List of Clean Tech Startups Reveals High Number of Funded Women-led Startups
With the chorus of concerned voices growing over climate change, SOSV, a global venture capital firm and accelerator, conducted a review its 1000+ portfolio companies, assessing their efforts to address this global challenge. Of their 140 funded clean tech startups, the firm identified those having the greatest potential to counter climate change and then published their inaugural SOSV Climate Tech 100.
“From my vantage point at SOSV, I am convinced that we are witnessing a remarkable coming together of the advances in technology, the societal commitment, and the financial wherewithal that we need to solve the greatest threat facing humanity,” stated Sean O’Sullivan, SOSV Managing Partner.
SOSV tiered the list, categorizing 71 of the 100 startups as directly aiming to disrupt incumbent, carbon-intensive technologies, 25 as having an indirect impact on climate change and four providing marketplaces for consumers with more cost and carbon efficient solutions.
Their review also revealed that the average age of the 100 companies is just four years, making the $1.85 billion in total funding raised, as of April 2021, even more impressive. The $89 million SOSV invested in the startups achieved an approximate 20x external leverage. They attributed this in large part to their life sciences accelerator IndieBio that they launched seven years ago—which is the largest contributor to the 100. SOSV helped the startups build highly skilled teams and draw in top scientist entrepreneurs who account for 40% of their startups with at least one PhD co-founder.
Through IndieBio and their hardware accelerator HAX, scientists were offered pre-seed funding to pursue breakthrough research that could lead to commercial applications. This opportunity gave scientists an appealing alternative to the intensively competitive tenure tracking at universities. Top scientific talent combined with staffing and equipped lab environments created a mix that attracted funding from nearly 700 investors for the SOSV portfolio companies. SOSV recently recognized some of their funding champions that includes names such as ADM Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Bill Gates, Braemar Energy Ventures, DBL Partners, DCVC, Draper Associates and others.
Most notable about the 100 is the approximate 40% being led by at least one female founder. This is in comparison to the 12% of overall tech startups in 2019 having at least one female founder, according to “Female Founder Report 2020’ published by Crunchbase.
SOSV partner Ben Joffe attributes this to a number of factors. One is women are now outnumbering men among life science graduates—from which SOSV draws upon for their ventures and teams. Women entrepreneurs are also receiving greater support from universities and there is more funding for women entrepreneurs when they move on from the accelerators.
While the 100 list reveals very significant progress of women in STEM and women-led and funded startups, Judith Sheft, Executive Director of the NJ Commission on Science and Technology, believes more work needs to be done.
“There is still an imbalance in the number of female entrepreneurs—but the good news is that the problem is getting attention and, in particular, there is greater focus on underrepresented minorities in academic entrepreneurship. The challenge is not to “fix” women to enable them to thrive in the existing systems but to address underlying systemic problems,” says Sheft. She notes that the federal agencies that decide the SBIR/STTR awards are trying to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities.
When viewing the 100 in terms of global and national geography. The U.S. dominates the list with 65 companies, followed by Canada with 9, Singapore with 6, and the UK with 6 as well. Of the 65 U.S. based companies, 36 are in California and the remaining 29 are scattered across the country, with New York at 5, Boston/MA at 4, Houston/TX at 2 and Philadelphia/PA at 2.
While California hosts a substantial portion of SOSV’s clean tech startups, Joffe feels this may in part reflect a bias on the part of startups who seek to establish themselves in a place having a rich innovation history. California’s high number includes innovations that originated in other ecosystems around the U.S.
Upon completion and then publication of the inaugural SOSV Climate Tech 100 list, O’Sullivan began to feel a bit more optimistic about the future. Their efforts to bring climate change to the forefront were validated by the extensive funding their clean tech startups received from the top venture capital firms in the U.S.
“The achievements of science in the past 20 years have given mankind the unprecedented ability to re-engineer the material world. As a result, we have the nearly miraculous ability to turn the tide on climate change.”
Read about the Top Startup Accelerators in the U.S.
