Global Climate Tech VC Funding - Q1 2022 Update

In the first week of January, we shared our full-year analysis of 2021 Global Climate Tech VC, reaching 2.5x pre-pandemic investment levels in 2021, accelerating startups young and older around the world with over $37B of venture funding. Fuelled by a massive US and EU investment surge, Indian investment progressing and China accelerating after moderating from it’s 2018 investment leadership position, 2021 also closed out with 45 ClimateTech Unicorns and 61 Mega Rounds ($100M+) over the prior 12 months.

Q1 2022 was a strong start to the year for Climate Tech with another $11.2B of venture funding deployed, doubling that of it’s impact peers education technology at $4.5B for the quarter and beating Health Tech for the first time at $9.1B. Based on our Open-Source, Global Climate Tech Landscape definitions, the top clusters by total funding for Q1 included Solar, Vehicles, Micro Mobility, Batteries, Residential, Smart Farming, Nuclear, Hydrogen, Aircraft, Sustainable Packaging, Carb Capture, Textiles, Data, Water and Meat and Seafood. All in all, 27 mega-rounds ($100M+) represented $6.2B of the $11.2B in total for Q1 (just over half), showing just how strong the quarter was with late-stage growth funding < $100M.

Whilst it is unlikely we will see 2022 VC investment levels to continue at this rate, on a straight-line basis, 2022 would be approaching $50B of Climate Tech VC. With such a strong tailwind and sentiment towards climate and sustainability, Climate Tech is the strongest candidate in impact and most likely to weather more challenging investment trends through the rest of 2022.

Climate Tech outpaced Health Tech VC in Q1, accelerating ahead of both Health Tech and EdTech on a run-rate basis.