Zero Carbon Capital Research
Investment Thesis
Zero Carbon Capital (ZCC) is a London/Portsmouth-based deep tech climate fund whose stated mission is to "catalyse environmentally sustainable progress by backing visionary scientific founders." The firm invests behind hard science, rather than software or business-model innovation, believing the most consequential decarbonization gains will come from scientists and engineers commercializing breakthrough technology. ZCC explicitly targets companies whose technology can plausibly abate at least 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions annually by 2050, and it positions itself as reducing the "activation energy" for scientist-entrepreneurs moving out of the lab and into company formation.
Stage Focus
ZCC invests almost exclusively at pre-seed and seed, describing itself as a "first money" investor. It works with founding teams from lab-stage technical validation through early commercial traction, and its support extends beyond capital to mentorship on company formation, hiring, and follow-on fundraising.
Check Size
Published check size on the firm's own site is GBP 100,000 to GBP 1,000,000 per initial investment (roughly $125K-$1.25M), with capacity for follow-on participation in later rounds of existing portfolio companies, as seen in the 2026 follow-on into Caudal Energy.
Lead Tendency
ZCC's own positioning as a "first money investor" suggests a lead role at the earliest checks, but recent, better-documented rounds show a mixed pattern: it led/co-led smaller pre-seed and seed checks (e.g., Twig, Caudal Energy's earlier rounds) but participated alongside other leads in larger recent rounds, such as IQ Capital leading Nuclear Turbines' GBP 15M round and Axeleo Capital leading Exergy3's GBP 10M seed. Lead tendency is best characterized as both/opportunistic depending on round size and syndicate.
Recent Activity
ZCC has been highly active through 2026, with a steady cadence of new investments and follow-ons across its portfolio:
- July 2026: Backed Nuclear Turbines' GBP 15M round (compact nuclear power via gas turbines), alongside lead investor IQ Capital, Rhapsody Venture Partners, and Empirical Ventures.
- May 2026: Follow-on investment in Caudal Energy's GBP 4.3M seed extension (bio-inspired tidal energy), alongside Oxford Science Enterprises, Empirical Ventures, Kibo Capital, Oxford Innovation Finance, and Creator Fund.
- April 2026: Backed Exergy3's GBP 10M seed round (industrial heat electrification via thermal batteries), led by Axeleo Capital with Bayern Kapital, Kibo Invest, Scottish Enterprise, and Old College Capital.
- March 2026: Backed Epoch Biodesign's $12M strategic round (enzymatic plastic and textile recycling), alongside new investors Lululemon and Leitmotif and existing investors Extantia Capital, Kompas, and Happiness Capital.
- March 2026: Backed Level Nine's EUR 4M seed round (AI-designed catalysts for green chemicals manufacturing), marking ZCC's continued expansion into Continental Europe.
Fund status reads as actively deploying, funded from a GBP 20M (~$25M) vehicle that closed around May 2024 with LPs including Isomer Capital, Green Future Investments, Bunge Ventures, and Extantia's Climate All-Stars program.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable portfolio companies span industrial decarbonization, novel energy generation, and climate biotech: Epoch Biodesign (enzymatic plastic/textile recycling), Exergy3 (industrial thermal batteries), Nuclear Turbines (compact nuclear power), Caudal Energy, formerly Porpoise Power (bio-inspired tidal energy), IONATE (hybrid intelligent grid transformers), Reclinker (recycled cement via electric arc furnaces), RepAir (electrochemical direct air/point-source carbon capture), Level Nine (AI-designed catalysts for chemicals manufacturing), Phycobloom (engineered algae for sustainable hydrocarbons), Vema Hydrogen (geologic/mineral-derived clean hydrogen), Nutropy (precision-fermentation dairy proteins), Twig (fermentation-based sustainable ingredients and chemicals), and Spark e-Fuels (synthetic aviation fuel from CO2 and hydrogen).
Team
- Pippa Gawley, Founder & Managing Partner - Co-founded ZCC in 2019/2020 after a background in angel investing; roughly eight years of climate tech investing experience and a vocal public advocate for diversity in venture capital.
- Alex Gawley, Founder & General Partner - Spent over a decade leading product and engineering teams at Google, including building Google's internal incubator, Area 120, before co-founding ZCC.
- Chloe Coates, PhD, Research & Analysis Lead - Leads scientific due diligence and technical research on prospective and portfolio investments, applying a science-first lens consistent with the fund's thesis.
Decision Process
As a small, founder-led partnership (two General/Managing Partners plus a dedicated scientific research lead), decisions appear to run through a tight partnership process rather than a large investment committee.
Founder Preferences
ZCC backs technically deep, often PhD-level or lab-spinout founding teams tackling large, unsolved emissions categories, favoring scientific rigor paired with genuine commercial and entrepreneurial ambition, and is willing to be the first institutional check into very early, technically complex ventures.
Geographic Focus
Primarily UK and wider Europe, including a stated 2026 push into Continental Europe (e.g., Level Nine in Berlin), with the firm's registered office in Portsmouth, UK.