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Announcing the 2023 SOSV Climate Tech 100
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SOSV Team
SOSV Team
April 21, 2023

SOSV’s core mission is human and planetary health, and the SOSV Climate Tech 100 springs from that commitment. In this third edition of our list, published yearly to mark Earth Day, we highlight the companies in our portfolio that demonstrated the most momentum and greatest potential impact on decarbonization. Please see the list in the table below. 

The new SOSV Climate Tech 100 list

For the 2023 edition of the SOSV Climate Tech 100, we added 22 new companies from our portfolio. The aggregate valuation of the 100 companies reached $11.69 billion, which marks an increase of  +2% from 2022. That modest uptick reflects the introduction of several exciting but very early stage startups with lower valuations than the companies they replaced. Because SOSV begins investing at the pre-seed stage, we inevitably bias toward adding high potential, early stage companies.

When it comes to fund-raising, the 2023 100 were very active in the past 12 months: 32 closed rounds of $1 million or more, and 11 of those rounds hit $10 million or more. SOSV’s total investments in the new list reached $144 million, which is up 5% from last year’s list. In total, the 100 have raised $3.77 billion to date, which is down -1% from the prior year list. That decline is again due to the introduction of very early stage companies, as well as a slackening in the pace of investing, even in the robust climate category. Another factor was the exit from the 100 list of Getaround, which had raised $568 million, on account of its IPO earlier this year.

“Remarkably promising companies are surfacing across all the categories of climate tech, dozens of new climate tech VC funds have opened up, and — unfortunately — the climate problems continue to get more severe. Founders and funders are highly motivated to fight. This is no longer a problem for future generations. It is a daily battle to create a survivable tomorrow.”

– Sean O’Sullivan, SOSV Managing General Partner

“This year marks a new phase in climate tech investing,” said Sean O’Sullivan, SOSV’s managing general partner. “Venture investing overall is in the grip of a correction, about 22% down for 2022, that is overdue. Valuations for climate tech companies are holding up well however, as the underlying megatrend is stronger. Remarkably promising companies are surfacing across all the categories of climate tech, dozens of new climate tech VC funds have opened up, and — unfortunately — the climate problems continue to get more severe. Founders and funders are highly motivated to fight. This is no longer a problem for future generations. It is a daily battle to create a survivable tomorrow.”

Total ValuationCountriesTotal RaisedFemale FoundersSOSV FundingPhD Founders
2022$11.5B19$3.81B38%$138M43%
2023$11.7B18$3.77B38%$144M47%
Change+2%-1%+5%

SOSV is a leader in climate tech investing

SOSV is a global leader in climate tech investing, thanks to our two pre-seed startup development programs, HAX, based in Shenzhen and Newark, which focuses on hard tech startups, and IndieBio, based in San Francisco and New York City, which focuses of bio-tech driven startups. Together they help launch more than 80 new companies each year in human and planetary health, and SOSV continues to invest as the graduates advance through later rounds. Pitchbook ranks SOSV the most active in climate tech investment since 2018, as well as most active in agtech, and carbon emissions tech. In addition, FoodHack ranked SOSV as the most active investor in foodtech. 

Each year, SOSV also produces the annual SOSV Climate Tech Summit, which is a free, virtual event that features the top VCs and founders working on climate. More than 5000 people participated last year, and past speakers include Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla, Jennifer Holmgren, Katie Rae, Chris Sacca, Uma Valeti and many more. Please register for this year’s event, Sept. 26-27. It’s free. 

More details on the Climate Tech 100 list

This year’s SOSV Climate Tech 100 includes startups in every climate category, including food and agriculture, energy, transport, manufacturing, circular economy and a new entry – MRV (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification). 58 of the Climate 100 companies graduated from IndieBio while another 33 started at HAX and 3 hail from SOSV’s Orbit Startups program, which helps high-growth companies in emerging markets. To see a list of the 22 new companies added to this year’s list, scroll to the bottom of this post.

SOSV is especially strong in the food and agriculture categories, which account for 45 of the 100 companies selected, including three unicorns: Perfect Day, NotCo, Upside Foods. In the past year, the standout raise in the food category was $42 million series A for cultured meat and bio-manufacturer Prolific Machines. SOSV’s fourth climate unicorn is on the hard tech side – 3D printer FormLabs – and hard tech claims biggest SOSV climate raise of the past year with a  $105 million series C for autonomous disinfection company R-Zero

As with the other list we produce annually – the SOSV Human Health 100, the diversity and sophistication of our climate companies and founders is gratifying. 38% of the 100 have at least one woman as either CEO or co-founder. 18 countries are home to members of the 100, starting with the US (63), Singapore (8) and Canada (7), followed by the UK (4) and Israel (3). And 47% of the 100 have at least one PhD co-founder.

The 2023 SOSV Climate Tech 100

(Reported funding amounts are limited to public information available on Crunchbase and not always accurate.)

The 22 New Startups

Artyc: Enabling easy, long-lasting, and no-waste cold shipping

Asterix Foods: Next wave of functional bioactive animal-free proteins

Ayrton Energy: Energy Security fueled by hydrogen

BloomGEM: End-to-end sustainable solutions for the textile supply chain to deliver high quality color with less water and cleaner inputs.

Bosque Foods: Whole muscle meat alternatives grown naturally from fungi

Cargo Kite: Flexible maritime logistics through 100% emission free micro cargo ships

Gaia AI: Applying robotics and AI to address climate change.

Gozen Bioworks: Animal free leather with unprecedented strength, look, and feel.

Infinite Elements: Bio-mining platform to refine and recycle rare earth elements

Ingrediome: Recreating the perfect bite with animal proteins made in cyanobacteria

Mazlite: Industrial IoT platform for spray monitoring and digitization

Metal Light: Clean energy reimagined

Minus Materials: Bio-renewable carbon-negative limestone for decarbonization of Portland cement

Nitrofix: Emissions-free ammonia available on-site

NuKoKo: Bean-to-bar manufacturing company that creates cocoa-free chocolate.

Prolific Machines: Accelerating sustainable cell cultured meat production

Renewell Energy: Converting oil and gas’ largest liability into renewable energy’s greatest asset

Renovate Robotics: Roofing replacement by robot.

Solano Energy: Asset-light power company offering battery-centric renewable energy solutions.

Stillbright: Advancing the sustainable, economic, and domestic production of copper

Tandem: Attachable EVs for heavy duty vehicles

Terran Robotics: Turning dirt into affordable homes

Did you know?

unspun’s Weaving Machines Aim to Fix Apparel’s Waste and Carbon Problem

Funded with $57 million from DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital and SOSV, among others, unspun aims to eliminate 1% of global carbon emissions

NotCo’s plant-based foods are on store shelves, but its AI engine “Giuseppe” is the real business

While it might look like a plant-based food company, NotCo is in the data and AI business—and aims to disrupt R&D in many industries that use animal and plant ingredients.

Smartex is Creating the Textile Factory of the Future

Gilberto Loureiro grew up inspecting fabrics in a Portuguese textile factory. With Smartex, he and co-founders Antonio Rocha and Paulo Ribeiro are eliminating textile defects—and their enormous cost both to manufacturers and the environment.

Novoloop Is Upcycling Your Future

Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have an uncanny talent for finding value where others see waste. Their plastics upcycling company, Novoloop, just raised an $21m Series A to prove it.

Upside Foods Serves Up a Sustainable Future

To find the future of food, you may have to look no further than Emeryville, CA, a small city by the San Francisco Bay, where Upside Foods has built a 53,000-square-foot production facility for cultivated meat, the first of its kind.

Sleeping Beauty

In a timeless dilemma for new parents, Radhika and her husband Bharath discovered early that their baby daughter was a fussy sleeper. The situation left them tired and frustrated; being effective at work became a challenge.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Entrepreneur

In December 2021 Prellis raised a $14.5 million Series B and has signed partnerships with pharmaceutical behemoths including Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi.

Chiu Chau Reboots a Robot into a Billion Dollar Business

It was 2016, and Chiu Chau was on the ropes. He had pitched nearly 150 venture capital firms. No one would invest. Everyone doubted the startup with the open-source laboratory robot.

RxAll’s Life-Saving Deep Tech for African Pharmacies

Adebayo (“Ade”) Alonge and Amy Kao, co-founders of RxAll had nvented a handheld scanner for detecting counterfeit prescription drugs—an illicit, multibillion-dollar industry that kills an estimated 1 million people annually globally and 100,000 in Africa.