The First Check Starter Pack
From “What’s a pre-seed round?” to “How do you build conviction with no data?”
👋 Welcome, it’s Hugo and Skander!
Hugo is the host of VCo2 | The Climate Investing Podcast: a weekly show that gives you the insights, strategies, and real-world stories you need to invest in climate innovations. For more: Spotify | Apple Podcast | YouTube
Skander is the co-founder of Climate Drift, your cheat sheet to climate. Each edition breaks down real solutions, hard numbers, and career moves for operators, founders, and investors who want impact. For more: Community | Accelerator | Open Climate Firesides | Deep Dives
Hey there! 👋
It’s Hugo and Skander here.
On Tuesday, July 8th, at 9am PST, 18:00 CEST we are co-organising an open fireside on the State of Early Stage Climate Investing, with early-stage investors, solo GPs startup studios and everything in between. Join here:
Before the Seed, before the grant, before the press, there’s a moment of deep conviction. Someone wires money into an idea with no revenue, no product, maybe not even a name.
That moment is risky.
The first check is where everything starts. It decides who gets to build, what gets built, and who gets left behind.
So:
- Who writes the first check-in climate?
- And how do we find more of them?
This Starter Pack is your crash course in early-stage climate investing, the people doing it, the psychology behind it, and the playbook that gets the first check over the line.
We broke it down by knowledge level, so whether you’re hearing about climate startup investing for the first time or you’re already tackling the hard stuff, there’s something here for you.
🌊 Let’s dive in
Beginner: First Steps into Climate Startup Investing
What Does Fundraising for Your Startup Mean?
You’ve got an idea. You need money to build it.
Fundraising is how you trade future potential for capital today.
That means selling equity in your company and bringing in new shareholders.
This is the ‘first check’.
At this stage, it often looks like:
No revenue
No traction
Just a vision, a team, and a deck
First check is not about data, it’s about conviction.
What’s Different About Climate Startups?
Unlike software startups that can often build an MVP with minimal funds, many climate solutions (think new materials, fusion energy, carbon capture) are hardtech or deep science. They may need labs, pilots, or hardware and more capital before showing traction.
Early-stage climate investors face unique risks. One is technology risk, the idea that the tech might never work. This is often tracked using Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs).
Climate startups also face the valley of death, the expensive gap between research and commercialization.
Who Writes the First Check?
Early climate funding often comes from angels, pre-seed funds, family offices, or incubators passionate about climate. These are the brave souls willing to be the first to commit.
Some are ex-founders or domain experts turned angels. Others are firms like Prototype Capital, which specializes in being first in:
60% of their deals are first-round
One-third of the time, they’re the first to commit
These investors aren’t waiting for traction.
They’re betting on the vision, the team, and the potential impact.
Beginner Resources (Read/Watch):
Climate Tech Investing 101
Bas van Beijeren (Carbon Equity) writes about the basics of startup investing and what makes climate tech an exciting (even if challenging) arena. Great for understanding key terms (equity, returns, risk) and why early-stage climate startups matter for both impact and potential reward.
👉 carbonequity.comcarbonequity.com.
First-time fundraising is hell - maybe this helps
Andreas Klinger (Prototype Capital) writes a brutally honest, founder‑to‑founder playbook on what it’s really like to raise your first round.
👉 https://klinger.io/posts/first-time-fundraising-is-hell
Raising a Seed Round 101
Lenny’s Newsletter writes a tactical guide to seed‑round fundraising (not focused on climate). Covers everything from “Should I even raise VC?” to runway planning, creating FOMO, pitch terms, dilution, finding investors, etc.
👉 https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/raising-a-seed-round-101
Intermediate: Getting a Grip on the Early-Stage Climate Game
Now that you know the basics, let’s deepen the understanding. Let’s explore how early-stage climate investing actually works in practice. How do investors think, and what should founders know to secure that first yes?
Inside the Investor’s Mindset
Early climate investors often operate on conviction and domain knowledge, not just spreadsheets. When there’s no revenue or data, they’re asking: Does this team have the right stuff? Is the science credible? Is the potential impact huge?
Many have their own “conviction filters.” For example, solo GP Andreas Klinger (Prototype Capital) looks for products with unique mindshare and founders obsessively passionate about the problem – if you need a detailed Excel to prove your idea, he’s probably not interested. Similarly, climate-focused VCs might have impact criteria: will this venture significantly cut CO2 or help adaptation if it succeeds?
Basically, the first-check crowd is betting on people and potential. They often love what’s “cool, hard, and weird” - the kind of tech that could change the world (but carries plenty of risks, it might not).
Here’s a summary of what VCs look for in climate startups.
How They Find Deals
Sourcing early-stage climate deals is a hunt that spans lab benches, universities, hackathons, Slack channels, communities, LinkedIn-trained algorithms, and more. Many first-check investors actively trawl for innovators in places traditional VCs might ignore.
Angel syndicates and climate scout networks are increasingly important. A well-run climate angel syndicate might screen 1,000+ startup applications a year, attending demo days and sift through decks to find the gems. This is grunt work, but it’s how they uncover the next breakthrough in a garage.
The takeaway: if you’re a founder, get plugged into climate tech communities and pitch events; that’s where early believers are looking for you.
The Founder’s Approach
From a founder's perspective, securing that first check means thinking like an early investor. Without real metrics, the story is everything. Your personal narrative – why you are uniquely suited and obsessively driven to solve this problem is what closes the deal.
As one early-stage climate VC put it: in your earliest days, the commodity you’re really selling is you (the founder). Are you in it for the mission? Do you have relevant expertise, and will you crawl over broken glass to make it happen? Communicate that.
Early climate investors love to see founders with authentic passion and grit because they know the road will be long.
Also, be upfront about challenges and how you’ll tackle them. Transparency builds trust. Many investors will appreciate a founder who acknowledges risks and has a plan more than one who insists everything is rosy.
And remember, VC is not your only option on Day 1: savvy climate founders mix in grants, incubators, or crowdfunding to get early proof-points. That can make you a stronger candidate for that first VC check. Early climate investors won’t fault you for being scrappy – on the contrary, it shows resourcefulness.
Intermediate Resources (Dive Deeper)
Raising Your First Institutional Capital – 4 Lessons from an Early-Stage Climate Investor
A goldmine of practical advice for climate founders raising pre-seed/seed. Covers strategies like rolling closes, crafting your personal “why us” story, and handling a stalled fundraise.
👉 https://enduringplanet.com/insights/raising-your-first-institutional-capital-4
How I Make Investment Decisions
Andreas Klinger’s writes a candid article at how a solo GP assesses startups. Not climate-specific, but Andreas is now applying this to climate and frontier tech.
👉 https://klinger.io/posts/how-i-make-investment-decisions
Advanced: The Big Picture and Current Challenges
Welcome to the deep end. In this section, we tackle the current challenges and frontiers in early-stage climate investing, the nuanced stuff that today’s check-writers and ambitious founders are wrestling with.
From First Check to First Of A Kind
One of the toughest challenges now is bridging the gap between a cool prototype (funded by those first checks) and the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) commercial project.
Climate startups don’t follow the neat SaaS trajectory of seed -> product -> Series A -> scale. A climate tech company might need hundreds of millions to build its first full-scale plant or deployment (think a new fusion reactor design or a sustainable aviation fuel plant).
Who funds that huge leap?
Historically, this is where many climate ventures stalled, the infamous “valley of death.”
Today, creative solutions are emerging: governments and corporates are stepping in alongside VCs. For example, FOAK financing got a boost in 2024 with large rounds for companies like H2 Green Steel and Rondo Energy – essentially project finance mixed with venture to get their first commercial units built.
New public-private funds (like Canada’s Growth Fund or the US DOE’s loan programs) are co-investing to de-risk these scale-up stages. The advanced conversation here is how early-stage investors plan for the FOAK stage from day one. The best early climate investors are now thinking two moves ahead: “If I write the first check into a carbon capture startup, how will we fund the first demo plant in 3 years? Which partners or grants can we line up?” As a founder or investor, you need to map out that path early.
Returns, Exits, and LP Jitters
Climate tech may be mission-driven, but it’s still beholden to economics. A major challenge for first-check investors today is proving that these bold bets can deliver returns on a venture timeline. The climate venture boom of 2020-2022 (when money was flowing freely) has tempered; climate VC funding dropped for three straight years up to 2024. Later-stage investors have grown cautious, and some high-profile climate startups have stumbled (even well-funded ones – e.g. a much-hyped EV battery startup collapsed despite billions raised).
Early-stage climate backers feel this, they must ensure their companies can either achieve revenue faster or at least hit technical milestones that attract the next round of funding. Otherwise, that first check could be the last.
Expanding the First-Check Community
Lastly, a current focal point is simply getting more check-writers into climate, period. There’s momentum to train and attract more angels from traditional tech into climate. Initiatives like climatetech angel groups, climate-focused scout programs, and syndicates are growing. Even some big funds are launching pre-seed climate programs to seed more ideas. Other options include Venture Studios (like Marble), which are building companies internally and writing the first check.
The underlying challenge is cultural: venture has a bit of FOMO, and we need climate to be seen as the hot, must-invest space. The more success stories we get – e.g. an early climate investment turning into a breakout IPO or a huge acquisition – the more new investors will want in.
Until then, climate first-check investors are almost like a tight-knit tribe. They often share deals, co-invest, and champion each other’s successes. The advanced opportunity here is community building: events like Open Climate (the roundtable for which this Starter Pack is written) are bringing these pioneers together to swap notes and inspire others. By understanding this, you’ll appreciate that being a first-check investor in climate isn’t just a transaction – it’s a movement.
Advanced Resources (Explore & Understand)
Eight Lessons from the First Climate Tech Boom and Bust
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) writes a retrospective look at the Cleantech 1.0 era (2006-2011) and what today’s climate investors can learn from it. This is advanced context that helps explain why investors are cautious about certain models
👉 bvp.com
The Climate for Climate Tech Investment
A panel (available on YouTube) featuring climate tech investors discussing where the sector is heading.
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITdin1U-fYg
On Tuesday, July 8th, at 9am PST, 18:00 CEST we are co-organising an open fireside on the State of Early Stage Climate Investing, with early-stage investors, solo GPs startup studios and everything in between. Join here:
Listen to The Climate Investing Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcast | YouTube
For more Climate Drift: Community | Accelerator | Climate Firesides | Deep Dives
Amazing
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