Climate tech investing has matured considerably from its "cleantech 1.0" days. Today's climate investors fund a much wider range of businesses — from hardware-intensive energy storage and industrial decarbonization companies to climate software platforms tracking emissions and energy use — and many have built multi-billion-dollar platforms with deep technical and policy expertise. Below are nine US-based firms actively deploying capital into the sector today.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Location: Kirkland, WA Focus: Energy, industrial decarbonization, and climate hardware Stage: Early to growth Founded in 2016 by Bill Gates and a coalition of the world's most successful business leaders—including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Vinod Khosla—Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) is a Kirkland, Washington-based venture firm dedicated to reaching net-zero emissions. BEV manages over $3.5 billion in committed capital across three flagship funds and is distinguished by its "patient capital" approach, with a 20-year fund horizon that allows it to back capital-intensive "hard tech" innovations. The firm invests globally from Seed through Growth stages, focusing on five key sectors: electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and buildings. BEV’s internal team of scientists and engineers provides rigorous technical diligence, ensuring every portfolio company has a credible path to mitigating at least half a gigaton of CO2 emissions annually. Notable portfolio companies include Commonwealth Fusion Systems, where BEV led the Series A to commercialize clean fusion energy; Form Energy, a developer of iron-air batteries for long-duration grid storage where the firm was an early lead investor; and Lydian, a synthetic aviation fuel developer that received a $43 million Series A led by BEV in 2026. Through these bets, BEV aims to transform the global energy landscape by funding the most scientifically ambitious breakthroughs.
Energy Impact Partners
Location: New York, NY Focus: Decarbonization software and hardware across the energy value chain Stage: Early through growth Energy Impact Partners (EIP) was founded in 2015 by Hans Kobler and is headquartered in New York City. The firm is a global investment platform that manages over $4.7 billion in assets and operates a unique "multi-corporate collaboration" model. EIP is backed by a coalition of over 80 of the world’s largest utilities and industrial companies—such as NextEra Energy, National Grid, and Shell—who serve as both limited partners and strategic collaborators. This structure allows EIP to provide its portfolio companies with direct access to a massive customer base and real-world testing environments, significantly de-risking the commercialization of energy transition technologies. The firm invests across venture, growth, and credit stages in sectors including grid modernization, decarbonization software, and distributed energy. Notable investments include Arcadia, a community solar and clean energy platform where EIP has provided significant growth capital; and AutoGrid, a leader in AI-powered flexibility management for the grid that was acquired by Schneider Electric. EIP also backed Dragos in the industrial cybersecurity space, reflecting its focus on securing the critical infrastructure that powers the modern world. In 2026, the firm announced the close of its Flagship Fund III, reinforcing its position at the center of the global energy transformation.
Lowercarbon Capital
Location: San Francisco, CA Focus: Carbon removal, clean energy, and climate hardware Stage: Seed through growth Lowercarbon Capital was founded in 2018 by legendary venture investor Chris Sacca and his wife Crystal Sacca, who emerged from retirement to tackle the climate crisis. Headquartered in New York and Jackson, Wyoming, the firm manages over $2 billion in assets and is known for its aggressive, high-conviction approach to "planet-healing" technologies. Lowercarbon differentiates itself by being the "first check" for founders and focusing on three pillars: slashing new emissions, sucking carbon out of the sky, and buying time to cool the planet. The firm avoids the "shame and guilt" narrative, instead focusing on the massive business opportunities in decarbonization. Its investment strategy is stage-agnostic, participating from Pre-Seed through Growth rounds. Standout portfolio companies include Antora Energy, which develops thermal energy storage using carbon blocks where Lowercarbon led the early rounds; and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a leader in commercial fusion where the firm participated in large growth rounds. Other key bets include Solugen, which uses synthetic biology to produce chemicals without petroleum, and Charm Industrial, a pioneer in bio-oil carbon sequestration. Lowercarbon’s hustle and deep experience in scaling tech giants like Uber and Twitter provide its climate founders with a unique competitive edge in the race to net-zero.
Congruent Ventures
Location: San Francisco, CA Focus: Early-stage climate tech across energy, food, and industrial systems Stage: Seed and Series A Congruent Ventures is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm founded in 2017 by Joshua Posamentier and Abe Yokell, who previously led sustainability investments at Prelude and Rockport Capital. The firm manages over $1 billion in assets and is a dedicated "pure-play" early-stage climate investor, focusing on Seed and Series A rounds in North American startups. Congruent is distinguished by its willingness to invest at the very earliest stages of company formation, often before a product or revenue exists. The firm focuses on five key themes: Energy Abundance, Agriculture and Food, Industry and Efficiency, Mobility and Built Environment, and Resilience and Restoration. Its partners bring decades of sector expertise, having navigated the original "cleantech 1.0" wave and adapted those lessons for the modern market. Notable investments include Span.IO, a smart electrical panel company where Congruent led the Seed round to enable home electrification; and Parallel Systems, a developer of autonomous, battery-electric rail vehicles where the firm was a formation-stage investor. Other portfolio companies like Meati Foods (fungi-based protein) and VEIR (superconducting power lines) highlight Congruent’s breadth across the sustainability stack, helping audacious founders build category-defining companies that do more with less.
Prelude Ventures
Location: San Francisco, CA Focus: Climate and energy technology across stages Stage: Seed through growth Prelude Ventures was founded in 2013 by Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons and is headquartered in San Francisco. The firm serves as the investment vehicle for the Simons family’s philanthropic entities, providing a unique "evergreen" capital structure that allows for long-term alignment with founders. Prelude manages a diverse portfolio of over 50 companies and typically invests at the Seed and Series A stages, with the ability to follow on through the growth phase. The firm’s central ethos is that the transition to a low-carbon economy represents the greatest investment opportunity of the 21st century. Prelude focuses on sectors including the built environment, carbon management, agriculture, and manufacturing, seeking out "frontier" technologies with high technical risk but enormous potential for scale. Notable portfolio companies include QuantumScape, the solid-state battery pioneer where Prelude was a Series A investor before its successful public listing; and Form Energy, the long-duration battery startup where the firm led early funding. Other key holdings include Boston Metal, which is decarbonizing steel production, and Rumin8, a company reducing methane emissions from livestock, showcasing Prelude’s commitment to backing visionaries who are reshaping the global industrial economy for the betterment of the planet.
DCVC (Data Collective)
Location: San Francisco, CA Focus: Deep tech, including climate and agricultural technology Stage: Seed through growth DCVC, or Data Collective, is a Palo Alto-based venture firm founded in 2010 by Managing Partners Matt Ocko and Zachary Bogue. The firm manages over $3 billion in assets across 13 funds and is a pioneer in "Deep Tech" investing—backing companies that apply AI, exa-scale computing, and advanced science to solve trillion-dollar problems. DCVC differentiates itself through a team that includes more published scientists than MBAs, providing unparalleled technical depth in its diligence process. The firm has one of the longest records of climate tech investment, focusing on companies that restore predictability in an unstable world. Its investment approach spans from Seed to Growth stages, with a dedicated arm, DCVC Bio, focusing on the intersection of biology and computation. Key climate investments include Pivot Bio, a microbial nitrogen company where DCVC led the 2014 Seed round to transform sustainable agriculture; and Fervo Energy, a leader in next-generation geothermal power where the firm was a Series A lead. Other notable companies include AbCellera (drug discovery) and Rocket Lab (space launch), reflecting DCVC’s commitment to backing technically ambitious founders who are multiplying the benefits of capitalism while reducing its environmental costs.
S2G Ventures
Location: Chicago, IL Focus: Food, agriculture, and climate-adjacent sectors Stage: Seed through growth Founded in 2014 and based in Chicago, S2G Ventures—which rebranded to S2G Investments in 2025—is a multi-stage investment firm focused on the "seams" of sector transition. The firm manages $2.8 billion in assets and specializes in three interconnected sectors: food and agriculture, oceans, and energy. S2G’s investment approach is defined by a systems-wide lens, recognizing that human and environmental health are fundamentally linked. The firm provides capital from Seed through Growth stages, along with debt and infrastructure financing, to help market-based solutions achieve commercial scale. S2G is distinguished by its deep sector experience and its mission to change the global food system. Notable portfolio companies include Beyond Meat, the plant-based protein leader where S2G was an early and pivotal investor; and Apeel Sciences, which develops plant-derived coatings to extend the shelf life of produce, where the firm led the Series B. In the energy sector, S2G has backed companies like InCharge Energy (EV charging) and Kanin Energy (waste heat to power), demonstrating its ability to identify scalable technologies that address emissions across hard-to-abate industries while delivering strong financial returns.
Khosla Ventures
Location: Menlo Park, CA Focus: Multi-sector, with a long-standing and significant climate and energy practice Stage: Seed through growth Khosla Ventures was founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a legendary figure in Silicon Valley venture capital. Headquartered in Menlo Park, the firm manages approximately $15 billion in assets and is famous for its willingness to back "imprudent science experiments"—technically ambitious companies that others consider too risky. Khosla’s philosophy is that most venture returns come from a few massive outliers, so it deliberately funds high-risk, high-reward ventures in AI, climate, and healthcare. The firm invests from Seed through Growth, often providing "venture assistance" to help technical founders build world-changing companies. In the climate sector, Khosla has been a dominant force for over two decades, most notably as an early backer of QuantumScape and Impossible Foods, where it led the Seed round to disrupt the global meat industry. The firm was also the first institutional investor in OpenAI in 2018, recognizing the transformative potential of AI years before it became mainstream. Other key climate bets include Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Rocket Lab, reflecting Khosla’s commitment to backing technically difficult companies where success represents a genuine discontinuity in the market.
Clean Energy Ventures
Location: Boston, MA Focus: Early-stage climate and clean-energy technology Stage: Seed and Series A Founded in 2017 by Daniel Goldman, David Miller, and Temple Fennell, Clean Energy Ventures (CEV) is a Boston-based venture firm specializing in early-stage climate innovations. The firm’s managing partners have been investing together in the space since the early 2000s, bringing decades of operational and engineering experience to their portfolio. CEV manages over $400 million across two funds and focuses exclusively on Seed and Series A companies with the potential to mitigate at least 2.5 gigatons of CO2 by 2050. The firm is distinguished by its rigorous "technical operator" diligence—every investment must have proven science and a clear path to commercialization without "science risk." CEV provides hands-on support through a team of over 30 experienced entrepreneurs who help founders navigate the "valley of death" from lab breakthrough to market leadership. Notable investments include Hertha Metals, a green steel developer where CEV led the Seed round to eliminate carbon from heavy industry; and Lithios, which is commercializing an electro-extraction technology for sustainable lithium mining, where the firm also led the Seed round. Through these bets, CEV aims to build the next generation of category-defining climate hardware companies.
How these firms differ from one another
Even within a list this focused, the firms above span meaningfully different strategies. Some, like Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Prelude Ventures, are built around patient, mission-driven capital — in Breakthrough's case backed by a coalition of long-term investors with a multi-decade investment horizon, which allows them to fund capital-intensive hardware bets that a traditional ten-year fund structure would struggle to support. Others, like Energy Impact Partners, operate a multi-corporate collaboration model that pairs venture capital with direct relationships to utilities and energy companies that can become customers or commercialization partners for portfolio companies. Generalist firms with deep climate practices, such as Khosla Ventures, bring a different advantage: access to a much larger platform and network built across many sectors, which can be valuable for portfolio companies that need help recruiting technical talent or navigating enterprise sales outside of climate-specific channels.
Founders should think carefully about which of these models fits their company's needs rather than defaulting to whichever firm offers the highest valuation. A hardware-intensive company with a multi-year path to commercial deployment may benefit far more from a patient, technically deep investor willing to follow on through multiple rounds than from a generalist fund optimized for faster-moving software outcomes.
What makes climate tech fundraising different
Climate tech companies are frequently capital-intensive, hardware-heavy, and dependent on policy incentives that can shift with elections and regulation. That combination means founders often need to blend multiple capital sources — venture equity, project finance, grants, and debt — rather than relying on a single round to fund both R&D and first-of-a-kind deployment. Understanding venture debt and other non-dilutive structures is especially important in this sector, since equity alone is often prohibitively expensive for financing physical infrastructure.
This is particularly true for companies building first-of-a-kind commercial facilities, where the capital needed to build and operate a single plant can dwarf the size of a typical venture round. Many climate hardware companies raise dedicated project-finance vehicles or special-purpose entities to fund these facilities separately from the corporate balance sheet, which keeps dilution at the parent company more reasonable while still allowing the underlying technology to reach commercial scale. Founders exploring this path should start conversations with project financiers and strategic partners well before the corporate equity round that will fund the up-front engineering work.
Building the right narrative for climate investors
Climate-focused investors expect founders to be fluent in both the technical and policy dimensions of their market. A strong pitch deck for a climate tech company should clearly show the unit economics of the underlying technology at scale, not just at the pilot stage, and should address how policy incentives such as those available through the US Department of Energy factor into the business model. The NVCA publishes useful research on venture investment trends, including climate-specific data, that can help founders benchmark their raise against the broader market.
It's also worth being explicit in a pitch about regulatory and policy risk rather than glossing over it. Climate investors have watched incentive programs shift meaningfully with changes in administration and legislation, and a founder who can articulate how the business model holds up under a range of policy scenarios — rather than one that is wholly dependent on a single incentive remaining in place — will generally be viewed as a lower-risk investment.
Diligence and cap table considerations
Because climate deals often combine multiple capital types across several rounds, keeping a clean cap table and being ready for thorough due diligence on technical, financial, and regulatory risk is essential. Founders should also understand how liquidation preference terms can compound across multiple project-level and corporate-level financings.
Founders raising blended rounds — equity alongside grants, debt, or project-level financing — should pay particular attention to how these instruments interact at the holding-company level, since grants and government funding often carry their own reporting and milestone requirements that need to be tracked separately from standard venture reporting obligations. Keeping this structure organized from the earliest rounds makes later diligence, whether for a growth round or an eventual acquisition, considerably smoother.
If you're raising a climate tech round and want help identifying the right mix of investors across your Series A or growth-stage financing, book a free consult with Quantum Growth Advisors.