The capital backing climate companies in New York.
From Energy Impact Partners and Collaborative Fund to the funds investing across the region, here is a starter map of the investors active in the local climate ecosystem.
Energize Capital
Energize Capital made the case for climate software as its own asset class, backing asset-light, digitally enabled solutions for energy and industrial operations rather than capital-intensive hardware. It invests through venture and growth strategies and supports companies with an in-house operating platform focused on go-to-market, hiring, and customer introductions drawn from its industrial limited partners. Its cheques generally begin at Series A and above, so pre-seed founders should treat it as a target for later.
Buoyant Ventures
Buoyant Ventures is a Chicago-based, women-led fund investing at seed and Series A in digital climate solutions, covering both cutting emissions and adapting to a warmer world across energy, mobility, agriculture, water, the circular economy, and the built environment. Its partners came from operating and investing roles inside the sector, and the firm is unusually hands-on for its stage, publishing its own research on where software actually moves the needle. It is genuinely early-stage, which makes it one of the few Chicago funds a seed climate founder can approach directly.
S2G Investments
S2G Investments is a Chicago-headquartered multi-stage firm investing across food and agriculture, oceans, and energy, on the view that these systems are interlinked, commodity-driven, and shaped by policy. It spun out of Builders Vision to operate independently and invests from venture through growth, so founders can access early capital and a path to later rounds inside one relationship. Its ocean and seafood team sits on the West Coast, although the firm is run from Chicago.
Evergreen Climate Innovations
Evergreen is a nonprofit climate investor rather than a conventional venture fund, writing early capital into Midwest hardware and recycling returns into the next companies. It runs two open investment cycles a year, does its own technical diligence, and follows money with commercial coaching and introductions across the regional investor base.
mHUB Ventures
mHUB Ventures is the investment arm attached to the mHUB incubator and one of the most active early-stage hardtech investors in Chicago, backing companies coming through the accelerator and the wider member base. Capital arrives alongside prototyping facilities, industrial partners, and supply-chain access, which for hardware founders is often worth more than the cheque itself.
Impact Engine
Impact Engine is a Chicago firm built entirely around investing for measurable social and environmental returns, with climate among its core themes alongside economic opportunity and health. It invests across venture and private equity, holds companies to reported impact outcomes, and has been part of the Chicago scene long enough to be a useful door into the city's family-office and philanthropic capital.
ARCH Venture Partners
ARCH Venture Partners takes its name from Argonne and Chicago, and it has been co-founding companies out of national laboratory and university science from its Chicago base since the 1980s. It invests at the earliest stage, often before a company formally exists, and while the bulk of its work is in biotechnology its remit covers advanced materials, physical sciences, and energy, which is where climate founders fit. It is a deep science investor rather than a climate specialist.
Sandbox Industries
Sandbox Industries builds venture funds alongside corporate strategic partners, and its sustainability and food and agriculture investing runs through Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. The corporate backing is the point, because it turns a funding conversation into a route to commercial validation and distribution with large industry players. It invests from seed through growth.
TechNexus Venture Collaborative
TechNexus pairs corporate capital with early companies from its Chicago base, investing at seed and Series A while also running collaboration space and programming. It has built a genuine energy and industrial thesis for the region, publishing its own mapping of Chicago clean energy and sustainability startups and putting local battery, grid, and carbon accounting companies on stage.
Bluestein Ventures
Bluestein Ventures invests across the food value chain from its office in the Loop, at seed through Series A, with sustainability as one of its stated pillars alongside nutrition and digitization. Its portfolio runs from alternative protein through supply chain software, which reflects Chicago's position at the center of North American food and agriculture.
Builders Vision
Builders Vision is the Chicago impact platform of Lukas Walton, deploying philanthropic alongside investment capital across energy, food and agriculture, and ocean health. Its venture arm spun out to operate independently, so most direct early-stage investment now happens through that firm and through external fund managers, which makes Builders Vision an ecosystem anchor and a source of catalytic and grant capital rather than a fund a founder pitches. Founders seeking equity should approach S2G Investments.
Cleveland Avenue
Cleveland Avenue invests and accelerates from a Chicago base, founded by a former McDonald's chief executive, and it concentrates on food, beverage, consumer, and agricultural technology from seed through growth. Its climate relevance is adjacent rather than central, showing up in alternative protein and sustainable packaging rather than energy or industrial decarbonization.
Energy Foundry
Energy Foundry is a Chicago-based energy and cleantech VC operating a utility-backed model, offering founders capital plus utility partnerships and pilots. Its value is a utility-aligned investor relationship.
George Shultz Innovation Fund
The George Shultz Innovation Fund is Polsky's co-investment vehicle for ventures emerging from the University of Chicago, Argonne, Fermilab, and the Marine Biological Laboratory. Teams pitch for a first institutional cheque alongside diligence support from students and staff, and the fund exists to move technology out of the laboratory rather than to lead priced rounds.