10 Climate Tech Startups in the IPO Pipeline
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What climate tech startups are on the road to an IPO? This list includes various startups that our editors believe have the potential to become public companies in the next five years.
We define the climate tech startups in our list as pre-IPO companies building businesses with products or services that aim to reduce or contribute to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Our list focuses on mid-to-late-stage startups with significant venture capital backing and valuations generally north of $1 billion (“unicorns”).
These companies are tackling the massive climate challenge with different approaches, each contributing in their own way. Some on our list may fail, but most, we expect, will become viable public companies.
Table of Contents
Climate Tech Startups List
1. Redwood Materials
Redwood Materials is a sustainable materials company laying the groundwork for the next generation of vehicle and electronics battery recycling.
As electric-powered vehicle consumption grows, the number of batteries reaching their end-of-life will keep growing.
Electric vehicle battery components will maintain much of their raw material value when the cars drive their last mile.
Redwood Materials receives the end-of-life vehicle batteries and electronic devices (phones, laptops), extracts and refines the batteries’ raw materials, and returns them to factories producing new batteries.
In addition to recycling, Redwood Materials aims to manufacture copper foils for anodes and is building a giant U.S. factory for producing cathodes. Both are growingly costly components of car batteries.
Moreover, Redwood Materials aims to shorten and simplify the global battery supply chain by growing a reliable capability in the U.S.
Redwood Material was founded in 2017 by J.B. Straubel, a Tesla Co-Founder (fifth employee) who recognized the global supply chain imbalances, bottlenecks, and potential to reduce the environmental impact of battery production.
Read more: Redwood Materials stock
2. Climeworks
Climeworks is a Zurich, Switzerland-based carbon dioxide (CO2) air capture startup. The company has created a direct air capture (DAC) technology to capture CO2 from the atmosphere.
Captured CO2 can be used as fertilizer, beverage carbonation, or mixed with water and pumped deep underground, where it mineralizes and can be stored permanently.
The technology aims to reduce the effect of emitted carbon on global temperatures. Its near-term goal is to filter 1% of annual global CO2 emissions by 2025.
Corporations and other organizations purchase carbon dioxide offsets from Climeworks on their journey to net zero carbon emission commitments. Long-term commitments are crucial to funding direct air capture industry growth.
Founded in November 2009 by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, Climeworks demonstrated a proof of concept and created prototypes early on, which has led to scaling the technology to industry-sized installations.
Read more: Climeworks stock
3. Fervo Energy
Fervo Energy is a geothermal energy company that uses the power of the Earth’s heat to generate clean electricity.
The company deploys drilling techniques and horizontal well technology developed in the oil and gas industry to create enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
Cold water is pumped underground, heated by the Earth’s natural heat, and returned to the surface. The Organic Rankine Cycle technology efficiently converts this geothermal energy into electricity with zero carbon emissions or pollutants.
By applying innovations learned in oil drilling, Fervo Energy aims to scale geothermal energy cost-effectively, overcoming nagging barriers to widespread adoption.
Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck founded the company in 2017. With energy engineering and geosciences backgrounds, the duo has raised at least $421 million in private funding.
The company aims to provide 24/7 carbon-free geothermal electricity, becoming a cornerstone of the renewable energy mix.
Fervo Energy has two active projects: Project Red in northern Nevada and Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah.
Read more: Fervo Energy stock
4. Zipline
Zipline is a South San Francisco, California-based delivery drone manufacturer and logistics startup. The company aims to create the first logistics system that serves all humans equally.
Zipline flights reduce the carbon emissions of deliveries by 97% compared to gas cars and are also far more efficient than electric vehicles.
When most people first think about delivery drones, they think of the next immediacy level after Instacart and DoorDash.
But delivery drones face challenges in America, mainly due to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local regulations. Zipline is making progress on the U.S. regulation front and recently revealed its next-generation P2 Zip drone for domestic delivery.
However, the company has used its Platform 1 technology more immediately to deliver vital medical supplies, such as blood and vaccines, to hospitals in Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, and Côte D’Ivoire.
Since 2014, Zipline has flown its drones over 40 million autonomous commercial miles, delivering more than five million products to customers in need. Their reliable and efficient service has resulted in over 540,000 deliveries, including over eight million life-saving vaccine doses.
Read more: Zipline stock
5. Sila Nanotechnologies
Sila Nanotechnologies is an advanced battery designer and manufacturer based in Alameda, CA, on a mission to engineer materials to power our future.
Lithium-ion batteries have existed since the early 1990s and power our valued electronics and electric vehicles. However, there’s been limited innovation.
Gene Berdichevsky, Tesla’s seventh employee, became frustrated with the lack of battery innovation and set out to make the lithium-ion battery more powerful and efficient.
He founded Sila Technologies in 2011.
Instead of starting from scratch, Sila Technologies discovered a way to make lithium-ion batteries more efficient by replacing the standard graphite anode with a nano-engineered silicone one. The new materials have the potential to make batteries 50% better, increasing power density and decreasing their size.
The new batteries can also lower costs and improve driving mileage for electric vehicles.
Sila Nanotechnologies is building a factory in Moses Lake, Washington State, to build enough anode material to support the production of up to 500,000 vehicles per year.
Sila has partnered with leading automotive manufacturers to enable the adoption of its technology, lowering costs and improving charge time and mileage capabilities.
Read more: Sila Nanotechnologies stock
6. Northvolt
Northvolt is a Swedish design and manufacturing company producing lithium-ion batteries in Europe for a more sustainable energy storage future. It’s one of Europe’s most promising climate tech startups.
The company’s primary target is automotive battery applications (cars and charging stations), but it also produces products for grid storage, industrial applications, and portable devices (e.g., tools and e-bicycles).
Founded by former Tesla executive Peter Carlsson, Northvolt aims to support global electric vehicle expansion in the coming decades.
It seeks to enhance the global automotive battery supply in competition with Asia and North American manufacturers by scaling battery manufacturing in Europe.
In December 2021, Northvolt produced the first European-designed and manufactured lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles in its gigafactory in Skellefteå, northern Sweden.
A second gigafactory is under construction in Salzgitter, Germany, in partnership with Volkswagen, and a third is slated to be built in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
The company was founded in 2016 with a mission to build the world’s greenest battery to enable the European transition to renewable energy.
Read more: Northvolt stock
7. TerraPower
TerraPower is a nuclear power company creating a smarter, safer, and more efficient way to generate power to reduce carbon emissions in the 21st century.
The company was founded by Bill Gates and “like-minded” investors. It aims to fully scale its nuclear reactor design by the decade’s end.
As the world population grows and the global economy shifts toward electric vehicles, renewable fuels such as solar and wind will not be enough to support clean energy demand.
Modernized nuclear power and possibly fusion technology from the likes of Helion Energy and Tae Technologies (both included in this list) are innovative solutions to power the planet more cleanly and efficiently.
TerraPower’s design uses less radioactive fuel and reduces safety risks and waste. It uses molten sodium to store energy, allowing it to release energy when demand increases.
Nuclear power plants take many years and large investments to stand up and become profitable. Its IPO could be many years off, depending on how its first project in Wyoming transpires.
Read more: TerraPower stock
8. Helion Energy
Helion Energy is a fusion research company aiming to be the first private entity to commercialize zero-carbon fusion energy. It’s one of the most exciting climate tech startups with a nearly unlimited market potential (global energy).
Fusion is what powers the sun. If scientists can replicate the process by which the sun creates energy here on Earth, we’ll have unlimited, inexpensive, clean energy without carbon or nuclear waste.
Furthermore, fusion energy cannot be weaponized and doesn’t produce chain reactions, which is always a risk with nuclear power.
The company was founded in 2013 and became a Y Combinator participant in 2014.
After a 2022 breakthrough in fusion technology at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, fusion energy now appears to be within reach.
Though most experts believe commercial production is still decades away despite significant progress, Helion Energy aims to produce net positive energy in 2024 and begin commercializing its technology “as soon as possible”.
Read more: Helion Energy stock
9. Turntide Technologies
Turntide Technologies is a next-generation electric motor manufacturer. The company has reimagined century-old standard motor technology to be more efficient using intelligent software and innovative design.
Software-controlled motors, or switch reluctance motors, use precise energy pulses instead of a constant flow of electricity to reduce power consumption.
By targeting energy-intensive industries such as transportation, agriculture, and building maintenance, Turntide Technologies helps to decarbonize the planet and empowers companies to reach their carbon emission reduction goals while reducing costs.
Use cases include retrofitting commercial HVAC systems for cloud computing centers, intelligent barn systems for animal farming, and electrification and drivetrain components for commercial vehicles.
The company was founded as Software Motor Company in 2013 but rebranded to Turntide Technologies in 2020.
Turntide Technologies is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA. Its private valuation remains above $1 billion, but some reporting indicates the valuation has plummeted since 2021, losing its unicorn status.
Read more: Turntide Technologies stock
10. TAE Technologies
TAE Technologies is a fusion energy company developing a commercial fusion power source that is compact and cost-effective. The company aims to have a viable commercial fusion reactor by the 2030s.
Fusion energy is considered the holy grail of energy production because, when perfected, its energy will be safe, inexpensive, and abundant without carbon emissions.
Formerly called Tri Alpha Energy, TAE Technologies uses hydrogen-boron fuel (boron-11) instead of deuterium and helium-3 fuels used by Helion Energy, another leading fusion energy pre-IPO startup.
TAE Technologies (pronounced “T-A-E”) was founded in 1998. It has built six prototypes since then, demonstrating its objective each step of the way.
The company produces scientific papers to back its technology and progress and has attracted significant venture capital investors.
However, a commercially viable product may be at least a decade away, and TAE’s scientists have work to complete to prove it can make money from fusion power.
It may find revenue sources in proprietary technology developed for its prototypes.
Read more: Tae Technologies stock
Climate Tech Startups Summary
Here’s a summary of our list of climate tech startups. We’ll update the list as new companies grow into unicorn status and become likely to pursue an IPO.
Climate Tech Startup | Valuation | Last Funding Series | Headquarters |
---|---|---|---|
$5 Billion | Series D | Carson City, Nevada | |
$1 Billion | Series F | Zurich, Switzerland | |
$650 Million | Series D | Houston, Texas | |
$4.2 Billion | Series F | South San Francisco, California | |
$3.3 Billion | Series F | Alameda, California | |
$11 Billion | Late-Stage (Series NA) | Stockholm, Sweden | |
$1 Billion | Series A | Bellevue, Washington | |
$3.6 Billion | Series E | Everett, Washington | |
$1 Billion | Series C | Sunnyvale, California | |
$5 Billion | Series G | Foothill Ranch, California |
Featured photo courtesy Redwood Materials