Climate tech funding rose 210% in the first half of 2021

Since 2013 through the first half of 2021, over $222 billion has been invested in climate tech worldwide, per a new PwC report, as companies try to create tech that helps keep the planet below the 1.5 degrees Celsius recommended by the Paris Climate Agreement.

• Over $87.5 billion—or 39%—of that was invested between H2 2020 and H1 2021.
• That’s a 210% jump in funding from the prior 12-month period.

Climate-tech startups have proliferated in this eight-year window, with over 3,000 climate-tech startups in a variety of fields, like renewable energy or sustainable food.

PwC’s report identified over 6,000 unique investors since 2013. Most of the funding came from US investors, which dished out $56.6 billion between H2 2020 and H1 2021—nearly 65% of all climate tech funding for that period.

• European investors landed the no. 2 spot by spending $18.3 billion, while China came in third raising $9 billion.

Unicorn check: The number of climate-tech unicorns grew to 78 in 2021, up from 43 last year. This year, mobility and transport unicorns totaled 43, while food agriculture and land-use startups numbered 13, industry, manufacturing and resource-use startups had 10 unicorns, and energy startups numbered nine.

To be fair…Venture funding has significantly broken records in basically every category all year, and there has been a proliferation of unicorn companies since the start of the year. But climate tech is capturing a significant share of that money: It accounted for 14 cents of every venture-capital dollar spent between H1 2020 and H1 2021.