AI has changed the climate conversation.
I had no doubt about that as I sat down onstage yesterday, under the lights at The Nest Campus, the Climate Week NYC bonanza at the North Javits Center. It feels a bit like a mini-climate-focused CES, complete with EVs inside the conference center.
I was talking to Dawn Lippert, Elemental Impact founder and CEO and Earthshot Ventures GP, and Mike Schroepfer, founding partner of VC firm Gigascale Capital, about the future climate-focused VCs are investing towards—and what it actually means to balance speed and climate concerns.
It’s an interesting time: Over the last 15 years or so, climate tech has gone from sexy to unsayable to today, where it’s heating up again in the age of AI. As the conversation about what it takes to power data centers ramps up—and concerns about the grid become unavoidable—sustainable energy and the U.S. industrial base is more or less hot again.
“AI I think is both a headwind and tailwind for the space, but more a tailwind than a headwind,” said John MacDonagh, PitchBook senior research analyst, via email. “Data center developers are looking for energy sources to support their projects, and the climate tech space has core technologies like renewables, which can be fast to deploy and relatively low-cost, but also face intermittency challenges that can then be addressed by energy storage technologies. Firm power sources are potentially better suited to datacenter applications, but are less mature, and require substantial funding to develop and commercialize.”
In short, AI has brought about a lot of opportunities for those building and backing climate tech, a notable turn given some of the numbers coming out of the last couple years: Recent PitchBook data showed that fundraising for climate-specialist VCs in 2025 was down nearly 40% from 2024. Simultaneously, it appears that startups, especially in energy, are commanding massive amounts of capital. I asked Lippert and Schroepfer about this onstage.
“90% of the companies that Earthshot backs have generalist tech investors as our co-investors,” said Lippert. “We think it’s really helpful to be a climate investor on the cap table of these companies, asking about social impact, asking about environmental impact, sometimes we’re the only ones in the room asking those questions.”
Schroepfer, former CTO of Meta, raised $250 million for a climate-focused fund that was announced in June. Though he was asked to consider changing the name to an AI fund, he declined.
“Like Dawn said, our most frequent co-investors are generalists or follow-on investors, and we’ve seen more capital coming from there,” he said. “It is a little bit of a tale of two cities, though. If you’re in the energy space, critical minerals, anything that’s supply chain, there’s more money than I’ve ever seen from an investing standpoint to do that work.”
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: [email protected]
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Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE CAPITAL
– Snorkel AI, a San Francisco and New York City-based provider of AI training data and evaluation tools, raised $350 million in Series E funding. Insight Partners and S32 led the round and were joined by Addition and others.
– Verda, a Helsinki, Finland-based cloud provider for AI developers, raised $189 million in Series B funding. Emergence Capital led the round and was joined by Supermicro, MUFG Innovation Partners, and others.
– Go.AI, a Chicago, Ill.-based provider of on-premises AI infrastructure for regulated industries, raised $85 million in Series A funding. Updata Partners led the round and was joined by GFT Ventures and LAUNCH.
– Confido, a New York City-based AI back-office platform for consumer brands, raised $55 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Trenches Capital, Watchfire, Barrel Ventures, and existing investors.
– Biolevate, a Paris, France-based provider of AI automation software for life sciences companies, raised €30 million ($34.3 million) in Series A funding. RAISE France and Orange Ventures led the round and were joined by MSD Global Health Innovation Fund, Station F, and EQT Ventures.
– Chamelio, a New York City-based AI contract-management platform for in-house legal teams, raised $26 million in Series A funding. Entrée Capital led the round and was joined by Work-Bench, Emerge Ventures, and Bright Pixel Capital.
– Ramona Optics, a Durham, N.C.-based developer of AI-powered microscopy systems for life sciences researchers, raised $25 million in Series A funding. ARCH Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Stealthpoint Ventures, ND Capital, Fall Line Capital, and others.
– Teal Health, a San Francisco-based developer of at-home HPV screening tests, raised $22 million in Series A funding. .406 Ventures led the round and was joined by Emerson Collective, Forerunner, Serena Ventures, and MPower Partners.
– Sela, a San Francisco-based AI voice-agent provider for mortgage lenders, raised $21 million in funding across seed and Series A rounds. Costanoa led the round and was joined by Emergence Capital.
– Dialybird, a Cantù, Italy-based developer of dialysis-access devices, raised €15 million ($17.2 million) in Series A funding. XGEN Venture led the round and was joined by CDP Venture Capital.
– Bird&Be, a Toronto, Canada-based fertility company selling supplements and at-home tests, raised $13 million in funding. BDC Thrive and BFG Partners led the round.
– Nexstrom, a Singapore-based developer of 2D semiconductor materials and manufacturing technology, raised $12 million in seed funding. Xora Innovation led the round and was joined by Foothill Ventures and SEEDS.
– mika, a Berlin, Germany-based AI-powered tax advisory platform, raised €6 million ($6.9 million) in seed funding. Smedvig Ventures led the round and was joined by Wecken & Cie and existing investors.
– Benford, a London, U.K. and Oslo, Norway-based technology-enabled financial audit firm, raised €5 million ($5.7 million) in pre-seed funding from firstminute capital, Global Founders Capital, Sondo, and others.
– Fearn, a San Francisco-based AI-powered patent law firm, raised $5.5 million in seed funding from Kindred Ventures, a16z Speedrun, Designer Fund, and Essence VC.
– snag, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based AI-powered marketplace for sublets and short-term rentals, raised $4 million in seed funding. Slow Ventures led the round and was joined by Long Journey Ventures, Chamaeleon, and angel investors.
– Palma.ai, a Berlin, Germany-based platform for controlling and monitoring AI agents in use, raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding. D11Z led the round and was joined by Plug and Play Ventures, Deel, Scale Now Ventures, and angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Cornell Capital acquired Hancock Claims Consultants, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based provider of property-insurance claims inspection services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Odyssey Investment Partners acquired a majority stake in Falcon Gases, a Long Beach, Calif.-based distributor of industrial and specialty gases. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Pfingsten acquired Next Point Bearing Group, a Valencia, Calif.-based distributor of specialized bearings and power-transmission parts. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
– Blackstone and EQT acquired Urbaser, a Madrid, Spain-based waste-management company, from Platinum Equity for approximately $6.6 billion.
IPOs
– Accelevation Holdings, a Miamisburg, Ohio-based data center power and infrastructure company, plans to raise up to $720 million in an offering of 30 million shares priced between $20 and $24 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $727 million in sales for the year ended June 30. Olympus Funds backs the company.
PEOPLE
– Cherry Ventures, a Berlin, Germany-based venture capital firm, hired Tatiana Shalalvand as Partner. Previously, she was with Kinnevik.
