Climate tech was 12.4% of Australian startup deals in 2024, its highest share in ten years, and 8.1% in 2025. The median climate round is still about A$10 million, nearly four times the A$2.75 million median from 2016 to 2020.
Climate peaked in 2024, then fell by a third
Climate tech had a long run up. It was under 6% of Australian startup deals every year from 2016 to 2019, then climbed most years to a peak of 12.4% in 2024. In 2025 it fell to 8.1%, and this year it is 8.5%, according to our data. That is roughly where it was in 2022.
New climate companies took the biggest hit. Climate seed rounds fell 69% from 2024 to 2025, according to our data. Far fewer founders got their first cheque.
The climate rounds that happen are still big
Fewer climate companies are raising, but each round is as big as it was at the peak. The median climate round was A$2.75 million from 2016 to 2020. Since 2021 it has been about A$10 million, and it stayed there through the drop, according to our data.
Hysata, the Wollongong green hydrogen company, is the clearest example. It raised a A$42.5M Series A in 2022, then a record A$172M Series B in May 2024 led by bp Ventures and Templewater. Both rounds are in the database. A month later Samsara Eco, the Canberra plastic recycling company, raised a A$98.8M Series A led by Temasek and Main Sequence. In April 2025 RayGen, the Melbourne solar and storage company, raised A$127M, with ARENA in the round.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseHysata's funding rounds, oldest first
3 deals, oldest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hysata | Series A | Deep tech | A$43M | businessnewsaustralia.com | |
| Hysata | Series B | Deep tech | A$100M | news.bloomberglaw.com | |
| Hysata | Series B | Deep tech | A$172M | startupdaily.net |
Hysata raised A$42.5M in 2022 and A$172M in May 2024.
I saw the same thing across the whole market in the first quarter of 2026. As I wrote on LinkedIn in May, “The largest rounds went to space and defence, hardware and robotics, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, life sciences and climate and energy.”
Government climate money is quieter than you might think
You might expect the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the federal government’s green bank, to be in more startup rounds now. It is in fewer. The CEFC was in 3 to 5 startup deals a year from 2020 to 2023, then 1 in 2024, 3 in 2025 and none this year. Its most recent was A$35M for Plico, a household solar and battery company, in December 2025.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseAustralian startup deals with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, 2016 to 2026
| Year | Deals |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 1 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2018 | 0 |
| 2019 | 0 |
| 2020 | 5 |
| 2021 | 3 |
| 2022 | 4 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2024 | 1 |
| 2025 | 3 |
| 2026 (YTD) | 0 |
5 of 26 deals, newest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plico | Stage not stated | Fintech | A$35M | minister.dcceew.gov.au | |
| Xefco | Stage not stated | Deep tech | A$3.7M | cefc.com.au | |
| SwarmFarm Robotics | Series B | Deep tech | A$30M | cdandco.com.au | |
| Renewable Metals | Seed | Deep tech | A$8.1M | renewable-metals.com | |
| Renewable Metals | Seed | Deep tech | A$8.0M | businessnewsaustralia.com |
The CEFC was in 3 to 5 startup deals a year from 2020 to 2023, and 4 in total since.
Climate rounds as a whole tell the same story. From 2016 to 2020, 25% of climate rounds had a government-backed fund in them. From 2024 to 2026 it was 11%, according to our data.
Meanwhile the government’s biggest new fund is looking elsewhere. The National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) has been in 25 Australian startup deals since 2024, and none was a climate company. Its money went to space, quantum, health, chips and defence.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseStartup deals with the National Reconstruction Fund, 2024 to 2026, largest first
5 of 25 deals, largest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synchron | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$305M | innovationaus.com | |
| Gilmour Space Technologies | Series D+ | Deep tech | A$217M | overnightsuccess.vc | |
| Harrison.ai | Series C | Tech | A$174M | harrison.ai | |
| Advanced Navigation | Series C | Deep tech | A$158M | linkedin.com | |
| Harrison.ai | Series C | Tech | A$112M | mobihealthnews.com |
The NRF's biggest startup deals since 2024 are in brain tech, space, health and navigation. None are climate.
Who the NRF backs and why: the NRF is Australia’s 4th most active startup investor.
Why are investors backing fewer climate companies?
Our data shows who raised and how much, not why. Here is our read, based on what people in the sector are saying.
Climate companies get stuck after the early rounds. Climate hardware needs big, patient money to go from pilot to plant. Capital Brief reported in July 2026 that Australian climate tech is stalling at Series B, with companies moving offshore, taking on debt or shutting down. Olympia Yarger, whose Canberra waste company Goterra went into liquidation this year, put it bluntly: “We imagine it, and we incubate it, but we cannot grow it and send it out into the world.” When seed investors see that wall ahead, fewer of them write the first cheque.
Investors everywhere are picking winners. Worldwide, climate tech funding rose 8% in 2025 while the number of deals fell 18%, according to Sightline Climate’s annual report. As Trellis summed it up, “investors are writing bigger checks to fewer companies.” Australia shows the same pattern: fewer deals, with the median round holding at A$10 million.
Some climate companies now pitch themselves as AI or infrastructure. This one is our guess. Neara, the Sydney company that models power networks, was called climate tech when it raised in 2024. Its 2026 round, led by TCV, was announced as a plan to solve the global infrastructure crisis with AI. Gridsight, which uses AI to run electricity networks, raised a A$7.5M Series A led by AirTree in 2025. In 2026 it raised a A$36M Series B led by Insight Partners.
Australian Startup Funding DatabaseGridsight's funding rounds, oldest first
2 deals, oldest first
| Date | Company | Round | Sector | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gridsight | Series A | Tech | A$7.5M | businessnewsaustralia.com | |
| Gridsight | Series B | Tech | A$36M | fundup.ai |
Gridsight went from a A$7.5M Series A in 2025 to a A$36M Series B in 2026.
Neara became a unicorn in the first quarter of 2026, alongside Gilmour Space and Advanced Navigation. “Not one of them is a SaaS business,” I wrote at the time. A few lines later I added: “The Canva and Airwallex era of Australian tech was built on software. The next one looks to be taking a different route.”
What to do if you are raising for a climate company
Raise for the long haul. With fewer climate rounds getting done, assume the next one will take longer than you plan. Raise enough to reach a milestone a later-stage investor can check, such as a working plant or a signed supply contract.
Talk to global investors early. The biggest climate rounds in our data were led by global and corporate investors: bp Ventures for Hysata, Temasek for Samsara Eco, EQT and then TCV for Neara. The CEFC’s Malcolm Thornton said in late 2025 that “there’s a real need for specialist risk capital to scale up these enterprises”. Start those conversations before you need the money.
Hire your finance lead before the big round. A climate company raising A$10 million is rarely simple. Grants come with milestones, offtake contracts come with delivery terms, and project lenders want regular reports. Across Australian startups, Series A is the usual point for a first finance hire and Series B for a first CFO. Climate companies often need one sooner.
Look for candidates from resources and energy. They are used to long, expensive projects and to reporting to lenders. Even when executive hiring slowed in 2025, I noted on LinkedIn that strong candidates were still in demand, “especially where sector resilience exists (resources & energy).” Expect to compete for them.
Raising a climate round? You'll need a finance lead to get you through it and keep the grant and lender reporting on track. We'll find you the best person.
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Not hiring yet? Browse the deals tagged climate, largest first, or see how deep tech overtook fintech.
Sources and notes
Data. All figures come from the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database: 2,548 announced Australian startup rounds from January 2016 to early October 2026. 2026 runs from January to early October, so “this year” means 2026 to date.
Climate tech in this article means any deal whose sub-sector mentions climate, clean, energy, renewable, carbon, hydrogen, battery or solar: 186 deals in all. The database’s climate filter is narrower. It matches only deals tagged exactly “climate” (74 deals), so its share and median figures differ from the ones here, and the climate shares in this article are not available as a database view. Climate shares by year are of all deals that year: 36 of 290 in 2024 (12.4%), 20 of 247 in 2025 (8.1%) and 16 of 188 in 2026 to date (8.5%). The pattern holds after collapsing duplicate reports of the same raise. Some companies still appear more than once in a year when their round was reported in different months (Amber Electric appears four times in 2025, RayGen twice), so yearly climate counts are deals reported, not companies.
Seed rounds. The 69% fall is our count of climate rows with a seed stage in deals.json: 13 in 2024 and 4 in 2025.
Medians are of climate deals with a disclosed amount: A$2.75M from 2016 to 2020 (40 deals), A$10.25M from 2021 to 2023 (66 deals) and A$10M from 2024 to 2026 (61 deals). Amounts in other currencies are converted to approximate Australian dollars. Hysata has three rows: the June 2023 row is coverage of Hysata appointing Morgan Stanley to run a raise, ahead of the Series B that closed in May 2024.
Government-backed means an investor named in the deal coverage is the National Reconstruction Fund, the CEFC, Breakthrough Victoria or ARENA. Shares are of climate deals with at least one named investor: 8 of 32 in 2016 to 2020 (25%), 6 of 55 in 2024 to 2026 (11%). Government money that flows through a private fund, such as the CEFC-backed Virescent Ventures, is not counted. CEFC deals by year cover all sectors, not only climate, and count rows naming “Clean Energy Finance”. The NRF figure is the 25 rows naming the National Reconstruction Fund from 2024 to early October 2026, covering 18 different companies once repeat reports of the same raise are merged; none has a climate sub-sector.
Coverage. The database holds about two thirds of announced deals: 247 in 2025, against 390 in Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures’ 2025 count. It leans towards rounds that got press coverage. Every year has fewer than 40 climate deals, so yearly shares show direction rather than precise rates. Dates come from announcement coverage, and in a spot check about 1 in 7 rows sat in a neighbouring year or month. Worldwide figures come from Sightline Climate via Trellis, not our database. The full method is in the explainer on how we built the database.
How to cite this: Source: Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database (2016 to 2026), storyrecruitment.com.au/insights/australian-startup-funding, CC BY 4.0.
Common questions
Is climate tech funding in Australia falling?
The number of deals is. Climate tech was 12.4% of Australian startup deals in 2024 and 8.1% in 2025, according to the Story Recruitment Australian Startup Funding Database. It is 8.5% this year. The size of a typical climate round has held up: it is still about A$10 million at the median.
How big is a typical Australian climate tech round?
About A$10 million at the median since 2021, nearly four times the A$2.75 million median from 2016 to 2020. Big recent examples are Hysata's A$172 million Series B in 2024, Samsara Eco's A$98.8 million Series A in 2024 and RayGen's A$127 million round in 2025.
Does the government invest in Australian climate startups?
Less than it used to. From 2016 to 2020, 25% of climate rounds had a government-backed fund in them. From 2024 to 2026 it was 11%. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation was in 3 to 5 startup deals a year from 2020 to 2023 and has been in 4 since. The National Reconstruction Fund has been in 25 startup deals since 2024, and none was a climate company.
When does a climate startup need a finance hire?
Usually earlier than a software startup of the same size. Across Australian startups, Series A is the most common point for a first finance hire and Series B for a first CFO. Climate companies often take on grants, supply contracts and loans well before then, and someone has to own the reporting on each.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.