Blue Earth Summit

During Climate Week NYC, HSBC, in partnership with Wireframe Ventures and B Capital, convened a panel to explore one of the defining challenges for climate innovation today: how to finance the shift from invention to deployment in an increasingly complex capital environment.

The discussion brought together leading investors and practitioners across venture, growth, and project finance. Their candid reflections offered a roadmap for founders and investors working at the sharp edge of climate and industrial technology.

---

Growth vs. Early Stage: Shifting the Bar

Early-stage investing is still anchored in team quality, clarity of mission, and raising enough capital to unlock the next milestone. As one panellist put it, early investors look for alignment on objectives and the self-awareness to build around gaps.

At the growth stage, however, the bar rises. “There’s nothing better than selling something once. Even better is selling it twice.” Repeatable sales and evidence of commercial traction become non-negotiable.

With the “green premium” all but gone, growth companies must show strong unit economics and demonstrate that they can go head-to-head with incumbents on price and performance.

---

From Invention to Deployment

The panel emphasised that the sector’s real bottleneck is not invention, but deployment. Climate and industrial technologies cannot simply be replicated once; they often need to be built and financed hundreds of times before reaching maturity.

The Infineon Roadrunner project was cited as an example of how aligning early technology development with project finance can accelerate deployment, linking innovators with long-term financiers.

---

Series B: The Hardest Hurdle

A recurring theme was the Series B crunch, often the most difficult round to raise. Founders were urged to:

• Plan ahead: Sketch the next fundraising deck before starting the current raise.
• Raise enough capital: Growth phases almost always take longer and cost more than expected.
• Build relationships early: Treat investors as long-term partners, not one-off transactions.

This forward-looking discipline, panellists argued, is what gives founders the best shot at navigating the mid-stage financing gap.

---

The Power of Storytelling

Numbers alone don’t win the day. Several speakers stressed that storytelling is essential to attract capital, talent, and urgency.

Climate tech founders must adapt their narratives to their audience: project financiers want to see risk mitigated and boring predictability, while venture investors want to hear how a company can change the world. Both stories are true, but they must be told differently.

---

Geography Shapes Finance

Geography also shapes the financing environment. Europe may have the most supportive regulatory frameworks, but even there, solutions must be cost-competitive and scalable. Local conditions, policy, incentives, infrastructure, remain decisive in determining where and how quickly technologies can scale.

---

The Bottom Line

The message was clear: companies in this space must prove they can outcompete, with better products and stronger commercial models.

Those that succeed will combine:

• Repeatable sales traction
• Competitive unit economics
• Scalable deployment strategies
• A compelling narrative tailored to different audiences

As the panel concluded, convenings like this, bringing together founders, investors, and financiers—are essential to moving climate innovation from concept to commercial reality.