The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/22 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report found that women entrepreneurs in upper-middle-income nations are among the most creative and high-growth entrepreneurs globally. This is obvious in the cleantech sector where, despite women-owned companies being four times less likely to gain venture capital funding than their male counterparts, some transformational climate technologies are seeing the light.

Over the past decade, cleantech companies with at least one female founder have increased their share of investment raised from 11.9% to 16.8%, while the number of cleantech deals with at least one female founder grew from 14.6% in 2014 to 26.5% in 2023. Additionally, there continues to be an influx of women innovators, scientists and technologists who are building and scaling companies with meaningful climate and sustainable industry implications.

Cleantech and the UK’s climate crisis

The UK has some of the most inefficient, energy-hungry, and wasteful properties and one of the most critical challenges for the government to achieve its net zero ambitions is accelerating decarbonisation and improving the energy efficiency of over 27 million homes across the UK.

Additionally, despite ever-rising energy costs and although homeowners are generally aware of the financial, environmental and lifestyle benefits of energy-saving technologies, many are still reluctant to implement such measures.

The cleantech sector has a vital role to play not only in assisting society in addressing decarbonisation, but also in helping homeowners bridge the value-action gap – the difference between what they aspire to do as opposed to what they actually do. In fact, one of the key drivers for founding Heero Technologies was to help householders make sense of retrofitting and decarbonisation in the quest for energy-efficient homes.

Our goal is to remove the complexity around decarbonisation and debunk the myth that home energy improvements and upgrades are too costly or difficult to implement by equipping homeowners with the knowledge and tools to make net zero homes a reality. Using technology, we want to ensure all householders are empowered with personalised information, support, and guidance to make the most effective choices for their unique home and circumstances, whilst advising and providing all the information and tools they need to act decisively.

Using technology, we have an opportunity to proactively engage homeowners to take control of their home energy, not just through energy efficiency or renewable technologies, but by using our platform to empower them to participate in the energy system of the future. This is vital as the challenge before us is no longer negligible; it is one of the foremost trials facing humanity in the 21st century. What’s more, the challenge is not only about climate change but also net zero, fuel poverty, affordable housing, cost of living and affordable warmth. Using cleantech, the scale of the problem can be framed in a way that helps people recognise and understand its impact on their lives.

Importance of investment

As any entrepreneur or startup can confirm, developing solutions demands substantial funding. As such, investment is key to spurring innovation by supporting the start-ups, entrepreneurs and trailblazers who are driving the cleantech revolution.

At Heero we have been fortunate to have investors who have helped accelerate development of our technology and contribute to our progress. Their involvement is a testament to the growing realisation that technology has a vital role to play in addressing environmental challenges – everywhere you look there are amazing climate-smart and sustainable innovations taking place – and that there is immense opportunity in cleantech.

Our company, like so many others in the rapidly-growing and ever-evolving cleantech space, is at the start of its journey. As we continue to seek solutions to accelerate decarbonisation and improve the energy efficiency of homes across the country, our hope is that investors continue to recognise the benefits of cleantech and that they continue to fund such solutions, thus helping facilitate the large-scale adoption of technology that offers significant and tangible economic, environmental, and social benefits.