Clean Energy Venture Capital Firms 2026: Verified List

Clean Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital and Energize publish energy or climate investment strategies. They are starting points for checking sector and stage fit, rather than a ranking by current investment activity.

The comparison below also includes angel groups and corporate investors, whose funding availability needs separate checks. Energy Foundry now directs visitors to Earth Foundry; corporate investment mandates can change, and a portfolio website alone does not prove that a firm is accepting new deals.

This article is information, not financial advice. Venture capital is illiquid, high-risk and generally restricted to accredited investors. Verify any figure with the firm before acting on it.

Which clean energy venture capital firms should you check in 2026?

The comparison includes 13 organizations or historical names. The status notes distinguish a published investment focus from confirmed current funding availability. Most fund and portfolio figures below come from the August 2026 version and have not all been reverified in this correction. A dated announcement, an active website and an open fund are different kinds of evidence.

Firm	Base	Stage	Fund or AUM	Focus	Status note, checked 8 October 2026
Clean Energy Ventures	Boston, London	Seed to Series A	$415M AUM, 30+ portfolio companies (company-stated)	Hard-tech decarbonization	Official site describes decarbonization investing; new-deal availability not confirmed.
Clean Energy Venture Group	Boston	Pre-seed, seed (angel)	60+ investments, 35+ partners (company-stated)	Early climate tech	Official site describes seed climate-tech investing; individual member decisions apply.
Energy Impact Partners	New York, London	Venture to growth	Latest flagship fund closed October 2025, reported at $1.36B	Grid, utilities, energy software	Official site lists energy-related portfolio companies; current fund availability not confirmed.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures	Kirkland, WA	Seed to growth	Reported $3.5B+ committed across funds	Five highest-emitting sectors	Official platform describes clean-energy innovation; current fund availability not confirmed.
Lowercarbon Capital	Berkeley, CA	Pre-seed to Series B	Reported ~$2.4B AUM, 207+ companies	Carbon removal, deep tech	Official site describes emissions-reduction investing; current fund availability not confirmed.
Energize Capital	Chicago	Series A to growth	$300M growth platform (2023); $1.2B+ AUM reported at rename	Climate and energy software	Official site describes venture and private-equity strategies; figures shown here are dated.
ETF Partners	London	Series A, Series B	Fund IV closed May 2024 at EUR 285M	European sustainability tech	Official site describes European sustainability investing; current fund availability not confirmed.
Powerhouse Ventures	Oakland, CA	Pre-seed, seed	Fund II reported at $70M; checks $200K to $2.0M	Clean energy and mobility software	Current site could not be retrieved in this check; funding status unverified.
E8 Angels	Seattle	Seed (angel)	$75M+ into 190+ startups since 2006 (company-stated)	Cleantech, water, agtech	Official site describes early-stage environmental investing by members.
Earth Foundry (formerly Energy Foundry)	Chicago	Seed, Series A	Legacy fund and check-size figures not reverified	Energy, mobility, climate hardware	Former Energy Foundry URL redirects to Earth Foundry; legacy check sizes not reverified.
Munich Venture Partners	Munich	Series A, Series B	Website shows EUR 196M AUM; latest fund close unverified	Eco-industrial deep tech	Official site describes energy-transition investing; latest fund close unverified.
Centrica Innovations	Windsor, UK	Corporate VC	$13.5M parent commitment to ERV Fund II, announced September 2026	Energy storage, grid technology, advanced materials through ERV	Parent announced a commitment to independently managed ERV Fund II; direct arm mandate unverified.
BP Ventures	London	Corporate VC	Parent strategy reset; no current venture fund figure verified	Check current corporate mandate	Parent strategy has changed; current venture deployment and clean-energy allocation unverified.

What is the difference between Clean Energy Ventures and Clean Energy Venture Group?

Clean Energy Venture Group is a Boston angel collective of 35 or more partners who invest their own money. Clean Energy Ventures is the institutional venture fund three of those partners spun out in 2017. They are sister organizations, they share deal flow and diligence, and they are constantly confused for one another, including by people searching for portfolio counts and check sizes. The two entities publish different numbers because they are different vehicles.

	Clean Energy Ventures (CEV)	Clean Energy Venture Group (CEVG)
Type	Institutional venture capital fund	Angel investor collective
Founded	2017, by three CEVG partners	Operating since the mid-2000s
Capital	$415M AUM across two funds	Members invest personally; 75+ co-investors
Portfolio	30+ portfolio companies	60+ investments
People	Investment team	35+ operating-executive partners
Offices	Boston and London	Boston
Website	cleanenergyventures.com	cevg.com

If you are a founder, the practical difference is check size and process. CEVG partners can move at angel speed on a pre-seed round. CEV runs institutional diligence and leads seed and Series A rounds out of a committed fund. Many companies raise from both, in that order. Read more about how funds differ from pooled vehicles in our guide to clean energy mutual funds.

Clean Energy Ventures invests in hard technology with a clear commercialization path, and screens for gigaton-scale emissions impact. Clean Energy Venture Group provides seed capital plus operating mentorship.

Which firms on older lists were renamed, retired or repositioned?

Older clean-energy VC lists can mix renamed firms, legacy vehicles and corporate mandates that have changed. The table records those distinctions. A new fund’s focus or a parent company’s spending reset does not, by itself, prove that all clean-energy investing has ended.

Listed as	What actually happened	Date	Correct name today
Energize Ventures	Renamed when it broadened from venture into growth equity, alongside a $300M growth platform raise	July 2023	Energize Capital
Element 8 Angels	Started 2006 as Northwest Energy Angels, became Element 8 in 2014, then shortened the name	Since 2014	E8 Angels
Idinvest Partners	Eurazeo bought the remaining capital and retired the brand, then folded it again into a combined manager	2020, then December 2023	Eurazeo Global Investor
Alliance Ventures	Mitsubishi Motors, then Nissan, stopped funding the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi vehicle in a cost-cutting drive	2020	Not a current clean energy fund
BMW i Ventures	Fund III targets AI and automotive-industry technologies, including circularity and advanced materials; this does not establish that earlier energy investments ended	29 April 2026	Active; check Fund III sector fit
BP Ventures	Parent reset strategy toward selective transition investments; the venture arm’s current clean-energy allocation was not verified	February 2025	Current venture deployment unverified

One trap is worth naming. Searching “Alliance Ventures” surfaces alliance.vc, which belongs to Alliance Venture Capital, a Nordic generalist technology investor backing artificial intelligence and software companies. It is not the automaker fund, and it is not a clean energy specialist. Two different firms, one name.

How much do clean energy VCs actually invest per round?

Cheque sizes in clean energy run from roughly $25,000 from an individual angel to $10 million or more from an institutional fund leading a Series A. The stage you are raising at, not the sector, sets the number. Angel collectives such as E8 Angels and Clean Energy Venture Group syndicate many small checks into one round. Institutional funds write a single larger check and take a board seat.

Stage	Typical check	Who writes it	What they want to see
Pre-seed	$25K to $500K	Angel collectives, Powerhouse Ventures	Working prototype, credible technical founder
Seed	$500K to $3M	Clean Energy Ventures, Powerhouse, Lowercarbon	Pilot customer, validated unit economics
Series A	$3M to $15M	Clean Energy Ventures, ETF Partners, Breakthrough Energy	Repeatable sales, first commercial deployment
Series B and growth	$15M to $50M+	Energy Impact Partners, Energize Capital	Revenue scale, gross margin trajectory
Corporate strategic	Varies widely	BP Ventures, Centrica Innovations, BMW i Ventures	Fit with the parent’s operations

Which firms invest at pre-seed and seed?

E8 Angels and Clean Energy Venture Group describe early-stage investment activity; Lowercarbon also publishes a climate-investing mandate. Powerhouse’s current website could not be retrieved in this check, so its open-deal status is unverified. Energy Foundry’s website now redirects to Earth Foundry. Confirm each investor’s current stage, check size and submission process before approaching it.

E8 Angels is the longest-running of these. Founded in 2006 as the first United States angel group focused only on cleantech, its 140-plus accredited members have put more than $75 million into over 190 startups. Powerhouse Ventures runs a narrower thesis, backing seed-stage software for clean energy, mobility and industry, with 26 companies in its first fund and reported acquisitions including SparkMeter, Solstice and WattBuy.

Which European clean energy VCs should you know?

Europe’s most established clean energy venture investor is ETF Partners in London, which closed its fourth Environmental Technologies Fund in May 2024 at 285 million euros (about $307 million), oversubscribed against a 250 million euro target and backed by the European Investment Fund and British Patient Capital. Munich Venture Partners covers German-speaking Europe from Munich with an eco-industrial deep-tech thesis. Energy Impact Partners launched a European vehicle in September 2022 with 390 million euros and has since deepened its Nordic presence. Clean Energy Ventures runs a London office alongside Boston and invests across North America, Europe and Israel.

You can read the fund detail directly at ETF Partners and Munich Venture Partners. For the later-stage European picture, our overview of renewable energy private equity firms covers the buyout and infrastructure end of the same market.

What is the difference between cleantech, climate tech and impact investing?

Cleantech is the older term and centers on energy: generation, storage, efficiency and the grid. Climate tech is broader and organizes around emissions, so it pulls in agriculture, cement, steel, shipping and carbon removal alongside energy. Impact investing is broader still and is defined by intent and measurement rather than by sector, so it covers affordable housing and financial inclusion as readily as solar.

Term	Organising idea	Typical scope	Example firm
Cleantech	Clean energy technology	Solar, wind, storage, grid, efficiency	E8 Angels
Climate tech	Emissions reduction anywhere	Energy plus industry, food, transport, carbon removal	Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Energy transition	Reshaping the existing energy system	Utilities, grid software, fuels, infrastructure	Energy Impact Partners
Impact investing	Intentional, measured social or environmental return	Any sector, including non-climate	Clean Energy Venture Group

The distinction matters when you are choosing an investor. A cleantech-labelled angel group may pass on a cement decarbonization company that a climate tech fund would lead. Our explainer on climate change investment goes further into how these mandates are written, and sustainable finance covers the wider capital market around them.

Do corporate venture arms like BP Ventures actually invest?

Corporate venture investing depends on the parent’s priorities and the specific investment vehicle. BP’s published strategy reset describes selective investment in transition businesses rather than a blanket exit from them. Its current venture deployment and allocation to clean-energy startups were not verified here, so group capital-expenditure plans should not be treated as a venture-fund mandate.

BMW’s 29 April 2026 announcement says its $300 million Fund III targets AI, industrial software, manufacturing, supply chains, circularity and advanced materials from Seed to Series B. That is a specific new-fund focus, not proof that its existing battery and EV-charging investments have ended. Centrica announced a $13.5 million commitment to ERV Fund II on 23 September 2026. ERV makes its own investment decisions; the commitment does not confirm a direct Centrica Innovations application route.

What do clean energy VCs look for in a startup?

Common diligence questions include technical feasibility, commercialization, unit economics and emissions impact. Each investor sets its own requirements. Clean Energy Ventures describes engineering-led technical diligence; Breakthrough Energy publishes its clean-energy innovation approach. Confirm an individual fund’s current criteria before relying on a screening threshold reported in older coverage.

The subsidy point deserves its own line. After the 2025 changes to United States federal clean energy tax credits, investors have become noticeably less willing to underwrite a business model whose margin depends on a credit that a future Congress can remove. If your unit economics only work with an incentive, expect that to be the first question in due diligence. The same caution applies to a Department of Energy loan or grant in your model, and to any assumption that natural gas prices stay where they are.

Patent position matters more in this sector than in software. A clean energy startup is usually selling a physical process into a conservative industrial buyer, so an issued patent, a pilot with a named customer and an independently verified performance number carry more weight in due diligence than growth metrics do. Firms that describe themselves as company builders, Clean Energy Ventures among them, will also ask who is going to run commercial operations once the technology works.

How much money is going into climate tech right now?

Roughly $40 billion to $42 billion of venture and growth capital went into climate tech worldwide in 2025, and the two most-cited trackers disagree about whether that was growth or a plateau. Sightline Climate put the 2025 total at $40.5 billion, an 8% increase on 2024. PitchBook put it at $42.2 billion and called it essentially flat year over year. Both agree on the more important number: deal count fell about 18%, so the same money went into fewer, larger rounds.

Measure	Sightline Climate	PitchBook	What it means for a founder
2025 total invested	$40.5B	$42.2B	Capital is available at roughly 2024 levels
Change on 2024	Up 8%	Roughly flat	Neither a boom nor a collapse
Deal count	Down about 18%		Fewer companies are getting funded
Median deal size	At record highs		Winners raise more; the middle is squeezed
Hot sectors	Dispatchable power, nuclear, geothermal		Grid reliability is where the money moved

The practical reading is that early-stage activity contracted while late-stage checks grew. That is consistent with what the firms did: Energize Capital moved into growth equity, Energy Impact Partners closed its largest flagship fund yet in October 2025, and the pre-seed end of the market leans more heavily on angel collectives than it did five years ago. It also explains where the money went. Rising electricity demand from data centers pulled capital toward dispatchable power, nuclear and geothermal, and toward the distributed energy resources and grid software that keep an overloaded network standing up. Energy storage, heavy industry and sustainable aviation fuel absorbed most of the rest. Deep tech with a long capital path now competes for follow-on funding against companies selling into utilities today.

Why do published portfolio counts disagree with each other?

Because the trackers count different things and refresh on different schedules. For Breakthrough Energy Ventures, one provider listed 138 portfolio companies in August 2026 while another listed 174. Energy Impact Partners is variously described as managing $3.6 billion, $4.5 billion and over $10 billion depending on which page you read, because some counts include only committed venture funds while others add growth vehicles, co-investment and the wider platform. Energy Foundry is flagged as closed by one database, with a final deal in April 2021, while other profiles describe it as an active evergreen fund with 31 investments.

We have not resolved those conflicts, because we cannot verify them from a primary source. Where a firm publishes its own figure, that is what this page uses and labels as company-stated. Where it does not, the range is shown and attributed. A single confident-looking number would read better and tell you less.

How do you approach a clean energy venture capital firm?

1. Match the stage before the sector. A pre-revenue company pitching a growth fund wastes both calendars.
2. Read the firm’s current portfolio page, not a list like this one, and find two companies adjacent to yours.
3. Get a warm introduction through a portfolio founder or a co-investor. Angel collectives such as E8 Angels and Clean Energy Venture Group run open application processes, which makes them a realistic first door.
4. Lead with the technical risk you have already retired, not the market size.
5. Show the unit economics without any subsidy, then show them again with one.
6. Quantify the emissions impact in metric tons. Several firms screen on it formally.

If you are on the other side of the table and want exposure to this sector without writing venture checks, our guides to how to invest in renewable energy and renewable energy stocks cover the public-market routes, which are liquid and open to everyone. Pooled options run from climate change mutual funds through to green bonds, and our list of the best green companies covers the individual names.

Frequently asked questions about clean energy venture capital firms

Who owns Clean Energy Ventures?

Clean Energy Ventures is an independent venture capital firm owned by its partners, not by a corporate parent. It was founded in 2017 by three partners of Clean Energy Venture Group, the Boston angel collective, and the two remain sister organizations that share deal flow. Its capital comes from limited partners, and it states $415 million in assets under management across two funds.

How many portfolio companies does Clean Energy Ventures have?

Clean Energy Ventures states 30 or more portfolio companies as of August 2026, alongside $415 million in assets under management and a track record it describes as spanning more than 20 years of investing. Named holdings on its own site include Electrified Thermal Solutions, DG Matrix, ConnectDER, Nth Cycle, OXCCU, Hertha Metals, Transaera, Aqua Membranes, Boston Materials and Queens Carbon. The separate Clean Energy Venture Group reports 60 or more investments.

Who is the biggest investor in clean energy?

Among dedicated venture firms, Breakthrough Energy Ventures is the largest by committed capital, reported at more than $3.5 billion across its funds, followed by Lowercarbon Capital at a reported $2.4 billion and Energy Impact Partners, whose latest flagship fund alone closed in October 2025 at a reported $1.36 billion. Those figures are not directly comparable, because firms count committed capital, deployed capital and platform assets differently.

How big is the Clean Energy Venture Group fund?

Clean Energy Venture Group does not run a pooled fund in the usual sense. It is an angel collective whose 35 or more partners invest their own capital deal by deal, supported by 75 or more institutional and strategic co-investors. The $415 million figure often attached to it belongs to its sister firm, Clean Energy Ventures, which does manage committed funds.

Is clean energy venture capital open to ordinary investors?

Generally not. Venture funds and angel groups on this page are restricted to accredited investors and institutions, and commitments are illiquid for a decade or more. Retail exposure to the same sector runs through listed companies, funds and exchange-traded funds instead. This is information rather than financial advice, and the right route depends on your own circumstances.

Methodology and sources

This targeted correction on 8 October 2026 checked published company pages for investment focus and naming, and the BMW and Centrica announcements linked above. Energy Foundry’s official URL redirected to Earth Foundry; Munich Venture Partners’ site still describes energy-transition investing. Powerhouse’s site could not be retrieved, and BP Ventures’ current deal activity was not verified.

The correction removes the blanket claim that all 13 entries were verified as actively writing checks. It does not re-audit every historical fund-size, portfolio-count or market-total figure retained from August 2026. The comparison labels those evidence limits; founders should confirm stage, available capital and application routes directly with the organization.

Status and sourcing correction: 8 October 2026. This revision qualifies current funding availability, records the Earth Foundry name, adds Centrica’s dated ERV commitment, and distinguishes BMW Fund III’s thesis from its existing portfolio. Historical numerical figures remain dated unless an updated source is stated.

The Impact Investor publishes research and education, not investment recommendations. This article is not financial advice. Venture capital carries a high risk of total loss and is not suitable for most investors. Speak to a licensed financial professional about your own situation before making any investment decision.