Climate Tech Growth & Marketing Statistics

Capital is still flowing into climate tech, but into fewer, larger, later rounds. That is the headline for 2025 and the first half of 2026.

• Climate tech companies raised $41.3B in the first half of 2026, while deal count fell to its lowest on record. (Net Zero Insights, 2026)
• H1 2026 funding was up only slightly from $43.6B in H1 2025, but the average round rose from $18M to $27M. (Latitude Media, reporting Net Zero Insights data, 2026)
• The largest rounds took nearly 65% of all climate tech funding in H1 2026. (Net Zero Insights, 2026)
• Debt made up roughly a quarter of all climate tech funding in H1 2026, up from under 10% in 2021 and 2022. (Net Zero Insights and Latitude Media, 2026)
• The US stayed the largest climate tech market in H1 2026; China passed Europe for second place. (Net Zero Insights, 2026)
• Global climate tech funding, including equity, debt, and grants, was $74.0B in 2021, $76.1B in 2022, $54.7B in 2023, $49.4B in 2024, and $52.9B projected for 2025. (Net Zero Insights State of Climate Tech 2025)
• Climate tech venture and growth investment was $40.5B in 2025, up 8%, which Sightline reads as stabilization rather than a comeback. Deal count fell 18% to 1,545, the lowest since 2021. (Sightline Climate, 2025 Climate Tech Investment Trends, January 2026) 
• Cumulative climate tech venture and growth investment since 2020 reached $255B by the end of 2025, up 19% in the year. (Sightline Climate, 2026)
• Energy took 36% of 2025 climate tech investment at $14.4B, up 31% to a three-year high. Fission and fusion funding both hit all-time highs. (Sightline Climate, 2026)
• US climate tech funding rose 27% in 2025. Europe fell 13% to $10.1B, its lowest since 2020. 
• Six of the ten largest 2025 deals, worth $5.5B of $10.1B in mega-deals, went to energy security and resilience. (Sightline Climate, 2026) 
• The number of climate investors fell 11% in 2025. Late-stage investors fell 14% and growth investors 13%. (Sightline Climate, 2026)
• US climate tech VC investment hit $29B in 2025, up 44% and the third-highest year on record. (SVB Future of Climate Tech, 2026)
• Ten deals, under 1% of all deals, took 28% of US climate tech VC investment in 2025; the top 50 took 59%. (SVB, 2026)
• Investable dry powder for climate stood at $90B as of Q1 2026, across VC, growth, PE, and infrastructure funds, down from a $112B peak in Q1 2025. (Sightline Climate, Dry Powder & New Funds, April 2026) 
• 179 climate funds closed $92B in 2025, double 2024 and 85% more than 2022, led by energy infrastructure mega-funds. (Sightline Climate, April 2026) 
• Only 57% of targeted climate fund capital closed in 2025. The US close rate was 35%; Europe's was 71%. Europe raised $61B against $37B in the US, a reversal from 2022, when the US led. (Sightline Climate, April 2026)
• The 2025 fund vintage is now 34% of all climate dry powder, the largest single vintage. (Sightline Climate, April 2026) 
• Climate VC and growth funds raised $6.5B in 2025 across 108 funds. The average climate VC fund shrank from $174M in 2024 to $160M, venture's share of new climate fund capital fell from about 20% in 2021 to under 8%, and only 39% of targeted VC capital closed. (Sightline Climate, April 2026)
• Climate tech startups raised $39.0B in 2025 and $19.5B in the first six months of 2026, on track to land flat. The US led at $21.3B over the last 12 months; the Bay Area was the top metro at $5.0B. (Dealroom, updated July 2026)

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The funnel from seed to Series B has narrowed hard since 2022, and each step takes longer. These are the numbers a founder should hold up against their own plan.

All stats in this section are from the Net Zero Insights State of Climate Tech 2025 report (December 2025), unless noted. 2025 figures include year-end projections.

Funnel and timing

• Nearly 50% fewer companies moved from seed to Series A in 2025 than in 2022. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• 80% fewer companies moved from Series A to Series B in 2025 than in 2022, and those that did needed six more months. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Average time from first Series A to first Series B rose from 2.1 years in 2020 to 2.8 years in 2025. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• For 2020 and 2021 seed cohorts, 15% to 25% raised a Series A within years two and three. For 2022 and 2023 cohorts, that fell to 5% to 12%, with some quarters under 5%. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Series A deal volume has fallen for three straight years. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)

Funding by stage

• Pre-seed and seed equity funding hit a five-year low of $3.3B in 2025, down from $4.7B in 2022. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Early-stage (Series A and B) equity funding fell from $31.8B in 2022 to $17.1B in 2025. Deal count dropped from 1,835 to 1,082. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Late-stage (Series C and later) equity funding held near $24B in both 2024 and 2025, down from $44.5B in 2021. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Equity deals fell 18% in 2025; grant deals fell 51%. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Deals under $50M fell 20% in 2025, while $1B+ rounds rose from four to six and deployed $6.7B. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Average climate tech round size rose from $18M to $27M between H1 2025 and H1 2026. (Latitude Media, reporting Net Zero Insights data, 2026) verified
• Seed and Series A took 30% of US climate tech VC investment in 2025, down six points from 2024, as more money went to later rounds. (SVB Future of Climate Tech, 2026) verified in PDF, p. 8

Stage view from Sightline (all from Sightline Climate, 2025 Climate Tech Investment Trends, January 2026, verified in report, pp. 6, 14 and 15; venture and growth only, so totals differ from Net Zero Insights)

• Seed investment fell 20% and Series A fell 7% in 2025. Series A deal count fell 22%, which pushed Series A deal sizes back to 2021 levels. (Sightline, 2026)
• Series B investment rose 7% on a few mega-deals and now looks more like late-stage funding. (Sightline, 2026)
• Series C deal count fell 44% to 45 deals in 2025, the lowest Sightline has tracked, and Series C investment fell 32%. Sightline calls Series C the new valley of death. (Sightline, 2026)
• Growth-stage investment jumped 78% and deal count rose 41% in 2025. (Sightline, 2026)
• Seed rounds have grown 73% in value since 2021 while shrinking to a record-low share of equity deals. Series C and later absorbed $7.5B in H1 2026 alone. Growth equity rose from $1.9B in H2 2025 to $3.1B in H1 2026. (Latitude Media, reporting Net Zero Insights, 2026)

Hard tech timelines (physical, science-led companies; about half of all climate equity deals)

• More than half of global climate tech equity investment in 2024 and 2025 went to hard tech companies. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Only 13.1% of hard tech companies at the R&D stage in 2022 reached commercial readiness by 2025. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Moving from demonstration to commercial readiness took 3.7 years for companies starting in 2022 and 6.1 years for those starting in 2025. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Hard tech companies now need about five equity rounds on average to reach commercial readiness, up from 4.7 in 2023. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Debt financing for hard tech fell roughly 70% in 2025. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)

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Exits are running near record levels, and almost all of them are acquisitions. IPOs stay rare, and acquirers have been buying less hard tech.

• Sightline counted 191 climate tech exits in 2025, down 5% from 2024's record 202. Acquisitions were 89% of them. (Sightline Climate, 2025 Climate Tech Investment Trends, January 2026) 
• IPOs rose 17% in 2025. SPACs fell 22% to 4% of exits, an all-time low share, down from 42% in 2021. (Sightline Climate, 2026) 
• Climate tech bankruptcies fell nearly 50% in 2025, with no single sector hit hardest. (Sightline Climate, 2026)
• Oil majors made no startup acquisitions in 2025. M&A shifted to small bolt-ons by incumbents such as Schneider Electric and Blink Charging. (Sightline Climate, 2026) 
• H1 2026 was the most active six months for climate tech exits since 2021, led by energy companies and mostly M&A. It also had more SPACs than any six-month period since 2022. (Latitude Media, reporting Net Zero Insights data, 2026)
• X-energy listed on Nasdaq in April 2026 at an $11.9B valuation. Fervo went public in May 2026 in a $1.9B IPO, the first geothermal IPO in more than a decade and the largest clean energy IPO ever. (Latitude Media, 2026)
• Climate tech M&A counts held between 316 and 372 a year from 2021 through 2025, with 372 projected for 2025. IPOs fell from 96 in 2021 to 55 in 2025. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• AI-enabled digital companies' share of climate tech M&A rose from 10.5% in 2021 to 17.1% in 2023, and sat at 11.8% in 2025. Hard tech's share fell from 12.1% to 6.1% over the same period. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Acquired hard tech companies had raised a median of 4.0 equity rounds in 2021 and 7.1 by 2025. Exits take longer and need more capital. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Strategic investors made 20% to 30% more hard tech deals a year than the broader climate tech market from 2021 to 2025, and corporate offtakes ran 35% to 40% higher. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Climate tech has produced 302 unicorns and 24 decacorns, plus 216 companies with $100M or more in revenue. Dealroom tracks 1,542 acquisitions since 2010 worth $136.1B in disclosed value. (Dealroom, July 2026)

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The public data on how climate tech companies actually run is thin. SVB is the one source with company-level numbers, and it is the most useful section on the page for a founder.

• 52% of cash-burning, VC-backed climate tech companies with under $50M in revenue cut net burn year over year in 2025, near an all-time high, as gross margins improved. (SVB Future of Climate Tech, 2026)  
• Median gross margin for US VC-backed climate tech rose 9 percentage points from 2023 to the end of 2025, after slipping from 2021 through 2023. (SVB, 2026) 
• Power generation was the only major subsector where US climate tech deal activity grew in 2025. (SVB, 2026) 
• US venture and growth funds with a climate tech focus raised just under $6B in 2025 across about 50 closed funds, a level not seen since before the pandemic. (SVB, 2026) 
• Only 5% of climate tech companies are cash-flow positive, up from 2% in 2022. (SVB, 2026) 
• Median cash runway for climate tech companies with under $10M in revenue fell from 14 months in 2023 to 11 in 2025. For companies with more than $50M in revenue it rose from 17 to 24 months. (SVB, 2026) 
• 57% of US VC-backed climate tech companies needed to raise in the next 12 months as of early 2025, even as more than half were cutting burn. (SVB press release, Future of Climate Tech 2025, April 2025)
• Climate tech funds from the 2020 to 2024 vintages posted an IRR 9 points higher than overall VC. (SVB press release, April 2025)
• 60% of climate tech companies had less than 12 months of cash runway in early 2024, against 53% of all tech companies. (SVB press release, Future of Climate Tech 2024, May 2024)
• 76% of climate tech software companies and 65% of climate tech hardware companies improved EBITDA margin year over year in 2023. (SVB press release, May 2024) 
• Median Series D+ climate tech valuations were up 13% from the 2021 peak in 2023, while the same measure for tech overall fell 67%. (SVB press release, Future of Climate Tech 2023, 2023)
• Hard tech companies now need about five equity rounds to reach commercial readiness. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)
• Average time between Series A and Series B is 2.8 years. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)

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Real-economy spending on clean energy dwarfs venture funding. This is the section that lets a founder show their market is big and moving, not a bet on policy.

All stats below are from the Clean Investment Monitor, US Q2 2026 update (Rhodium Group and MIT CEEPR, August 2026) unless noted.  

• US clean energy and transportation investment reached $75B in Q2 2026, up 22% from Q1 and 4% from Q2 2025, the second-highest quarter on record. (CIM, 2026)
• Over the past four quarters, $277B was invested in the US in making and deploying clean energy, clean vehicles, building electrification, and carbon management, up 1% from the prior year. (CIM US dashboard, 2026)
• Clean investment was 5.2% of all US private investment in structures, equipment, and durable goods in Q2 2026. (CIM, 2026)
• Retail (households and businesses buying EVs, solar, storage, and heat pumps) was 56% of clean investment in Q2 2026, at $41B. (CIM, 2026)
• Distributed generation and storage hit nearly $12B in Q2 2026, more than double Q1 and the highest quarter on record. Residential battery storage beat residential solar for a second straight quarter and was 75% of the category. (CIM, 2026)
• Utility-scale solar and storage took $19B in Q2 2026. Wind fell to $5B. (CIM, 2026)
• Clean manufacturing investment rose 4% to $8B in Q2 2026, ending six straight quarters of decline, but was still 24% below Q2 2025. The EV supply chain was 88% of it. (CIM, 2026)
• Industrial decarbonization investment was about $1B in Q2 2026, down 15% from Q1. Hydrogen led at $400M. (CIM, 2026)
• Developers canceled about $17B of announced clean electricity and industrial projects in Q2 2026, the highest quarter on record, led by a $7B hydrogen project. (CIM, 2026)
• New solar and storage project announcements were $12B and $11B in Q2 2026. Wind announcements fell to $300M, the lowest since tracking began in 2018. (CIM, 2026)
• Companies invested $81B in US clean energy and vehicle manufacturing over the past two years, up from $60B in the two years before. (CIM US dashboard, 2026)

Global spend and cost curves

• Global energy investment is set to reach $3.4T in 2026, up 5% from 2025. Clean energy takes $2.2T, almost double fossil fuels. (IEA World Energy Investment 2026, May 2026)
• Clean energy investment is rising 7% a year in advanced economies and China, and 4% in other emerging markets. (IEA, 2026)
• In 2025, over two-thirds of energy investment came from corporates and households, and three-quarters was financed from commercial sources, mostly banks. Debt financing grew 10% in 2025, flowing mainly to clean power, grids, and storage. (IEA investment topic page, 2026)
• Global energy transition investment hit a record $2.3T in 2025, up 8%. Electrified transport led at $893B, up 21%. US investment rose 3.5% to $378B despite policy headwinds. (BloombergNEF Energy Transition Investment Trends 2026, January 2026) 
• BNEF puts 2025 data center investment at about half a trillion dollars, more than all solar investment. Clean energy supply chain investment grew 6% to $127B. Energy transition debt issuance was $1.2T, up 17%. (BloombergNEF, 2026)
• BNEF's base case has energy transition investment averaging $2.9T a year over the next five years. (BloombergNEF, 2026)
• Renewable energy investment fell 9.5% to $690B in 2025; grids drew $483B. (BloombergNEF, 2026) 
• Unsubsidized renewables remain the cheapest new-build generation in the US, but LCOE rose for every technology in 2026 on higher capital costs, interest rates, tariffs, and supply chain repricing. (Lazard LCOE+ 2026, July 2026) 
• New-build gas combined cycle reached a 15-year-high LCOE in 2026, and demand growth is driving a sharp rise in announced gas capacity anyway. (Lazard, 2026)
• Unsubsidized utility-scale solar cost $40 to $98 per MWh in 2026, up from $38 to $78 in 2025; the average rose 18%, from $58 to $69. A 100 MW, four-hour battery cost $210 to $292 per MWh on Lazard's levelized cost of storage basis. (Lazard LCOE+ 2026, 2026) 
• US battery storage costs rose in 2026, reversing the prior year's declines, as tariffs on lithium-ion imports cut access to low-cost Chinese cells. (Lazard, 2026) 

US installs, Q2 2026

• Developers added 17.1 GW of US clean power in Q2 2026, up 45% on Q2 2025, in the strongest first half on record: 7.4 GW of solar, nearly 5 GW of land-based wind, and 4.7 GW of battery storage. (ACP Clean Power Quarterly, September 2026) 
• US clean power capacity reached nearly 388 GW, and the development pipeline hit a record 205 GW, including 111 GW of utility-scale solar and 56 GW of storage. (ACP, 2026)
• The US installed a record 18.9 GWh of battery storage in Q2 2026, up 17%, though power capacity fell 7% to 5.4 GW as longer-duration systems took a bigger share. (ACP and Wood Mackenzie, US Energy Storage Monitor, September 2026) 
• Solar installs hit 11.4 GWdc in Q2 2026, up 45% on Q2 2025. Utility-scale rose 61% to 9.6 GWdc; residential fell 12% to 995 MWdc. Solar and storage made up 70% of new US generating capacity in the first half. (SEIA and Wood Mackenzie, Solar Market Insight Q3 2026, September 2026) 

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Federal support pulled back in 2025 and the workforce shrank for the first time since the pandemic. Clean energy is still the largest part of the US energy workforce by a wide margin.

Jobs (all from E2 Clean Jobs America 2026, initial findings, September 22, 2026, based on DOE's 2026 USEER)

• The US clean energy workforce fell by 36,949 jobs in 2025 to 3.52 million, the first annual loss since the pandemic and the end of four straight years of growth. (E2, 2026)
• The 2025 loss wiped out nearly 40% of the new clean energy jobs added in 2024. (E2, 2026)
• Only storage and grid, and biofuels, added jobs in 2025. Energy efficiency, renewables, and clean vehicles all lost jobs. (E2, 2026)
• The whole US energy sector lost 86,000 jobs in 2025 to 8.4 million. Clean energy was about 43% of those losses. (E2, 2026)
• Clean energy employment fell in 35 states. California lost almost 21,000 jobs; Florida led gains with 3,800. (E2, 2026)
• Clean energy jobs are still 16% above 2020 levels. (E2, 2026)
• Clean energy employs more than 3.5 million people, against 958,000 in oil and gas, 125,000 in coal, and 70,000 in nuclear. (E2, 2026)

Policy

• More than 50 US federal actions since the start of 2024, most of them in 2025, have hurt climate research, funding, and permitting. (SVB Future of Climate Tech, 2026) 
• E2 tracked 216 major clean energy projects canceled, closed, or downsized from January 2025 through May 2026. Modeling by BW Research puts the cost at 468,000 jobs, including 343,500 permanent jobs, $55.1B a year in lost GDP from operations, and $90.8B in lost GDP from construction. (E2, One Year Since the One Big Beautiful Bill, July 2026)
• The same cancellations remove $68.2B in private capital during construction and $12B a year in tax revenue during operations. (E2, July 2026)
• Solar and wind projects that began construction by July 4, 2026 keep federal tax credit eligibility; later projects must start production by December 31, 2027. (Clean Investment Monitor, 2026) 
• The storage investment tax credit survives through 2033 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but new foreign-entity-of-concern rules are pushing supply chains toward Southeast Asia and domestic makers. (Lazard LCOE+ 2026, 2026) 
• Grant deal activity in climate tech fell 51% in 2025, and government participation in deals fell 50.7%. (Net Zero Insights, 2025)

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No public source measures climate tech sales cycles directly. What exists is indirect: who is buying, what they buy first, and general B2B buying data. 

What climate buyers are doing (all from Net Zero Insights, 2025)

• Net Zero Insights names demand as the defining challenge of 2025: customers hesitate over cost, long deployment cycles, and unclear policy. (NZI, 2025)
• Corporate strategics were 13.8% of climate tech deal participants in 2025, and their deal participation fell only 2.2% year over year while banks fell 30% and governments fell 50.7%. (NZI, 2025)
• The Fortune 500 companies active in climate tech shifted from 2022 to 2025 toward energy, semiconductors, materials, and capital goods, and away from consumer and asset-light sectors. (NZI, 2025)
• Corporate offtakes for hard tech ran 35% to 40% higher than for climate tech as a whole from 2021 to 2025. (NZI, 2025)
• Google, Amazon, and Meta signed landmark nuclear power purchase agreements in 2025 to power data centers into the 2030s and 2040s. (NZI, 2025)
• Strategic investors have pulled back from green hydrogen and long-duration storage on long commercial timelines, while nuclear draws surging strategic capital. (NZI, 2025)

General B2B buying data 

• 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience, and 45% used AI tools during a recent purchase. Survey of 646 buyers, August to September 2025. (Gartner press release, March 2026)
• 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights. (Gartner press release, May 2026)
• 74% of B2B buying teams show unhealthy conflict during the decision process. (Gartner press release, May 2025) 
• Gartner predicts that by 2030, 75% of B2B buyers will prefer sales experiences that put human interaction ahead of AI. (Gartner press release, August 2025) 
• An average of 13 people take part in a B2B buying decision, and 89% of purchases involve two or more departments. (Forrester, The State of Business Buying 2024, December 2024) 
• 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process, and 81% of buyers are dissatisfied with the provider they chose. (Forrester, December 2024) 

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