Boom for early stage impact firms, shows new data from relaunched Climate Brick

Figures from the platform The Climate Brick, which tracks investing via open-source data, show that more than 900 European climate tech companies received a total of €20b in investments last year.

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That included more than 500 companies in the pre-seed to Series A stage, an increase of 40 percent compared to 2023, "highlighting the momentum of innovation in the sector," The Climate Brick says in a press release.

The research, which includes analysis by McKinsey & Company, also shows that debt financing is on the rise for companies in the later stages.

Nine of the twenty largest 2024 rounds were structured as debt deals, "reflecting a growing reliance on blended capital strategies to scale capital-intensive technologies," The Climate Brick says.

Added challenges for 2025

In total, about 250 "giga-scaling" companies received almost half of the €20b invested during the year.

The report also highlighted that climate tech companies face increasing challenges in trying to maintain the momentum as they try to scale up to full commercialisation.

The geopolitical situations and macroeconomic headwinds mean that “climate tech stands at a pivotal moment” in 2025, the report says.

"As AI, data infrastructure, and electrification accelerate global energy demand, climate technologies are transitioning from niche innovation to critical infrastructure," the report says. "The early enthusiasm-driven phase of climate tech investing is giving way to a new era focused on execution, capital efficiency, and industrial readiness."

Focus on five areas

The Climate Brick identifies five make-or-break areas for climate tech companies:

1. Business Criticality: Solutions must become indispensable to core industrial, energy, and infrastructure systems
2. Cost and Profitability: With green premiums shrinking, companies need clear paths to cost competitiveness
3. Macro Resilience: Fluid economic and legislative conditions demand strategic flexibility
4. Execution Excellence: Scaling physical assets requires operational strength and industrial experience
5. Late-Stage Financing Preparedness: Early planning for project finance is essential to unlock scale

Providing a framework for founders

The Climate Brick was created when 50 leading investors and entrepreneurs joined up to create a platform to help show how to build and scale climate-tech companies.

It now has more than 100 supporters, including EQT Ventures, Contrarian Ventures, Norrsken VC, BMW Foundation and Climeworks.

Wednesday's report was part of its 2025 relaunch aimed to provide startup founders with a framework for how to navigate the scaling journey.

"We launched the Climate Brick as a bet: that a simple, founder-first framework could help unlock clarity in one of the most complex and critical sectors of our time," says Ted Persson, partner at EQT Ventures and initiator of The Climate Brick. "A year later, it’s become a tool that teams are actually using, and improving. That gives us real hope."

Rokas Peciulaitis, another initiator of The Climate Brick and managing partner at Contrarian Ventures said the platform aims to be "both a benchmark and a north star for what success looks like."