The year 2021 set a new record for investments in Israeli climate technology startups with $2.2 billion, a whopping 57% higher than the 2020 record.
The four highest funding rounds were observed in startups from different fields.
Future Meat raised $347 million for the development of sustainable cultivated meat technology.
Wiliot raised $200 million to improve supply chains via battery-free sensors.
UBQ Materials raised $170 million to convert home waste into climate-positive thermoplastics.
VIA raised $130 million to promote an advanced digital platform for shared transportation.
In the past year, climate tech has become the fastest growing and most promising field in the high-tech industry internationally, and it is now clear that Israel is joining the global trend.
About two months ago, the first report of its kind was published by PLANETech and the Israel Innovation Authority, which mapped 1,200 climate companies, 637 of them startups that are developing climate technologies.
Capital raising for global climate tech companies has reached a peak of $87.5 billion over 12 months, an increase of 210% from the previous year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Following the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November, at which Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declared that Israel would become the climate innovation nation, Israel has experienced an exceptional month for its climate tech scene.
“In addition to the two investments in Future Meat and UBQ Materials last month, SolarEdge has become the first Israeli company to enter the S&P 500 index and Tomorrow.io is going public on Nasdaq with $1.2B valuations,” said Uriel Klar, Director of PLANETech.
The climate-tech field is receiving worldwide attention from senior figures in the tech and investment worlds. Bill Gates recently shared that he estimates climate-tech will build about 10 giant companies the size of Google and Amazon, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicted that the next 1,000 unicorns would come from the climate-tech field.