The capital backing climate companies in San Francisco.
From Lowercarbon Capital and DCVC to the funds investing across the region, here is a starter map of the investors active in the local climate ecosystem.
Lowercarbon Capital
Lowercarbon Capital is a prominent climate VC with a hardware-heavy, science-forward thesis across carbon removal, fusion, energy, industrial decarbonization, transportation, agriculture, and adaptation. It is stage-flexible, investing from pre-seed through Series A via its early funds and later via growth funds, and runs dedicated fusion funds, offering deep technical diligence, a large founder and expert ecosystem, and hands-on scaling help. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
DCVC
DCVC is a deep-tech VC applying a computational and simulation lens to hard industries including climate and energy, biotech, robotics, and industrial systems, investing from seed and Series A through growth. Beyond capital it offers many technical operating experts for diligence, hiring, and customer introductions, and its climate practice is well established. It is headquartered in Palo Alto with a San Francisco office.
Congruent Ventures
Congruent Ventures is a leading pure-play early-stage climate and sustainability VC investing from formation and pre-seed to Series A across mobility and urbanization, energy transition, food and agriculture, and sustainable production, typically as lead and often the first institutional check. Beyond capital it offers multidisciplinary underwriting across project finance, grid, hard science, and software, board engagement, and customer introductions, with a separate continuity fund for scaling. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
G2 Venture Partners
G2 Venture Partners is a growth and expansion-stage VC, spun out of a well-known green-growth practice, backing sustainability and the digitization of traditional industries across transportation, manufacturing, energy, agriculture, and logistics, typically at Series B and beyond. Beyond capital it offers operational resources, industry networks, and data-led scaling support. It is headquartered in Menlo Park.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, founded by Bill Gates, spans a large venture fund and an early-stage Fellows program, investing early through growth in science-driven decarbonization across electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and buildings, requiring credible gigaton-scale impact. Its Fellows program is the founder on-ramp, a full-time year offering catalytic early investment and in-kind support with technical milestone management, mentorship, and network access for teams that have raised little. It is headquartered near Seattle but invests nationally.
Energy Impact Partners
Energy Impact Partners is a global energy-transition investor across venture, growth, credit, and infrastructure, distinguished by a coalition of utility and industrial partners that give portfolio companies direct customer access and commercial pilots. It is headquartered in New York with a San Francisco office, and beyond capital its core offering is that utility-coalition pilot pathway plus a large industrial network.
Khosla Ventures
Khosla Ventures is a large, risk-tolerant deep-tech VC backing science-heavy bets including a deep clean-energy and climate portfolio, investing from a first seed check through growth, with a stated sweet spot in early rounds and flexibility to go much larger. Beyond capital it offers hands-on venture assistance in recruiting, strategy, and technical support. It is headquartered in Menlo Park.
Fifth Wall
Fifth Wall is the largest VC focused on the built environment and real-estate tech, including building decarbonization, investing early to late via hybrid funds. Its defining benefit is a network of many real-estate owner and operator partners that provide pilots, customer deals, and deployment for property-related climate tech. It is headquartered in Los Angeles with a San Francisco office.
Voyager
Voyager Ventures is an early-stage climate, energy, and industrial VC investing pre-seed to Series A with select follow-on across North America and Europe in generation and storage, efficiency, critical materials, advanced manufacturing, and physical AI. Beyond capital it offers deep policy, technical, and climate-finance support with an explicit carbon-impact goal per fund. It is headquartered in San Francisco and New York.
Climactic
Climactic is an early-stage, deliberately software-first climate VC investing at seed and Series A and leading most seeds, focused on energy, AI, automation, and mobility while avoiding capital-heavy hardware. Its operator partners offer enterprise go-to-market, founder coaching, and Silicon Valley recruiting, and it co-founded an effort to move talent into climate. It is headquartered in San Francisco with an SF climate hub.
Galvanize Climate Solutions
Galvanize Climate Solutions is a multi-strategy climate investment firm spanning venture, growth, public equities, real estate, and private credit, more a global asset manager than a dedicated seed fund. Its venture strategy takes equity in early and growth-stage climate companies, and its differentiated offering is an in-house team of science, policy, and technology experts adding technical diligence and scaling support. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
Powerhouse Ventures
Powerhouse Ventures is the seed-stage fund of the Oakland-based Powerhouse organization, backing founders building software to decarbonize energy, mobility, and industry. It writes early checks and draws proprietary deal flow and corporate customer access from its sister innovation firm, with strategic partners among large energy and technology companies. It is headquartered in Oakland.
At One Ventures
At One Ventures is an early-stage nature-positive deep-tech climate VC leading most of its first checks at seed and Series A, with a thesis requiring disruptive deep tech, upended unit economics, and net-positive outcomes for nature beyond carbon. It backs teams with in-house platform support for talent, manufacturing, marketing, IP, and fundraising, and a rapid-prototyping ethos. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
Emerson Collective
Emerson Collective is not a dedicated early-stage climate fund but a multi-purpose organization spanning venture, philanthropy, advocacy, and media, where climate is one of several focus areas. It invests across stages with large, variable checks and offers policy and advocacy muscle, media reach, and operational support, with much dedicated climate money held in a separate spend-down foundation. It is headquartered in Palo Alto.
Valo Ventures
Valo Ventures is a thesis-driven VC investing at venture and growth stage, primarily seed and Series A, across North America and Europe around digitization, decarbonization, and adaptation, recently framed as physical AI, energy, and materials. Beyond capital it offers alignment to long-run megatrend theses and a supportive partner group. It is headquartered in Palo Alto.
Powerhouse
Powerhouse is the innovation and community arm of the Oakland-based Powerhouse organization, distinct from its fund, helping large corporates, utilities, and investors find, partner with, pilot, invest in, and acquire climate and energy startups. For founders it offers corporate-partnership and customer-access pathways rather than capital, while feeding proprietary deal flow to the fund. It is headquartered in Oakland.
Salesforce Ventures: Impact Fund
The Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund backs enterprise-software startups with measurable impact, including a climate vertical spanning clean-energy access, resource efficiency, and supply-chain performance. Beyond capital it offers go-to-market help, Salesforce partnership and marketplace distribution, and platform and community access, investing at any stage through an evergreen model. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
Shell Ventures
Shell Ventures is Shell's corporate VC, making minority investments from seed to Series C in renewable energy, mobility, climate tech, and digital, with a dedicated deployment team offering founders pilots and field trials, a path to becoming a Shell customer, R&D facilities, and multinational scaling. It has a strong San Francisco Bay Area presence alongside other US hubs.
Prelude Ventures
Prelude Ventures is a climate-dedicated VC investing since the late 2000s with a single-family capital base that enables patient, climate-first, no-fossil-fuels investing from early stage through growth, across the built environment, carbon management, compute, food and agriculture, energy, industrials, and mobility. Its technical managing directors act as thesis-driven partners. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
Schneider Electric
SE Ventures is Schneider Electric's corporate venture arm, headquartered in the Bay Area, investing across stages in climate and industrial tech from energy management and automation to sustainability and electric mobility. Its differentiator is privileged access to Schneider's global customers, R&D labs, and embedded operating partners for pilots and commercialization. It is a strategic rather than a local investor.
Ecosystem Integrity Fund
Ecosystem Integrity Fund is a sustainability and climate VC headquartered in San Francisco, investing at early-growth stage and typically leading Series A and B in capital-efficient, near-commercial technology. Focus spans renewable energy, grid management, efficiency, transportation, green chemistry, waste, and sustainable food. Beyond capital it offers growth support and industrial and utility relationships for exits.
Toyota Ventures: Climate Fund
The Toyota Ventures Climate Fund is the climate arm of Toyota's early-stage corporate VC, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, targeting seed-stage startups with scalable solutions for carbon neutrality across renewable energy, storage and batteries, carbon capture and utilization, and hydrogen. Beyond capital it offers Toyota's global network, technical expertise, strategic partnerships, a dedicated portfolio-support team, and potential to become an early customer.
