Best Pre-Seed Energy & Power Investors 2026

No need to choose between emissions impact and commercial impact. Virescent backs founders, technologies, and businesses that help achieve zero emissions and beyond — focusing on the largest, hardest-to-abate emissions sources across clean energy transition, mobility & smart cities, food & agriculture, and the circular economy. Invests in both deep tech hardware and software.

AP Ventures backs technically differentiated solutions across the hydrogen value chain, carbon capture and utilisation, and industrial decarbonisation, investing early and working closely with founders through commercialisation, industrial deployment and scale-up.

The energy transition requires software infrastructure. Legacy utilities and energy infrastructure operate with 20th-century tools. Grid modernization, EV adoption, renewable integration, and industrial decarbonization all need modern software layers. Strategic corporate access validates product-market fit.

Back extraordinary founders leading the transition of energy and industry while solving inevitable impacts of climate change. Invest in startups rewriting industries to be cleaner, more profitable, and more resilient through strategic capital and ecosystem engagement.

Early-stage climate tech founders need more than capital—they need government relations expertise and regulatory navigation. We bridge venture capital with embedded public-sector strategy through Boundary Stone Partners, our government affairs firm co-founded by our team. We focus on sectors where policy is central: energy abundance, resilience, and clean industry transformation.

Accelerate the global energy transition by investing in companies that unlock economic-led transformation of the energy economy. Focus on solutions winning on unsubsidized economics with proven technology and strong teams.

Deep tech for climate impact — backing breakthrough science and engineering where the physical economy must be reinvented. Targets companies with products that are better, faster, and cheaper than incumbents, not just marginally greener.

Technology and capital solutions for the global energy transition. We partner with entrepreneurs to build and scale innovative companies that power a better energy future, supported by collaborations with utilities and industrial incumbents.

India is uniquely positioned to lead a structural shift in global energy generation and consumption. We back engineering-led companies in the 'missing middle' - proven technical feasibility, early commercial traction, pre-PMF - across energy transition, industrial decarbonization, and (with Fund II) advanced manufacturing and semiconductors.

We help founders build a cleaner future by investing in disruptive, capital-light climate technologies that reshape how we produce and consume energy. Every investment must demonstrate potential to mitigate 2.5 gigatons of CO2 by 2050.

Toyota's early-stage venture arm backing deep tech and climate tech founders in AI, robotics, computing, aerospace, mobility, energy and carbon capture.

Climate is the biggest challenge of our lifetime and the greatest business opportunity of the coming decades. We back visionaries accelerating climate innovation that will reshape our global economy for the betterment of people and planet. The most successful companies are born from a vision for a better future and the ability of that vision to create large, lasting positive impact. We invest in frontier technologies addressing climate across seven sectors: Built Environment, Carbon Management, Compute, Energy, Food & Agriculture, Manufacturing & Industrials, and Mobility. The best ideas come from everywhere—we operate where many venture firms can't or won't.

Infrastructure is the critical layer for climate transition. Three pillars: (1) Energy Abundance - hyperscaling cheap clean energy for 2X grid capacity, (2) Physical Infrastructure - 100X energy storage and circular supply chains for robotics/autonomy, (3) Resilience & Adaptation - fortifying critical systems against climate disasters.

The world is transitioning from finite fuels and brittle processes to one powered by efficiency, automation, and machine intelligence. We invest in frontier technologies that are cheaper and higher-performing than fossil alternatives, building the foundational infrastructure for durable economic growth and abundance at global scale.

More than 80% of UK venture capital is concentrated in London and the South East. PXN backs high-growth founders in the North of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland with capital (£200K-£8M) plus hands-on, "more than money" operational support.

We invest in ambitious and determined teams that can one day become industry leaders, partnering with founders from the very beginning and supporting them throughout their growth with global operating experience.

Massive growth in AI and electrification is straining our grid. The future belongs to businesses making energy cheap and programmable. We back founders early with breakthrough innovation and durable economic advantage.

Serve industry, contribute to society, repay the nation through professional capability. Act as an industry integrator and innovation driver across advanced manufacturing, IT, new materials/new energy, life sciences, and tech-driven consumption, pairing capital with operational and industrial-resource support.

Extraordinary companies are built by driven founders whose mission to improve the health of people and planet is inseparable from their product. We partner with technical founders building technology solutions to the world's most important challenges across climate, health, biotech, and enabling technologies.

Investing at the intersection of for-profit and for-good. Companies that make the world better AND deliver strong financial returns. The Villain Test ensures both impact and profit alignment.

Catalyse environmentally sustainable progress by backing visionary scientific founders whose technology can plausibly abate at least 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2e annually by 2050.

The world needs an energy expansion, not an energy transition. We back category-defining founders innovating across the natural gas value chain (Green Molecules) to meet surging energy demand from data centers, AI, and industrial manufacturing.

Category accelerator with a built-in venture fund: the accelerator work is the diligence, and conviction can become capital for companies building foundational technologies that create new markets.

We back bold, early-stage founders building disruptive innovations deeply rooted in science, engineering, and technology, across Novel Energy & Planetary Health, Human Longevity & Synthetic Biology, Beyond Earth & Space Tech, Advanced Manufacturing, and AI Led Software. We prioritize exponential over incremental change and are often the first institutional check.

UVC Partners invests in European B2B tech startups across DeepTech, ClimateTech, Mobility, and Software/AI, from pre-seed up to Series A, leveraging the UnternehmerTUM ecosystem to help portfolio companies build sustainable category leadership.

First check for deeptech founders building across all deeptech sectors (chips, energy, robotics, medtech, materials science, aerospace). We provide more than capital—we become your growth team, design your website, and offer hands-on go-to-market support backed by deep expertise in startup scaling and commercialization.

Exceptional founders can build profitable businesses while solving urgent environmental challenges. We provide capital plus deep operational expertise in sales, talent, and fundraising. Focus on transition from finite to infinite sources of energy, food, water, and products.

8090 Industries backs technical founders building breakthrough zero-carbon and hard-tech innovations that offer a clear economic advantage over incumbent industrial processes, across decarbonization, nuclear/clean energy, geothermal, and advanced industrial manufacturing.

We back deeply technical founders solving hard problems with innovative technologies. Combining capital with go-to-market expertise and structured fellowships, we partner with founders who have authentic personal connections to their problems and bring novel technological approaches to market.

Transformative national security solutions emerge from early-stage private-sector startups developing frontier technologies. IQT identifies, evaluates, and leverages innovations to accelerate government adoption while enhancing commercial success. As of May 2026, IQT is emphasizing mission investing through fewer larger bets in autonomy, contested logistics, critical infrastructure, and technologies that can move to mission use quickly.

Backs founders building 'physical AI' companies that rebuild real-world systems at the intersection of artificial intelligence and industrial infrastructure — from semiconductors and nuclear power to wildfire suppression and critical materials. Fund II ($150M, 2026) marks a reframe from the original climate-first Planetary Boundaries thesis toward physical AI, though climate and compute demands are seen as increasingly overlapping.

Fund visionary entrepreneurs solving humanity's most intractable, long-horizon science and engineering problems, taking a poly-solution approach that backs many independent bets on the same hard problem (especially Alzheimer's disease and depression) rather than a single best guess, judged on both societal and financial impact.

b2venture backs outlier entrepreneurs at the earliest stages across Europe, leveraging a multi-generational community of founder-turned-angel-investors to provide capital, expertise, and network access from seed through IPO.

Backing ruthlessly iterative founders at pre-consensus stages. We invest in founders before the broader market recognizes the opportunity, focusing on individuals who demonstrate exceptional ability to iterate quickly, navigate complex challenges, and maintain unwavering dedication to their vision.

AI companies are built differently. We back the world's best AI native founders and help them reshape our world for the better. We go wide on product and deep on GTM.

Space has a unique role in addressing the world's most pressing problems and represents a $trillion investment opportunity. We back visionary entrepreneurs transforming science fiction into science fact using space technology and space-based data to solve challenges in sustainability, connectivity, and digitalization at global scale.

Entrepreneurs who work constructively with government to harness its unique strengths—scale, credibility, regulatory power, data, and funding—enjoy asymmetric advantages. 24% of venture-backed unicorns used government support. We partner with founders to unlock government as a growth lever.

Invest at the intersection of bits and atoms to rebuild foundational industries - energy, manufacturing, materials, and infrastructure - for abundance, sustainability, and human flourishing.

We invest in teams and solutions that address multi-decade problems that humanity has no choice but to solve. Our focus is breakthrough science and technology applied to energy transition, life sciences, space, and next-generation computing.

Support passionate founders forging the future. Invest in seed and early-stage companies with unique ideas that have potential to reinvent entire industries. Focus on frontier technologies that make the world better and don't prey on human frailty.

Backing 'Venture Scientists' — PhD-trained technical founders applying rigorous scientific methodology to build transformative companies from fundamental research. Focus on deep tech and life sciences areas that address climate change, resource scarcity, and healthcare accessibility. Targets university spinouts and science-led startups in areas that are difficult to diligence for generalist investors.

Main Sequence backs deep tech founders solving humanity-scale problems, especially companies connected to publicly funded research and spinouts that can turn breakthrough science into global businesses.

Investible backs the visionaries advancing humanity through technology, investing at Pre-Seed through Series A alongside Club Investible, its global syndicate of 250+ investors, and activating its network to help founders scale.

Profit and purpose can form a virtuous cycle. We champion founders driving advanced energy, resource innovation, and economic opportunity. We believe that addressing humanity's biggest challenges requires innovative, scalable, profitable solutions. We help seed-stage startups bridge tech and deep-tech, venture and values-aligned investing.

Cerulean identifies systemic leverage points where proprietary data, AI scaling, and fintech can rapidly scale into transformative markets resistant to digital transformation. They back asset-light software companies building a nature-positive economy across supply chains, energy, natural capital, and climate finance.

The most enduring companies are created by founders willing to commercialize real science and scale real systems. We focus on hard tech at the intersection of computation and physical sciences—aerospace, biotech, energy, materials—where technical execution is the moat.

The best companies are built by founders for founders. Garage invests at the earliest stages in high-potential Canadian and YC startups, providing capital plus experienced operational advice from GPs who have built, scaled, and sold venture-backed companies. The goal is to make world-class early-stage capital accessible within Canada so founders don't need to go to Silicon Valley.

Exceptional founders living in the future deserve operators who provide more than capital. We partner with founders on go-to-market, brand, storytelling, and team building.

Investing in the modern economy through AI-driven business solutions, software-driven hardware, sustainable agriculture, and supply chain technology in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, being the first institutional partner in a founder's journey.

Write the first check for founders still in school or just out, backing the builder before the idea or product is settled.

Breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination — deep tech with the potential to create new product categories. We bring company-building skills and operating expertise to help founders find product-market fit.

Clave partners with universities, hospitals, and research centers to turn Spanish scientific research into investable companies (tech transfer) in health, food, and industrial technology, while also backing established industrial SMEs and renewable energy infrastructure.

Frontier Tech fund focusing on startups that apply advanced technologies to solve Real Problems. Three core verticals: AI Software & Applications, AI Hardware & Embodied Intelligence, and AI for Science & Manufacturing. 'See them as ourselves' — we succeed when our founders succeed.

Partner with visionary European founders at seed and Series A, leveraging the team's own operator experience and a network of 150+ international co-investors. Sector agnostic (excluding life sciences and crypto) with ~50 companies per fund. Strong focus on capital efficiency, unit economics, and realistic paths to profitability. Co-investor by default; will lead when it adds value.

Europe's first cheque fund: the first institutional investor for exceptional European (and European-origin) founders, helping them go from 0 to 1 and reach product-market fit, backed by anchor corporate relationships with Axel Springer and Porsche.

We back bold, growth-oriented founders transforming how the world is moved, powered, and built through AI and physical infrastructure innovation. We invest in early-stage companies making physical industries more profitable, efficient, and resilient through capital-efficient business models combining software, hardware, and structured finance.

Human progress is defined by manipulating energy and atoms over spacetime. Software and open networks governed by tokens will transform the infrastructure economy. Crucible backs founders building digital infrastructure foundations at the intersection of energy, compute, and crypto. The firm has evolved to embrace 'Capital Markets Maximalism' — the view that financial engineering, not just software, is the key to capturing value in industrial infrastructure — and 'Industrial Resilience,' investing across five layers: dispatch & optimization, verification & ground truth, financial infrastructure, materials & supply, and defense & infrastructure security. Crucible now deploys capital across the lifecycle from venture to credit to direct infrastructure ownership.

Backing frontier, technically ambitious founders solving civilization-scale problems in energy, biology, maritime logistics, defense, and human performance rather than incremental software.

Galvanize invests at the intersection of energy innovation, resilience, and intelligence, backing the 'New Economy' companies essential to electrification, rising power demand, industrial modernization, and digitization -- from pre-seed food/agriculture/ocean/forestry ventures (Ponderosa) through growth-stage energy transition and AI-infrastructure companies (Venture & Growth).

We invest in hard tech and hard sectors—companies building solutions to difficult, underexplored problems that others won't. Unlocking society's potential depends on founders willing to build what others won't. We're hyper curious, drawn to difficult and underexplored areas.

Back founders building technologies that reshape the foundational sectors of food, agriculture, energy and resources, across deep tech, AI and consumer and marketplaces.

Trucks funds entrepreneurs building the future of transportation across three mandates: decarbonized, safer, and more accessible. They back seed/pre-seed companies across autonomous vehicles, EVs, aviation, micromobility, aerospace, maritime, and logistics — any transportation sector at the frontier.

Invest in bold, visionary founders building transformational businesses long before the world believes in them. We back founders solving impossible-seeming problems across frontier sectors: AI/robotics, crypto, biotech, aerospace, and unconventional ideas.

Backing transformative founders building exceptional companies across all sectors

Fuel the next industrial revolution by backing founders rebuilding how the world is powered and built — targeting energy independence, industrial resilience, and frontier industries. Uses AI, robotics, IoT, satellites, and blockchain to address climate change, resource depletion, and inequality, with a focus on companies where impact metrics are tightly coupled to business performance.

Backing founders rebuilding how the world is powered and built. We invest in frontier-tech startups solving three existential challenges: climate change, resource depletion, and inequality. We look for scalable business models where impact metrics are directly tied to financial performance and community benefit.

Modernize critical industries through deep technology. We are dedicated to backing ambitious, technically sophisticated founders solving hard problems in traditionally underserved sectors. We provide capital, operational guidance, board partnership, and network access—supporting companies from pre-seed through growth stages.

We fundamentally reshape broken global systems by supporting founders who turn theory into action to build better world. Hardware-enabled solutions (80% portfolio) with software components solve transformative climate challenges in energy, infrastructure, transportation, water, and adaptation. We run toward hardware because less competition and less noise. Climate is about more than carbon—it's adaptation, resilience, and systems change.

Balderton Capital backs European-founded technology companies with visionary founders building transformative businesses. The firm combines patient capital, operational expertise, and founder support to enable European entrepreneurs to build world-class companies.

Demea Sustainable Investment backs startups, SMEs, mid-caps, and infrastructure projects driving the ecological and agricultural transition, across agriculture, agri-food, energy, environment, sustainable solutions, and green industry, with capital ranging from venture and growth equity through buyout, infrastructure, mezzanine, and private debt.

Investing in breakthrough deep technologies that address humanity's greatest challenges. We allocate ~80% to climate solutions (carbon-negative materials, renewable energy, climate adaptation) and ~20% to frontier tech (aerospace, robotics, advanced materials, biotech). We operate as a venture-and-philanthropy platform backed by the Fukutake family, blending profit-seeking with impact objectives.

The biggest companies of the century will be built solving the world's most pressing problems. We champion ambitious founders using technology to reshape civilization around climate, health, and inclusive capitalism.

Invest in Southern California's best founders earlier than anyone else. No idea is too early. We fund companies earlier than most VCs, providing not just capital but hands-on support and operational expertise. Our founder-first philosophy and No Ghosting Rule ensure responsive, engaged partnerships.

We invest in people who will transform the physical world. Near frontier technology solving climate change, disease, armed conflict, poverty, and existential risks. Technical founders building capital-intensive, long-horizon companies.

Deep tech hardware companies in aerospace, defense, energy, robotics, and industrial manufacturing represent the next generation of durable, high-return ventures. The fund backs founders at the earliest stage — sometimes pre-incorporation — who are building hardware solutions to the world's most important problems, leveraging government contracts and non-dilutive funding alongside venture capital.

Invest in people and products that leverage technological breakthroughs or superior user experience to radically change the status quo. Focus on structurally sound, strategically defensible business models that create and capture new markets. True partnership approach: value-add extends beyond capital to include strategic guidance, operational expertise, and network introductions.

Global environmental challenges cannot be solved by established mega-corporations alone, but rather require breakthrough innovation from a diverse set of new companies. We combine venture capital with integrated storytelling and media to create culture-defining content around climate solutions and sustainable technology adoption.

Specialized, community-driven funds indexed into proven networks (Y Combinator, CTOs and VPs of Engineering) to deliver diversification, domain expertise and direct founder impact.