Climate VC fundraising is on track for its worst year since 2015. That’s the best thing that could happen to climate tech
Source: Fortune ·
Climate-specialist funds are struggling to raise money while capital pours into the technologies they back. That shift is how climate tech wins.
From the source
In 2019, the owners of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant shut down its Unit 1 reactor. The reactor was still running. It just couldn’t compete economically. Five years later, Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement to buy its power, and the plant is being restarted as the Crane Clean Energy Center. Nothing about the reactor changed. The buyer did. Data centers need enormous amounts of reliable, around-the-clock electricity, and many of their operators have ambitious carbon-free energy commitments. To that customer, a plant the market had written off was suddenly worth bringing back. Three Mile Island is a preview of something bigger. Climate-specialist venture funds are on track to raise less than $1 billion this year, according to PitchBook, their weakest showing since 2015 and down from more than $10 billion in 2021. That’s money flowing into funds with “climate” on the door. Money flowing into the companies themselves tells a different story. Venture and growth investment in…