Climate tech firms are those which are creating technologies that are explicitly focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions or addressing the impacts of global warming. Covering industries from energy and transport to forestry and agriculture, these technologies offer the solutions we need to reduce carbon emissions, either directly or indirectly, and secure a more sustainable future.

New analysis by Tech Nation of the 100 days since the start of COP26 shows that climate tech firms experienced a strong uplift in VC investment. Compared with the same 100 days in the previous year, VC investment increased by 62% to $926m. VC investment in November 2021 ($345m) and December 2021 ($354m) surpassed the monthly average for 2021 by more than 52%.

This marks a potential turnaround following previous insight from Tech Nation’s Net Zero report, which showed that the rate of investment in UK climate tech slowed down between 2020 and 2021 when compared with 2019 and 2020 – with VC investment growth over the year at $30m and $470m respectively.

Some of the UK regions driving a growth in investment outside of London include the East of England and Scotland, which both notably attracted a high level (over $55m) of investment in November 2021.

Building up climate tech companies and ‘unicorns’ worldwide

The number of climate tech ‘unicorns’ (companies valued at over $1bn) increased by 36 globally in the 100 days following COP26. In the UK, Tevva Motors, Intelligent Growth Solutions, Bluewater Bio, Pangaia and Cushon all joined the rank of ‘futurecorns’ (companies valued between $250m - $1bn) in the UK, pushing the total number of UK climate tech ‘futurecorns’ from 11 to 15.

In this same period, the number of climate tech companies globally increased by 19% to 5,610. In Europe, company creation increased by 19% and in the UK, 13%. 

Impact on employment

So far in 2022, employment in climate tech companies has increased to 26,800, an increase of 25% from the close of 2021 where total employment in the sector equated to 21,000. 

In less than a quarter of 2022, the total number of jobs created in the climate tech sector (5,400) is already greater than the total jobs created in the sector in 2021 (5,000), demonstrating the socio-economic benefit of the acceleration in climate tech, on top of the clear environmental benefits.

Tangible impact on the UK’s most promising businesses

Some of the companies to benefit from COP26 and see an acceleration in their growth are CLUBZERØ, Zeigo, Solivus, Gardin and Sylvera, part of Tech Nation’s Net Zero programme which supports fast-growth climate tech companies that help the UK reduce greenhouse gas emissions either directly or indirectly.

Last month, Net Zero 1.0 company CLUBZERØ hit over 120% of their crowdfunding goals within two weeks of launching their crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, and Net Zero 1.0 company Zeigo became the first of Tech Nation’s Net Zero companies to exit. Net Zero 2.0 company Solivus raised over £1m on Crowdcube in just one day, Net Zero 2.0 company Gardin closed a $10.8m Seed Round in December, and Net Zero 2.0 company Sylvera also raised $32m in their Series A funding round last month. 

Keeping up momentum

In light of these findings, Tech Nation urges investors and others supporting the tech sector to not lose momentum following COP26. The conference provided a flagship moment for the world to come together to tackle climate change, but taking action is only getting more urgent and climate tech firms tend to face unique challenges in scaling due to the R&D intensive nature of development of their products and services.

Tech Nation also urges tech companies of all sizes to continue in their commitment to fighting the climate crisis. Tech Nation’s Tech Zero taskforce is an initiative for the tech sector to create tangible and meaningful progress to tackle the climate crisis. With 244 companies already signed up out of a target 350, Tech Nation encourages tech firms to sign up to the climate action group and make faster progress to net zero.