Musings of a New Year in Climate Tech
As I write this Australia just welcomed 2022 and the new year begins to criss cross the world. I am still ten and a half hours away from midnight, but already reflecting on the year behind us and the year ahead.
Personally 2021 was a milestone year, having unveiled 2150 , raised a significantly-sized fund and found meaning and passion in the “work” that I do every day trying to back and deploy technologies that at scale could have a gigatonne level impact.
The recent PWC Climate Tech report made it clear why we need to deploy more resources into the most critical sectors. While the built enviornment represents 21% of global emissions (a lot more if you include the industries that power building the world like cement and steel and the energy needed to power our cities) but received only 4% of venture investments in 2021. Our mission, my mission, is to change that.
Nearly $50 billion flowed into Climate-related technologies in 2021! Our own analysis with Dealroom saw over €23 billion flow into “urban tech” startups in 2021.
More importantly, hard to abate industries like cement and concrete (8% of CO2 emissions WW) came into the spotlight… but the amount raised is still just a drop in the bucket.
More and more investors are realising that Climate is one of the world’s greatest capital creation opportunities in the decade to come. Sophie Purdom or Climate Tech VC tells Fast Company that:
“ halfway through 2021…1,000 firms had invested in climate tech companies so far. Around 200 had invested in multiple deals; roughly 75, including …are focused specifically on climate change as firms.”
I am proud to be part of those 75… but hope that number becomes 750 in the years to come. We need bright minds, smart money and more resources at play.
As I recently tweeted, realising the scale of decarbonisation that we must achieve by 2030 is daunting…
But as the MIT Technology Review article points out… the last year should give us hope. I am personally still hopeful… and mission driven. I close off the year partly concerned about what lies ahead, but mostly enthused by what the actions of inventors and investors can deliver in the year ahead.
2022… Let’s go!
