Climate investing changed

For a decade, "climate-first" was the pitch. Lead with the mission, signal your values, paint everything green and growing. That framing built a category but also flattened it. The climate-tech landscape today is where brands blur together: the same natural palette, the same earnest tone, the same promise to save the planet. When everyone looks like a cause, no one looks like a company worth investing in.

We formed this view by building brands in this space. We repositioned Greenlyte from a climate-tech company into an energy company, helping them give the category a name in Liquid Solar. When G2VP came back to us, it wasn't for a refresh. The climate-first identity that once defined the firm had started working against it, scaring off founders who didn't self-identify as climate companies. We rebuilt their presence around what they'd always been: a growth-stage investor backing hard industrial technology at commercial scale.

The pattern repeats where capital is harder to raise and slower to close. Investors and customers reward clarity over conviction. The companies that break through keep their sustainability mandate but stop leading with it.

In our view, a climate company's brand should sell the technology and the opportunity first, and let the impact follow as evidence. Make the invisible tangible enough that a non-technical investor gets it in seconds.