Green Unicorns - climate tech companies worth one billion dollars

HolonIQ has published a list of Climate Tech Unicorns, which are private companies valued at over $1 billion USD. We're nicknaming them Green Unicorns - you know, because they are unicorns and they are helping to save the planet.

Check out the full list here.

The Numbers

21 climate tech unicorns

$7b investment

$49B valuation

5 Europe, 3 Asia, 7 North America

10 Agriculture, 7 Energy, 2 Transport, 1 Environment, 1 Resources

Some Thoughts

Geography

Europe has been ahead in climate action so it might be expected to be bigger than North America. Possibly the innovation and investment scale and ecosystem in the US may have balanced this out. Asia may also be under represented here based on state owned enterprises in China and other countries not on the list.

Sectors

10 agriculture unicorns is bigger than expected. It's a huge industry, but energy has been the focus of cleantech 1.0 so I would have expected that to be the biggest sector. Transport is a huge area, and public companies like Tesla would have swayed this.

Investment and Value

There is a 7x ratio of investment to valuation across the unicorns which is excellent leverage. Climate tech is often associated with very large capital investments.

From HolonIQ

• A unicorn startup or unicorn company is a private company with a valuation over $1 billion USD.
• Unicorns are ‘startups’, i.e they do not include post-exit, acquired or listed companies, nor do they include ‘mature’ incumbents.
• As of 12 July 2021, there are now 21 Climate Tech Unicorns around the world who have collectively raised over $7B+ of total funding in the last decade and are now collectively valued at $49B+.

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Questions To Ask

1. What sectors do we need more investment in? 
2. What regions do we expect the most growth