What Climate Founders Wish Investors Knew

At the Blue Earth Summit, Britain’s climate founders delivered a clear message to investors that real climate innovation takes time. From biodegradable plastics to reef-restoring memorials, entrepreneurs warned that the race to net zero can’t be won without research and education which takes time.

At the recent Blue Earth Summit, Britain's climate founders discussed what it takes to build the tools and technologies that will deliver net zero. Conversations with a diverse group of entrepreneurs across materials, energy, and manufacturing, highlighted growing tensions between investor expectations and the realities of forging innovation in the climate sector. Founders say investors too often overlook the fact that developing climate technology often takes a long time, with progress driven as much by engineering and regulation as by capital.

While financial momentum has softened since the 2021 peak, when climate investment tripled, Europe’s commitment to sustainable investment remains substantial. The ‘I4CE State of Europe’s Climate Investment 2025’ report shows that the EU invested €498 billion in 2023, equating to 2.9% of GDP, across clean energy, buildings, transport, and manufacturing. A European Investment Bank survey found that more than 60% of European companies have invested in climate mitigation or adaptation, underscoring sustainability remains central to business strategy and growth.

Bur global uncertainty, much of it stemming from Trump’s America, has tempered investment appetite. Across Europe, founders striving to reinvent materials, energy systems, and industrial processes describe a new normal of slower funding rounds, longer development cycles, and a balancing act between technical ambition and commercial viability. They are seeking greater understanding that pace of climate innovation rarely fits neatly into quarterly reporting cycles.

Timescales to traction

The founders gathered at Blue Earth discussed how money can accelerate software, but not physics. Many of the entrepreneurs developing new materials, clean-energy systems and industrial decarbonisation tools described a world where patience has become the rarest form of capital. 

“Many investors underestimate the time and complexity required to build something truly scalable,” said Craig Sterling, Chief Executive of MarinaTex, which turns marine waste into biodegradable plastics. “We’re working with deep science and new manufacturing models. That requires iteration, not instant traction.” Unlike SaaS or AI ventures that can reach mass adoption within a few years, climate technologies often require long R&D cycles and high volumes of high-capex required for validation before they can meet demands of customers.

No more ‘green premium’ 

The message emerging from Europe’s climate innovation ecosystem is that the sector has moved past its early-stage exuberance. The ‘green premium’ that once carried companies through fundraising rounds has largely vanished. Today, founders compete for investment on performance, scaleability, and cost. As Charlotte Kirk, Venture Partner at Decarb Ventures and a BE100 judge, put it, “Founders need to build technologies that win on economics, not corporate altruism.” Her point wasn’t a rejection of sustainability, but a recognition that disciplined execution and measurable results now determine success.

While founders aren’t asking for preferential treatment, they are operating in a market mood that risks overlooking the challenges of climate innovation where capital requirements, technical proof points, and regulatory dependencies differ sharply from most other sectors.

“The hype has shifted” 

For founders like Sterling, developing alternatives to entrenched plastic systems requires not just innovation, but the infrastructure and research to prove their products can scale. And yet the funding environment that once celebrated climate innovation has tightened. Valuations are down, rounds are slower to close, and the gravitational pull of AI has absorbed much of investors’ attention. “The hype has shifted,” said another founder at the summit. “But AI doesn’t run without energy and you can’t automate your way out of the climate crisis.”

This contrast between financial cycles and physical development cycles is at the core of the tension between investors and founders in climate tech. Those people building these companies work to timelines that venture capital is not used to accommodating. Venture investors remain bound by 7-12 year horizons, while first-of-a-kind technologies often need far longer runways. 

Tim Highfield, Founder of emissions-reduction platform Kondor described raising capital as “a relay race with the baton dropped halfway”. After every funding round, the next challenge begins. “We’re a small team serving multibillion-dollar companies,” he said. “That takes serious engineering and serious time.”

Scaling; the barriers

A further source of misalignment lies in how founders and investors define and expect scale. “The most common investor question is: can you scale it? The answer is yes - but responsibly,” Sterling said. His company now partners only with manufacturers who share their environmental and ethical standards as he believes that “growth only matters if the impact stays net-positive”.

At Resting Reef, which turns human ashes into reef structures that restore marine ecosystems, Co-founder Aura Murillo Perez said growth isn’t just a technical challenge but a cultural one. They are simultaneously building a new technology and having to educate people, and investors, to understand an industry that doesn’t yet exist. “Death care is still taboo. We’re not just building a product; we’re navigating law, culture, and belief.”

While better communication channels with investors is potentially part of the solution, so is a broader approach to the search for funding. Founders across Europe describe an industry maturing out of hype and into a new reality where success is measured less by how fast a technology scales and less about the impact it can have.

Some founders are turning to corporate partners or strategic investors like BP Ventures who have invested over a billion into climate startups, debt financing and public money who better tolerate and understand these longer arcs. “We don’t need faster money,” said one founder of a circular-manufacturing startup, “we need money that stays.”