PwC released its yearly state of climate tech report. The report focuses on the transformation seen in the climate venture capital landscape. There has been a significant uptake in capital and new investments flowing into climate tech. Today climate tech accounts for 14 cents of every venture capital dollar.
Climate technology continues to show strong growth prospects, with PwC reporting $88 billion invested in climate technologies from H2 2020 to H1 2021. This marks an astonishing growth of 210% in climate investment relative to the $28 billion from the 12 months prior.
The mobility and transport sector continues to attract the largest amount of capital, as electric vehicles, micro mobility and other innovative transit models scale their operations. The number of climate tech unicorns has already grown to 78! The majority of unicorns emerged from the mobility and transport category (43).
Of the 15 climate tech areas examined by PwC, the top five sectors represent over 80% of future emissions reduction potential, and have only attracted 25% of climate tech investment. There is a clear opportunity to shift capital towards solutions with untapped climate impact potential.
Additional funding is required across the hard-to-abate sectors in order to enable further innovations, trigger sectoral tipping points, and decarbonize our global economy. Likewise, more patient capital from early-stage VC investors is necessary to deliver future breakthroughs. PwC also discusses the need for long-term strategic plans and targeted policy measures by governments (e.g., a carbon price) to kickstart investment into technologies in high emitting sectors (such as low GHG building materials) and carbon-removal technologies that will be pivotal to achieving global net zero targets.
Read the full PwC state of climate tech report here.