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It has been a year since we launched The Climate Brick – a tool engineered to provide climate-tech founders, investors and the wider ecosystem with a framework for navigating their path to scale. An ambitious endeavor, and fortunately one we’re not alone in pursuing. In 2024, 900 European climate tech companies secured funding, raising a total of $22 billion: a 31% increase from 2023.
During our first year we saw investment, growth and performance.
It was no easy task then, and due to rapidly changing regulatory, political, economic and investment environments, the world of climate tech investing seems to become more complex by the day. In the face of incredibly positive momentum, challenges and landscape shifts present dynamic, new challenges.
The world today looks very different than it did a year ago.
There’s little doubt that the enthusiasm-driven funding phase has waned (if not fully expired) and that performance expectations have increased exponentially (not to mention a need to show resilience against market forces, regulatory shifts and consumer expectations).
So, yes, the world is changing,
but our mission is not.
Because, now more than ever, our world needs smart business to make sure it doesn’t look different 10, 20, 30…100 years from now (and beyond). Planetary preservation will come at the intersection of profit and progress. To get there, though, climate-tech start-ups and scale-ups need to show more than a progressive vision of the future, they need to demonstrate a path to sustainable profitability. Vision and technology are not enough to warrant investment, performance is paramount.
TLDR; we must show that climate tech is more than a good mission, it’s good business.
The biggest barrier to climate innovation isn’t ambition, it’s bridging the gap between groundbreaking solutions and large-scale deployment – between a vision of the far term and performance in the near-term. The urgency is there. The capital exists. But the path to impact must also demonstrate:
- Business criticality – The time for “nice to have” is over. Climate tech innovations must be essential for industries to drive adoption.
- Push for cost ramp-down & profitability – Companies can no longer rely on green premiums or government subsidies alone. Achieving attractive unit economics is now critical.
- Navigating the macro perspective – With legislation and economic environments shifting, the next generation of climate tech must integrate resilience—not as an afterthought but as a core business strategy.
- Strong execution capabilities – Scaling physical assets in climate tech demands operational excellence. Management teams, board members, and advisors with industrialization experience—along with recruiting top-tier execution talent—are crucial.
- Be on top of late-stage financing, early – Planning for project financing, infrastructure funding, or other later-stage funding from the outset is becoming essential to ensuring a smooth path through later-stage rounds.
The Climate Brick doesn’t exist in spite of these challenging conditions, we exist because of them.
The next chapter of climate tech is about criticality, execution, and resilience, and so our platform has evolved to serve today’s needs – with a sharpened focus on performance alongside simplified access to tactical advice and insights. The companies that succeed will be the ones that understand the stakes, adapt to new realities, and build for scale.
And that next chapter is ours to write – together.
