Curiouz (Portugal) – circular vintage furniture marketplace transforming sustainable procurement in the interiors industry (€1.5M Seed).

Namalab (Mexico) – biodegradable plant-based superabsorbents for cleaner hygiene & packaging (€1M Seed).

Flexdrill GmbH (Austria) – ultra-compact geothermal drilling system unlocking affordable ground-source heat pumps (€500K Seed).

Scontree Ltd (Italy) – sustainable digital receipt platform replacing paper with data-driven retail insights (€150K Seed).

PULPTRIX (Sweden) – on-demand molded pulp packaging platform for low-cost, sustainable production (€1M Series A).

FiberFlow (Germany) – proprietary textile recycling extracting pure fibers from blended waste (€400K Seed).

Invasive Species Corporation (United States) – nature-positive microbial solutions controlling high-impact invasive species (€1.5M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of 2,000+ verified climate investors.

We’ve updated our business model so you don’t pay to list on the site or for visibility - only pay when you get real traction and results.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“Nature’s rebirth invites us to refresh our own hearts.”

Hello and welcome to The Green Techpreneur - the magazine and marketplace where climate founders raise faster, scale smarter, and rise together.

On our Climate Marketplace, over 190 startups have listed and raised more than €200M. With 2,000 investors on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem driving climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

On a quiet residential street in Vienna, there’s a paradox hiding in plain sight.

Europe has legally committed to phasing out fossil boilers. Heat pumps are booming. Policy targets are climbing. And yet, if you’re an ordinary homeowner with a small garden and a tight budget, the most efficient heating solution on the market is practically unreachable.

Ground-source heat pumps outperform air-source systems. They’re quieter. More stable in winter. More grid-friendly. But installing one still means inviting a 20-ton drilling rig, designed decades ago for oil fields, into your backyard.

It’s expensive. Logistically absurd. And in dense European cities, often impossible.

That friction isn’t just inconvenient. It’s systemic. Europe is projected to fall short of its heat pump targets by 15 million units. Behind every missed unit is a homeowner who looked at the upfront cost and walked away.

For an Icelandic mechanical engineer with geothermal in his bloodline, Sævar Einarsson, that gap wasn’t just a market inefficiency. It was personal.

Instead of asking how to slightly improve legacy drilling rigs, he asked a more dangerous question:

What if we’ve been using the wrong machine all along?

That question became FlexDrill, an ultra-compact hydraulic impact drilling system with a 1m² footprint, designed to turn geothermal installation from a construction project into something closer to an appliance upgrade.

Because if the world is serious about heat decarbonisation, we don’t just need better policy.

We need better tools.

We sat down with Sævar to dig deeper into how Flexdrill is changing the game for urban geothermal.

Subscribe now

What is FlexDrill, and what mission are you racing to achieve in Europe’s heat transition?

Flexdrill is an ultra-compact, hydraulic impact drilling system designed to revolutionize residential geothermal installations and change the economics for the homeowner. We’re aiming to close the projected 15-million unit shortfall in Europe’s heat pump targets by making ground-source heating accessible and affordable.

What’s the biggest gap in geothermal deployment that you realised no one was solving, and why did it matter personally?

While ground-source heat pumps are the most efficient solution, residential drilling is still relying on heavy 1970s technology that’s incredibly expensive and often damages your property. Solving this matters to me personally not only because I always look for implementing the best solutions as widely as possible, but also because I have a family heritage of geothermal engineering.

Tell us about that heritage.

My grandfather, Ísleifur Jónsson, was the head of the State Drilling Company in Iceland for decades, and became the go-to lead engineer for difficult operations worldwide. He pioneered geothermal drilling for the UN, from El Salvador to Kenya, and even led the project that brought the famous geyser back to life in 1963. I saw his approach as an intense motivator and without knowing it, I adopted his ‘can-do’ attitude of simplicity. That’s why I became an engineer.

When did geothermal click as a massive, overlooked climate lever?

The click happened when I considered buying a house here in Vienna and realised that there are no good HVAC options for the regular homeowner. Despite fossil boiler bans, the ‘Spark Gap’, the high price of electricity versus gas, means that geothermal heating, which is highly efficient, is really the only way to protect homeowners from high energy bills, but as of now it remains inaccessible to them.

What’s the bottleneck you solve?

The massive rigs from the oil industry still are the go-to for geothermal. I realised that 50 years later we still use the same principles to drill, but better methods have been developed in other fields. How is it that we’re still trying to cram these 20-ton machines into small European backyards? The key moment happened in March when an engineer from a major utility company told me this was really needed.

What did others overlook?

I saw the industry trying to shrink massive rotary rigs that all use the same static principle. My insight was from the tools from F1 pit stops that deliver the same forces had me questioning why we needed a large surface rig at all.

If you decouple the torque from the surface, generating the rotation at the bottom of the hole using hydraulics, you eliminate the need for the heavy surface mast entirely. And with it goes 90% of the complexity.

What are you most proud of technically?

The fact that hydrostatic pressure increases as you go deeper means you can drill with a simple plastic pipe. We detach the motor and leave the pipe in the ground to act as the heat exchanger casing. It eliminates an entire step of the installation. I’m most proud of this dual-use principle.

FlexDrill already holds a PCT patent, with five sub-patents planned, critical in a sector dominated by legacy manufacturers.

IP protection matters substantially because large corporations would otherwise be able to copy our design without restrictions.

They are bottlenecked by the capital cost of rigs and the shortage of specialised crews. Our system costs a fraction of that and is designed to be operated by a technician.

You have €1M in LOIs already. Did that surprise you?

We’ve done some minimal outreach and it really surprised us how ready these companies were to adopt our approach. The ROI is clear on their end, so all it takes is a proof of concept.

Who feels the pain most acutely?

It is undoubtedly the residential retrofit market for single-family homes. There are 70 million of these in the EU, and they’re stuck with gas or higher bills unless they have the means to manage a construction project.

What makes customers say yes instantly?

The ROI is clear when you understand the logistics of the standard drilling systems and compare that to our impact system. No other system can guarantee lower monthly bills without substantial investments.

What is your roadmap to investment and fundraising?

FlexDrill is currently at TRL 5 and raising €500K pre-seed, having already secured €263K.

What defines success over the next 12 months?

This funding will allow us to finalise the full-scale prototype, complete our full depth 200-meter pilot boreholes, secure CE certification, and deliver the first 5 commercial units to our waiting customers. We aim for direct break-even and sustainable profitability by mid-2027.

Pilot deployments are planned in partnership with roots.energy and the University of Zagreb, alongside five early adopters in Austria in 2026.

Tell us about your plans for scaling up?

Initially, we will sell rigs directly to build up our business model and validate the system at scale. However, our roadmap includes a leasing model to lower the CAPEX barrier for smaller HVAC installers, allowing them to bring drilling in-house. This is crucial to unlock the million-home scale.

Why will urban geothermal become unavoidable?

Air-source heat pumps struggle with efficiency during cold snaps and noise regulations in dense cities. Geothermal is the only way to provide baseload stability and urban comfort without overburdening the electric grid.

If you could change one regulation tomorrow?

Financial incentives for decarbonising home heating have been disappearing in several EU countries. I’d bring them back on an EU level to promote the highest efficiency systems.

Whats the hardest part of building hardware?

The assumption that hardware is expensive. People don’t even consider the fact that it’s a modular approach inherently designed to eliminate those downsides.

What mindset ritual keeps you going?

One step at a time. I like thinking in modules, where I can break down a seemingly unachievable goal into clearly defined criteria for success.

Who is your role model?

My grandfather, Ísleifur Jónsson. He dedicated his life to giving the world access to geothermal energy. I want to continue that mission.

……………………………..If Saevar could teleport himself into the future and be anywhere, doing anything, he’d be “in a dense European city in 2040, enjoying heating and cooling, knowing we helped close the 15-million unit gap and secured Europe’s heating future.”

Subscribe now

Flexdrill is raising on the Climate Marketplace

Flexdrill: Unlocking affordable geothermal for every home

Most homes can’t access ground-source heat pumps because traditional drilling rigs are too large, costly, or disruptive. Flexdrill’s compact 1m²-footprint system changes that, making clean, efficient geothermal heating possible even in dense urban areas.

Based in Vienna, Austria, Flexdrill is pioneering equipment innovation in the Geothermal and Green Building sectors. The company is now raising a €500,000 Seed round to scale production and bring its breakthrough drilling technology to market.

With two investors already showing interest in co-investing, this is a rare opportunity to back a team redefining how we heat our homes sustainably.

Explore Flexdrill’s raise on The Climate Marketplace and see how they’re making geothermal accessible, one drill at a time.

“Over the past year I have used multiple fundraising platforms while supporting portfolio companies through capital raises. The Green Techpreneur Marketplace stood out as particularly effective: onboarding was straightforward, the deal setup workflow captured the right level of information (enough for investor diligence without becoming burdensome), and we saw traction quickly.

Most importantly, the platform helped us connect with a high-quality early-stage investor who understood the company’s mission and progress and ultimately participated in the seed round.

I would recommend The Green Techpreneur Marketplace to founders and accelerators operating in sustainability and climate-related sectors.”

Edoardo Zarghetta, Non-exec Director, Ikkaton

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

Namalab (Mexico) – biodegradable plant-based superabsorbents for cleaner hygiene & packaging (€1M Seed).

Flexdrill GmbH (Austria) – ultra-compact geothermal drilling system unlocking affordable ground-source heat pumps (€500K Seed).

Scontree Ltd (Italy) – sustainable digital receipt platform replacing paper with data-driven retail insights (€150K Seed).

PULPTRIX (Sweden) – on-demand molded pulp packaging platform for low-cost, sustainable production (€1M Series A).

FiberFlow (Germany) – proprietary textile recycling extracting pure fibers from blended waste (€400K Seed).

Invasive Species Corporation (United States) – nature-positive microbial solutions controlling high-impact invasive species (€1.5M Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

If you’re a climate founder raising capital, list your startup on the Climate Marketplace and get in front of 2,000+ verified climate investors.

We’ve updated our business model so you don’t pay to list on the site or for visibility - only pay when you get real traction and results.

Contact Us to List on the Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“While it is February, one can taste the full joys of anticipation. Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch.”
— Patience Strong

Hello and welcome to The Green Techpreneur — the magazine and marketplace where climate founders raise faster, scale smarter, and rise together.

On our Climate Marketplace, 190+ startups have listed and over €200M has been raised. With 2,000 investors registered on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem for climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

I hope 2026 has been off to a smashing start for all Green Techpreneur readers.

After a wonderful workation in Southeast Asia, I’m back - refreshed and re-energised. Stepping away from the online world and into the offline one for a while, meeting people from all over the world, swimming and snorkelling in coral reefs, gazing up at a bejewelled night sky from a mountain-top, taking a two-day slow boat into Laos, and witnessing old-school life along the Mekong River was a powerful reminder: it really is a big, beautiful world.

We may be millions and billions, shaped by different cultures and languages, but we share a common humanity, something that’s easy to forget amid the challenges and destabilisation of this period of transition.

Many Europeans I spoke to were worried about the future, feelings I’m sure many of us share. Climate change, geopolitics, the rapid rise of AI and its impact on the workforce - we’re all navigating uncertainty. But we are in this together. Community, compassion, and taking action to build and lobby for the world we want, one that works for the many and in harmony with nature, is what will help us move through the turbulence of the years ahead.

Thank you to each one of you for being part of this journey, as we collectively #SparkTheTransition to a cleaner, greener, kinder world - one where both people and nature can thrive.

At The Green Techpreneur, we’ve got a lot to celebrate. Over the past year, we’ve come a long way - successfully relaunching the Climate Marketplace as a high-value connector for climate startups and investors, forging new partnerships, and supporting founders on their fundraising journeys. We’ve just heard from a startup that successfully raised through the platform last year, with more positive updates expected in the weeks and months ahead.

Wherever you are on your sustainability or startup journey, I hope you’re taking a moment to celebrate. It’s easy to focus on missed targets or how much further ahead we hoped to be, but there’s real value in recognising how far you’ve come - your resilience, your progress, and the intention with which you’ve started this year.

Without further ado, we’ll dive into one of my all-time favourite interviews: with Perry McCarthy - Formula One driver, endurance racing champion, and Top Gear’s original Stig. It’s a powerful story of success and failure, back-breaking accidents and show-stopping wins, and a masterclass in applying the mindset of a champion to building a climate tech business.

Subscribe now

Now welcoming Platform Sponsors. Reach 16,000+ climate founders, investors, and professionals shaping the net-zero transition. Position your brand at the heart of climate funding and innovation.

🌍 Let’s create impact together, email: marianne@thegreentechpreneur.com
Or book a call: booking calendar

Would you work on an oil rig for two years so you could save money to fund your seemingly impossible dream of becoming a Formula One racing driver?

Not many people possess that kind of ‘whatever it takes’ determination, but that’s exactly what Top Gear’s Original Stig and ex Formula One driver Perry McCarthy did: “I’m somebody who goes for things. If I think it’s a good idea and there are barriers in front of making the idea happen, the next job is to remove those barriers.

“My approach to pretty much everything – whether in racing or with business ideas – is to either smash through the barriers, dig under them, go over them, go around them, or whatever it is, find a way through the barrier.”

And smash barriers he did.

“Because much of racing is a financially dependent sport, performance is often limited or enhanced by exactly what kind of budget you've got. Every time these wheels go round for a junior formula or a top formula, it's an awful lot of money and money needs to be found sometimes, and I'm certainly not unique here.

“As a young driver I had no track record to even get sponsorship. I got a job working on North Sea oil rigs for two years, which paid me a lot of money. That was two years of working 12-14 hours a day, every week, and then a week off, to get the money together to even start motor racing.

“After all that time the amount of money I had to start, by motor racing standards, was small. I had to maximise it immediately.”

Perry was up against better funded racers who had been driving since they were about 10, and he had to make his mark and get noticed from the get-go so he could attract sponsors before his hard-earned savings ran out.

“When I first came into motor racing, I was very, very fast, but wild. It's important not to dull that fire, but it’s important to temper it to use it as a weapon and become more effective.

“There were a lot of things I was learning on track because I started incredibly late against many guys who have been racing for many years. But I had to make a decision. I couldn't use that as an excuse, because if I started racing at the age of 21, and I turned up with the attitude that ‘I don’t stand a chance because these guys have been racing cars since they were 10’, I’m finished already.

“My job was to turn up and beat them. That’s all there was to it. There was no learning year.

“I was able to do that. And I started winning consistently and then won the British Championship.

His unrivalled will to win took him from unknown underdog to one of the best-known names in motorsports: he drove for the Andrea Moda team in Formula One in 1992 – though never making it into a race – before moving into sports cars, including driving in the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times from 1996 and 2003. McCarthy also portrayed The Stig in the first two series of BBC’s motoring show Top Gear.

Whether Perry won or lost a race, he showed up with attitude – and it made waves – both on and off the race course.

“I did become well known very quickly in motor racing for my driving, but also for my attitude; ‘don’t stand in my way. I am going through anything and everything.’ Even in Formula One teams, when I was very young, people started knowing about this guy who was coming through and who would not stop.”

Subscribe now

What made you say, ‘I’m not just going to think about this very competitive and adventurous career, but I’m going to go for it?’

There are certain things that attract me and it's not the normal path because I often find things a little bit dull.

If I find the idea of something exciting, then it has my 100% focus. I don’t mean to sound bigheaded, but I know that I’ve got a number of attributes, and focus and determination are very high on that list.

I could have have an easier life if I’d set my sights a little bit lower, but that’s of no interest to me, so I’d rather endure the struggles.

What I’d say to anybody who is starting a business with any particular vision is that that's fantastic, and if they are equally determined and focused that is going to be needed. But the number one thing they will need to understand and be able to live with are huge disappointments.

Those who have a dream…you see this pool of contestants of those who have some ability and then those who have real ability but that pool dwindles because sometimes people cannot continue the path of suffering continued disappointment. It does make me smile sometimes when you see The X Factor, and a 19-year-old says; ‘Simon, this is my last chance.’ If you're 19 and you think that, you’re never going to succeed because it's a question of work, application and finding a way through those barriers.

You had a terrible accident early in your racing career, what made you decide to get back in the game?

I had a very, very bad accident which put me out for nearly a year after breaking my back. Then I was back into career asking ‘do I still want to do this, is my mind ok?’ I had to repair the body, I had to find some financing to actually even get back in. So it's challenges, challenges, challenges. The only thing that you do have to make sure is, when fighting all the time like this, you’ve got to make sure that there is a reward built in, and actually this is something you do want to do.

And it’s not just the scale tipping in favour – it’s ‘I'm obsessed with doing this and I absolutely believe that I can get to the top’ – then that was worth it.

Did you actively build a support group, or did it happen naturally?

There wasn't a great deal of sophistication about my approach years ago. It was walked around an industrial state, knock on doors, chat up the receptionist to try and get a meeting with a director. Sit in front of them. Tell them exactly how great motor racing is and where I'm going and just keep talking, engaging people, and just see what can be done. I was just knocking on doors, trying to get people to think ‘hey, this guy is really hungry. We like the idea of him going road racing, here’s a few 100 pounds or a few 1000 pounds.’

It was that imagination and determination, and a lot of people say ‘I can't get sponsorship.’ Did they walk around industry states knocking on doors? Did they send letters all the time? Did they make phone calls all the time? It's no stone unturned and this is what is needed and there was only one person who's gonna make that happen.

It wasn’t just ‘take the money and say thank you very much.’ See, they didn't have to do this really, they've done it for me and now I want to find ways to pay them back. I want to make sure that they’re happy. And sometimes the following year, they couldn’t do it because business was suffering, but I always made sure that nobody once had a bad taste in the mouth after dealing with me.

Was there a race or experience on the track that stood out to you?

I always got a real kick out of setting pole position and being the fastest of the fastest in qualifying. That meant a lot to me. My time in America was very good for that because I turned up to the States with a very small team with a small car against multi multi multi million dollar manufacturers and started tearing them apart. That was noticed big time. There was one particular race where I was in the level just below Formula One. And the only way I could get out there was to jump in a car that was being run from a friend's garden. No workshops, people, or team. We’d turn up with just this car with no testing, taking on some of the biggest stars that went on to be Grand Prix winners.

When you’re fighting for pole position in that, and when you’re fighting for fifth or sixth place in that, that's when people go ‘wow!’ My philosophy is – and it applies to so many walks of life – because so often I've been in a situation where it was impossible to win because of no testing, because of the car, because of no budget. It’s impossible to stand on the top step of the podium.

But you can win. You can win by coming 6th, you can win by coming 10th, you can win by coming 14th. Because if nobody else has been able to qualify that car for that kind of that race, what you’ve shown is you’re the one who’s qualified that car. You’re the one who’s fighting midfield.

If you never give up, and if you show that attitude and you’re dancing on the minute at every single corner, it gets noticed. You haven’t taken the silverware home, but you’ve won reputationally.

People go: ‘did you just see what he just did with that piece of rubbish?’

Perry’s top tips for Green Techpreneurs

Work on getting noticed

There are actually two careers: there's the career that you want to pursue. If it's business, you have to focus, you have to look at any gaps and try to fill those gaps and perform better and produce a better result. But the parallel career is that you have to be noticed.

The parallel career means that you have to get people to see what you're doing to be noticed, so that some of those barriers are removed by other people believing in you and giving you the chances you've been working for. It's no good being the best artist in the world locked up in a studio producing incredible work if you haven't organised an opportunity for it to be seen and desired.

Do you need to adjust what you’re doing, or work harder on getting noticed?

Even in dire moments, so much is what’s actually between the ears. You’ve got to keep thinking; ‘does this fundamental philosophy need adjusting? Or is it just that it needs to get noticed?’ Sometimes you have to tweak it. In any path or idea, if you could go from A to B – that would be ideal. From what I've experienced, it's more like a downhill skiing slalom race, where you have to zig zag and go sideways and then hopefully make some progress. Keep thinking, keep looking, keep developing, because if you don't, you might as well throw in the towel.

Book Recommendation

You can buy the audio to Perry’s international bestseller, Flat Out Flat Broke here. Or purchase the hardcover out now!

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur.

#SparkTheTransition 🥂

Marianne

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Hello and welcome to The Green Techpreneur — the magazine and marketplace where climate founders raise faster, scale smarter, and rise together.

On our Climate Marketplace, 190+ startups have listed and over €200M has been raised. With 2,000 investors registered on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem for climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Now welcoming Platform Sponsors.
Reach 16,000+ climate founders, investors, and professionals shaping the net-zero transition. Position your brand at the heart of climate funding and innovation.

🌍 Let’s create impact together, email: marianne@thegreentechpreneur.com
Or book a call: booking calendar

Inside the story of Pionix CEO Marco Möller: from drone pioneer to the founder behind the open-source stack making EV charging as reliable as filling up.

Electric vehicles are scaling faster than charging networks can keep up. The world now has five million public charging points, twice as many as in 2022. And yet, for millions of drivers, the experience still feels like a coin toss.

Roughly one in seven charging attempts in the U.S. fails, and parts of Europe see similar numbers. Behind those failures aren’t broken plugs — they’re mismatched software stacks that can’t understand one another.

It’s exactly the kind of problem that drives an engineer mad.

And for Marco Möller, it did: “You’re standing there, low on charge, and it just… doesn’t work.”

Marco had already built a startup big enough to catch Intel’s eye. His first company, MAVinci, developed precision surveying drones, a venture he grew from scratch and sold in 2016.

But it was at Intel, inside the civilian drone operations software division, where the seed for his next venture Pionix was planted — in failure.

“We realised too late that the drone industry had shifted to open source,” Marco recalls. “The ecosystem evolved faster than we did. We couldn’t catch up.”

That bruising lesson, that closed systems lose to open ecosystems, stayed with him.

Years later, while consulting for mid-sized companies experimenting with EV charging, that lesson resurfaced in the most mundane setting imaginable: a charger that wouldn’t charge.

“Every EV driver knows this moment. You’re on the road, low on battery, you plug in — and nothing happens. You try the app, the card, reboot the charger… It was obvious this wasn’t a hardware issue. It was software fragmentation.”

Standing beside a dead charger on a cold, grey day, frustration hit Marco…he felt the MAVinci déjà vu hit him with force:

“This can’t be how we scale e-mobility.”

That was the moment Pionix began, not as a business concept, but as a refusal to accept a broken status quo.

“People won’t switch if charging feels unreliable,” says Marco. What he saw wasn’t a hardware failure, it was a coordination failure. A broken conversation between car, charger, and backend. And it sparked the idea that would become Pionix: Marco applied the concept of the ‘open ecosystem’ to disrupt the EV charging industry and create one of the world’s largest open-source initiatives in e-mobility.

Pionix’s software stack, EVerest, now powers hundreds of thousands of chargers around the globe and is maintained by 600+ contributors from more than 70 organisations under the Linux Foundation Energy. Earlier this year, the company secured an €8 million funding round led by Ascend Capital Partners; capital that will fuel its next phase of growth as it expands EVerest’s capabilities and scales its commercial products, ChargeBridge and Pionix Cloud.

Subscribe now

Take us back to those early Pionix days. How did the first version of EVerest take shape and who believed in the vision first?

The first version of EVerest was built the way many transformative technologies begin: three founders in a small office, surrounded by whiteboards full of protocol diagrams, reverse-engineering the messiness of EV charging standards line by line. “We wanted to prove that open source could be the solid foundation the industry was missing,” Marco says.

There was no guarantee anyone would care. But something remarkable happened. Developers from Europe, the U.S., and Asia started contributing code. Early believers like Pale blue dot and Vireo Ventures recognised that a shared operating system for EV charging, the Android of e-mobility, wasn’t just useful, it was inevitable. “That was the turning point,” Marco recalls. “It gave us confidence that we weren’t alone in this.”

When you donated EVerest to the Linux Energy Foundation, it was a rare move for a young startup. Why choose that path?

“For us, open source was the only sustainable path,” Marco says. The industry had spent years introducing standard after standard, only for each to be interpreted differently, creating a new generation of incompatibility. Proprietary systems weren’t the solution; they were the problem.

Donating EVerest to Linux Foundation Energy, a neutral nonprofit, meant giving up control of the core. That was emotionally difficult. But it also unlocked trust. “If we kept it proprietary, no one would adopt it as a shared foundation,” Marco explains. “By placing it under open governance, the industry could build on it without fearing lock-in.”

Today, EVerest has more than 600 contributors, 70+ organisations, and an estimated ecosystem value of $500 million: and it’s powering hundreds of thousands of chargers worldwide.

The IEA says charging points are doubling, but interoperability remains the Achilles heel. What’s causing the fragmentation?

Marco describes the ecosystem as a patchwork of brilliant but isolated engineering teams, OEMs, operators, backend providers, each building slightly different interpretations of the same standards. These differences create countless small mismatches that only become visible in the real world: dropped sessions, frozen screens, errors that no one can reproduce in the lab.

“It’s not that people don’t want to collaborate,” Marco says, “it’s that everyone has been building in their own silo.” That fragmentation is why failure rates remain stubbornly high; sometimes up to 25%.

How does EVerest make chargers ‘just work’?

EVerest turns the world’s EV charging standards, thousands of pages of them, into working code. Everyone uses the same foundation, the same protocols, the same interpretations. It’s a universal translator for chargers.

That transparency has an additional benefit: bugs get discovered and fixed faster, not just by one team but by an entire global community. “It’s a ‘better together’ effect,” Marco says. “Innovation compounds instead of fragmenting.”

We’re seeing governments push for open systems and digital independence. Why is this trend accelerating now?

Companies are realising that they don’t want to be locked into single-vendor solutions when building long-lived infrastructure. Open source provides freedom: anyone can audit, improve, customise, or fork the code. It also reduces cost and time-to-market. “A global open ecosystem always out-innovates any proprietary team,” Marco says. “It’s not even a fair fight.”

How do Pionix’s commercial products fit into the open-source model?

EVerest remains free and open. But deploying chargers at scale still requires enterprise-grade tools. That’s where Pionix Cloud and ChargeBridge come in. Cloud handles diagnostics, updates and monitoring, while ChargeBridge provides a plug-and-play module that cuts engineering time dramatically.

“Think of it like Android,” Marco says. “The core is open, but companies still need strong products on top.”

What’s been the toughest part of scaling Pionix — and what kept you going?

Marco doesn’t romanticise the hard parts. There were long stretches when investors struggled to see how open source could become a business. There were technical challenges that took months to unravel. And there were days when the team wondered if they were too early, or too idealistic.

“What kept us going,” Marco says, “was the ecosystem. Seeing people all over the world contribute. Seeing companies build products on our stack. That’s when you realise the idea is bigger than you.”

How would you describe your leadership style?

Energetic, hands-on, and deeply involved in the product. “I like moving fast and inspiring people to take on ambitious challenges,” he says.

Do you have a daily ritual that keeps you grounded?

“Automate what can be automated. It gives me the headspace to focus on what really matters.”

What’s a guiding belief that’s shaped your entrepreneurial journey?

“Spread your idea widely and relentlessly. If you’re met with resistance, it usually means things are just getting started.”

If you could share one piece of advice, what would it be?

“Build with collaboration in mind. The climate challenge is too big for one company. Shared solutions scale faster, create more trust and deliver more impact. And never take ‘no’ as the final answer.”

If every charger ran on open source, what would that mean for drivers, operators and the planet?

Marco imagines a world where charging is boring; the good kind of boring. It just works: any charger, anywhere, any car. Reliability becomes the norm. Infrastructure scales faster. And EVs integrate seamlessly into the grid, enabling vehicle-to-grid services and smarter energy systems.

“The future of EV charging,” he says, “will be effortless; open, intelligent and seamlessly connected.”

Subscribe now

Stop cold-emailing—let climate-focused investors find you.
Founders on the Climate Marketplace have already raised €200M+.

Every paid plan includes guaranteed visibility via three investor-facing placements:

• Searchable Marketplace profile (2,000+ registered investors scouting deals)

• Direct investor distribution to a global targeted climate audience

• Premium feature placement in our GT media network (limited slots)

⚡ December placements are closing soon - secure your spot today. On average, 40% of startups listed on the site in 2025 have gotten an investor lead.

Contact Us for Fundraising Support

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

• Clover (Spain) – subscription e-bikes simplifying urban mobility (€440K Seed).

• Biomede (France) – phytoremediation startup cleaning toxic soils (€1.5M Seed).

• Ionic Desalination (US) – low-energy desalination using liquid-membrane tech (€2.5M Seed).

• O valle (US) – luxury organic textiles for hotels and retail (€500K Series B).

• Dappr (Netherlands) – sustainable wound care (€500K Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur

Have a great weekend!

🥂SparkTheTransition - to a kinder, greener, more just world!

Marianne

P.S. Enjoy GT? We’d really appreciate it if you could share it forward - We’ve been interviewing eco-innovators and connecting the sector for 5+ years, and need your help to reach our goal of 10,000 subs!

Share

“Wisdom comes with winters.” —Oscar Wilde

On our Climate Marketplace, 190+ startups have listed and over €200M has been raised. With 2,000 investors registered on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re connecting the global ecosystem for climate innovation and funding.

Contact us for Fundraising Support

Now welcoming Platform Sponsors.
Reach 16,000+ climate founders, investors, and professionals shaping the net-zero transition. Position your brand at the heart of climate funding and innovation.

🌍 Let’s create impact together, email: marianne@thegreentechpreneur.com
Or book a call: booking calendar

When Jop Blom first began working with climate entrepreneurs in Colombia in 2019, he saw an enormous gap, not in talent, but in access. Across Latin America, founders were full of bold ideas for solving the climate crisis but had few pathways to funding, mentorship, or markets.

That frustration became the spark for CleantechHUB, a growing network of physical and virtual hubs that connect early-stage climate entrepreneurs across the Global South to investors, partners, and pilot opportunities: a bridge between local innovators tackling on-the-ground problems and the global capital, data, and know-how they need to scale.

“We bridge the missing middle, from idea to investor-ready startup,” says founder Jop Blom. “And while hybrid works, nothing replaces the spark of people meeting in person.”

From its first hub in Bogotá, CleantechHUB has expanded across Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, and Guatemala, helping over 1,000 startups unlock $10 million in capital, create 3,000 green jobs, and avoid 5 megatons of CO₂. The next step: building a Global South Platform that allows these hubs to share data, connect with international investors, and replicate their model continent to continent.

“CleantechHUB started as an idea in Colombia and is now a movement across continents,” he adds. “Our goal is simple, empower those who dare to fix climate change from the ground up.”

Subscribe now

How the Model Works

Each CleantechHUB site acts as both incubator and connector, offering tailored programs for ideation, incubation, and acceleration while embedding itself inside universities and municipalities. Founders gain access to mentors, labs, and pilot partners right where they live, rather than having to relocate or chase Western funding networks.

The hubs follow a shared playbook: scout promising ideas, run structured acceleration programs, link founders to market pilots, and remain engaged as those ventures raise and scale. All data and learnings feed into a central digital platform designed to replicate success across the Global South.

“Everything is local,” Blom explains. “Universities, mentors, entrepreneurs, all tuned to local challenges within a global climate mission.”

Closing the Climate-Startup Gap

Across emerging economies, fewer than 5 percent of climate startups reach the growth stage. Ecosystems remain fragmented; investors stay concentrated in capitals; and public procurement rarely rewards innovation.

CleantechHUB exists to close those gaps, mobilising catalytic capital, building local capacity, and transforming isolated founders into a connected movement. Its target for the next 24 months: support another 1,000 startups, unlock $15 million in investment, and create 3,000 green jobs through new hubs and replication of proven models.

Jop’s Advice for Founders

“Be realistic. Don’t chase every market: focus, validate, and own your niche before scaling.”

He looks for clarity, grit, and proactivity; founders who don’t wait for permission to move. When given just 60 seconds to pitch, Jop says:
“Tell me the industry you’re about to disrupt, and show me the traction proving it.”

Startup Success

From Zhana in Colombia, turning kitchen waste into biofuel with municipal partners, to Sunco, a solar company raising its Series B to expand community energy access, to Clover in Spain, a revolutionary asset-light e-mobility venture building its first Latin pilot, CleantechHUB’s alumni show how Global South founders can scale impact when ecosystems connect.

So far, the network has supported 1,000 startups, leveraged $10 million, created 3,000 jobs, and helped avoid 5 megatons of CO₂, aiming for 50 by 2030.

♻️ Discover and contact climate founders raising

Explore the Climate Marketplace

From Latin America to a Global South Platform

What makes CleantechHUB distinctive is its South-to-South logic. Rather than exporting Western accelerator models, it builds capacity across emerging economies — connecting Colombia to Costa Rica, or Peru to Guatemala — so local founders can learn from one another and co-develop solutions suited to similar contexts.

The eventual bridge to Europe, including its new hub in Barcelona, is a natural extension of that mission — a way to bring Global South innovation into dialogue with global investors while keeping the leadership firmly rooted in the South.

“LATAM is full of talent but short on capital,” says Blom. “Now more than ever we need ecosystems that make innovation possible from the ground up.”

Inclusive, Measurable Impact

CleantechHUB tracks its results through an impact scorecard measuring CO₂ avoided, waste reduced, jobs created, and capital mobilised — verified through startup data and independent dashboards. The organisation has gender mainstreaming goals of at least 50 percent women-led startups, alongside strong youth and rural representation to reflect each society’s diversity.

Daily Ritual for Success

Every morning at 5 a.m., Jop starts his day with reflection and gratitude. His mantra:

“The best way to predict a better future is to create it.”

……If he could teleport himself into the future, by 2030, he envisions not just having created a catalytic capital fund but a networked ecosystem where investors and founders across the Global South co-finance one another’s growth, proving that the climate transition can be led from the South up, not the North down.

Subscribe now

Stop cold-emailing—let climate-focused investors find you.
Founders on the Climate Marketplace have already raised €200M+.

Every paid plan includes guaranteed visibility via three investor-facing placements:

• Searchable Marketplace profile (2,000+ registered investors scouting deals)

• Direct investor distribution to a global targeted climate audience

• Premium feature placement in our GT media network (limited slots)

⚡ November placements are closing soon - secure your spot today. On average, 40% of startups listed on the site in 2025 have gotten an investor lead.

Contact Us for Fundraising Support

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

• Clover (Spain) – subscription e-bikes simplifying urban mobility (€440K Seed).

• Biomede (France) – phytoremediation startup cleaning toxic soils (€1.5M Seed).

• Ionic Desalination (US) – low-energy desalination using liquid-membrane tech (€2.5M Seed).

• O valle (US) – luxury organic textiles for hotels and retail (€500K Series B).

• Dappr (Netherlands) – sustainable wound care (€500K Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur

Have a great weekend!

🥂SparkTheTransition - to a kinder, greener, more just world!

Marianne

P.S. Enjoy GT? We’d really appreciate it if you could share it forward - We’ve been interviewing eco-innovators and connecting the sector for 5+ years, and need your help to reach our goal of 10,000 subs!

Share

“Autumn… the year’s last, loveliest smile.” - William Cullen Bryant

On our Climate Marketplace, 190+ startups have listed and over €200M has been raised. With 2,000 investors registered on the platform and 10,000+ in our wider community, we’re building a premium global ecosystem for climate innovation and funding.

Now welcoming Platform Sponsors.
Reach 16,000+ climate founders, investors, and professionals shaping the net-zero transition. Sponsorships start from £550 per issue; position your brand at the heart of climate funding and innovation.

🌍 Let’s create impact together: marianne@thegreentechpreneur.com
Or book a call: booking calendar

In this Green Techpreneur episode, I spoke to the Co-founders of Gimme Seaweed to share how their journey of infusing passion, love, and a personal touch - connecting with customers as you would with friends and family - became keys to growing a household name brand that’s both delicious, nutritious and good for the planet.

“I’ll never forget that feeling I had, in the early morning, it was 6 a.m., I was 35 and at the farmers market and feeling like I was in charge of my life and about to go on this very refreshing journey. And that became Annie Chun’s and the start of all that transpired. It was based on really wanting to be myself and sharing the love and experience that I have. Based on this, I always make sure to connect with myself, who I am, and what I have learned.”

Annie Chun is the pioneer of an organic seaweed US snack brand, Gimme Seaweed, that has shifted what was a niche product into the mainstream market. She immigrated from Korea as a young woman in 1976 - but it was in selling homemade produce at a farmers market in 1991 that she found her North Star as a green techpreneur. At the time, she would never have imagined that her humble outdoor market beginnings would lead to building a household brand name.

So how did she beat the odds to build an exceptional business from the ground up?

“You’re not really calculating, I’m going to put that into the US market, I did it truly as a friend, as a neighbour, one by one. And by doing so, I learnt a lot about what American culture is, how they connect, what they like. It just came to me naturally through that experience, and I think that’s the base of our reach to our market and our buyers.”

Along the way, she met her husband and co-founder, Steve Broad. They launched Gimme Seaweed in 2012, where Annie brings her Korean roots to the US with the introduction of seaweed as a snack. Together, they created the world’s first USDA Certified Organic, non-GMO Project Verified seaweed snacks.

“I couldn’t have built the business by myself,” says Chun. “It was almost like that was the path we had to walk together.”

Seaweed is the underrated story of our time – it’s the ultimate regenerative crop – and along with shellfish, it’s one of the few farmed foods with a net positive environmental impact.

In a world of water scarcity, it provides valuable nutrition without use of freshwater, and if farmed organically, it helps keep the oceans clean and fights climate change. Seaweed farms sequester carbon and improve water quality: one ton of seaweed can sequester over 1 ton of CO2 annually – a stark contrast to the heavy toll traditional agriculture takes on the environment. But it’s also a commercial success story: since 2018 the seaweed category has grown by 63% with strong double-digit growth YOY.

Today, Gimme is on a fast growth trajectory. It’s the #1 organic seaweed brand leading the way in online channel sales with a 60% category share on Amazon and can be found at major US and Canadian retailers including Wholefoods, Kroger, Publix, Target, Safeway, Sprouts and HEB.

The One Co Agency
By blending creative content with platform-native distribution, The One Co Agency empowers climate innovators to connect with audiences who care about sustainability, technology, making it an ideal partner for climate tech founders looking to scale their mission and reach.

Start Your Climate Impact Campaign

What sustainability practices does Gimme Seaweed employ?

Annie: Our commitment to sustainability starts in the ocean, Gimme was the first US company to offer organic, non-GMO seaweed. We worked closely with seaweed farmers in South Korea and in close cooperation with the Korean National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives to develop the standard for organic, non-GMO seaweed that is widely used today by the industry.

It was a lot of work for us to coordinate between the Korean Control Union and the USDA and then to find a supplier – because organic wasn’t in the vocabulary in Korea, nor non-GMO, and it took a lot of time. In recognition for helping transform the seaweed industry we received a Supplier of the Year Award for Organic Commitment from Whole Foods Market. We use 250 tons of dried seaweed a year which requires 2,500 tons of wet seaweed, this absorbs 4,265 tons of CO2 per year.

How were you able to take a niche product and introduce it in a mainstream market?

Steve: Understand what you have as a product and understand where the consumer is and what they’re seeking and how you bring that together.

• What helped us was starting at the farmers market and directly speaking to the consumer as opposed to just looking at a data story and then figuring out what needs to happen.

• Then you create the brand with the values you embody to create that consumer love that’s really where the magic happens.

• We built a brand that was more mainstream than the seaweed market had previously been.

Annie: It’s been a great journey. Finding myself, connecting with people, and sharing my passion and love. The customers teach me a lot as well. It’s just a cycle of learning.

Where there key moments that were pivotal to your success?

Steve: It took luck meets hard work opportunities to get it going.

Annie: When we first started, I was the creator, and Steve was a business partner. I was also the salesperson making cold calls. There are times when it is very challenging to persuade the buyer even if you know you’re doing the right thing. You get a lot of rejections and then you run into someone who just helps you right there. If I didn’t walk this path, I would not have had the break.

You encounter a lot of rejection and failure, but it’s not failure, because you just get up and keep walking that path again and again – it may take you four or five years, but then the door opens for you.

Here’s what I learned: no matter what happens, you need to walk on that path, then you will have a break, and failure is not a bad thing because you make your situation much better from that learning.

How do you navigate being both business and life partners?

Annie: It’s essential to have a common goal. You almost have to be one person even if you’re two separate people. You have to ask if beyond marriage and beyond business, just as individuals, ‘can we walk this path together if we have a common goal?’

It certainly hasn’t been easy but we’ve known each other for 35 years now, we have two beautiful grown up kids – young adults - and two businesses. So one can only imagine lots of ups and downs and tears and sweat but it’s important to see that light at the end of the tunnel, and that is the goal that you have, and then we can just walk the path together. And we’re actually best friends, we think alike.

Steve: It’s certainly love and mutual respect and we also have complementary skills, it’s bringing these things together where the genesis happens.

What do you love most about what you do?

Annie: Seeing people enjoy the product is a blessing. It’s also amazing to see the wide range of ethnicities that enjoy the seaweed and how it makes a difference in bringing healthy nutrition into American diets – especially for children.

What advice would you give to other green techpreneurs?

Steve: Make sure you’re in touch with what the actual economics are of what you’re trying to do and ask, ‘what’s that market going to look like?’ It’s easy to jump in and then all of a sudden you’re spending money and then you don’t have an understanding of what the future is, where you’re trying to be, or what you need to accomplish.

That economic/financial piece is always tricky. Also knowing what kind of capital you bring in and how it might support you or not after you put in so much hard work to get to a certain place. Have the answers, but without trying to constrain yourself, because you know what the answer is, if you don’t get started.

How would you describe your journey in 3 words?

Steve: Amazing, challenging, rewarding

Annie: Dream, visualise, work hard

What’s your mantra or life philosophy?

Steve: Work hard, respect others, listen and learn constantly. Appreciate others, from your suppliers to your employees to your customers.

Annie: In the past seven years or so, through my journey, I had to learn to be patient and try to take the higher road.

Do you have any daily rituals that keep you grounded?

Annie: I normally play with my dog – she makes me run around and throw balls on her walk. I try to walk every day and I remind myself ‘I’m good in this moment’, and I just focus on this moment and on now.

……………...if Annie and Steve could teleport themselves into the future and be anywhere, doing anything, they’d be in Italy or Hawaii; “we’d have a difficult time choosing one or the other,” says Annie, “I’d learn to cook, learn to surf, learn to paint. I love how warm and hospitable people are, I’d love to share that and learn about their cultures and I’d love to explore…we haven’t gone to New Zealand or Australia yet.”

Subscribe now

Stop cold-emailing—let climate-focused investors find you.
Founders on our Climate Marketplace have already raised €200M+.

Every paid plan includes guaranteed visibility via three investor-facing placements:

• Searchable Marketplace profile (2,000+ registered investors scouting deals)

• Direct investor distribution to a global targeted climate audience

• Premium feature placement in our GT media network (limited slots)

⚡ November placements are closing soon - secure your spot today. On average, 40% of startups listed on the site in 2025 have gotten an investor lead.

Contact Us for Fundraising Support

Startups Raising on the Climate Marketplace

• Clover (Spain) – subscription e-bikes simplifying urban mobility (€440K Seed).

• Biomede (France) – phytoremediation startup cleaning toxic soils (€1.5M Seed).

• Ionic Desalination (US) – low-energy desalination using liquid-membrane tech (€2.5M Seed).

• O valle (US) – luxury organic textiles for hotels and retail (€500K Series B).

• Dappr (Netherlands) – sustainable wound care (€500K Seed).

💡 View and contact more startups raising investment on the Climate Marketplace

Market Signals for Founders to Watch

• AI is the new backbone. Green innovation is shifting toward smart systems — optimisation, prediction, and adaptive intelligence — not just new hardware. If you’re not building a data layer, you’ll be left behind.

• Dispatchability is the frontier. The next energy race is about renewables that can deliver power on demand. Think Exowatt, long-duration storage, and thermal systems making clean energy behave like fossil or nuclear.

• Scale beats novelty. Investors now back teams who can deploy, integrate, and compress costs — not just invent in the lab.

• Policy still makes or breaks progress. Incentives, permitting, and tax credits can move markets overnight. Watch the U.S. and EU policy swings closely.

• Infrastructure enablers are the dark horses. From local governance tools to digital dashboards, the “plumbing” behind climate systems is quietly driving real adoption.

🥂SparkTheTransition… and get seen.
Upgrade for guaranteed visibility :

Three investor-facing placements:

• Searchable Marketplace profile (2,000+ registered investors scouting deals)

• Direct investor distribution to a global targeted climate audience

• Premium feature placement in our GT media network (limited slots)

The proof is in the pudding:

Upgrade & Claim My Ad Spot Now

Thank you for reading The Green Techpreneur

Have a great weekend!

🥂SparkTheTransition - to a kinder, greener, more just world!

Marianne

P.S. Enjoy GT? I’d really appreciate it if you could share it forward - I’ve been consistently interviewing eco-innovators and connecting the sector for 5+ years, and need your help to reach my goal of 10,000 subs!

Share

“In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening—no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.” —Alexander Smith