Investors, founders, and ecosystem leaders from across Canada gathered in Vancouver this week for the inaugural Canadian Climate Capital Summit, an event organizers described as the largest gathering of Canada’s climate and hard tech capital allocators.
Hosted jointly by Renewal Funds, Pangaea Ventures, Evok Innovations, Active Impact Investments, and NorthX Climate Tech, the summit brought together five of the country’s leading climate and hard tech funds alongside ecosystem partners including Fort Capital, TELUS, MNP, Osler, McCarthy Tétrault, Carta, RBCx, and InBC.
The event arrived at a time when parts of the public conversation around climate tech have become more cautious. But inside the room, organizers said the mood told a different story: investors actively deploying capital, founders scaling globally relevant companies, and technologies gaining commercial traction across some of the world’s most important industrial sectors.
The program featured keynote remarks from futurist and COP28 keynote speaker Matthew Griffin, a discussion on the state of climate venture capital in Canada, founder presentations from ten scaling companies, and a closing conversation on major exits in climate innovation featuring two of Canada’s largest climate success stories: Carbon Engineering and Ecobee.
In his keynote, Griffin underscored a central theme that carried through the day: low-cost energy remains essential to prosperity, countries around the world are racing to secure supply, and recent advances in hard tech — including photovoltaics, batteries, and nuclear — mean the biggest constraint is increasingly project delivery rather than technology itself.
Founders from across the host portfolios shared updates from their respective journeys, including Amanda Hall of Summit Nanotech, Jonathan Rhone of CO280, Stephen Lake of Jetson, Gavin Schneider of Maia Farms, Edward Chiang of Moment Energy, Mohammad Doostmohammadi of pH7 Technologies, Curtis Cook of Rodatherm Energy, Mike Battistel of Cascadia Windows, and Craig Kasberg of Tidal Vision. Jeremy Moulson of NESI also presented.
Together, the company presentations offered proof points across critical minerals, carbon management, electrification, energy storage, food security, sustainable materials, industrial decarbonization, and circular systems.
For organizers, the summit’s broader message was that Canadian climate and hard tech companies are not just being built — they are scaling.
“If we can keep building on the collaboration and energy from today, Canada has a real opportunity to be a place where world-class climate and hard tech companies are started, scaled, and financed,” said Geordan Hankinson, Managing Partner at Renewal Funds.
Sarah Applebaum, Partner at Pangaea Ventures, said the founder presentations showed how quickly the market is maturing.
“Seeing so many hard tech founders on stage with real customers and accelerating traction was a reminder that the technologies we need are not hypothetical anymore, they are already scaling,” Applebaum said.
Marty Reed, Partner at Evok Innovations, pointed to rising demand for industrial inputs, energy, minerals, and materials as a key driver of the sector’s momentum.
“Demand for the inputs that power our world, from industrial energy and AI to the minerals and materials to build critical infrastructure, is surging,” Reed said. “Fortunately, innovation is keeping pace; we see stronger founders, superior technology, and investors who are leaning in rather than pulling back.”
Mike Winterfield, Managing Partner at Active Impact Investments, said the event reflected a shift in how investors are thinking about climate opportunity.
“The energy in the room was incredible,” Winterfield said. “It’s hard for most investors to back a moral imperative but they’re excited by the inevitability of progress in every industry — the future of production and consumption delivers big wins for our climate.”
Ka-Hay Law, Chief Investment Officer at NorthX Climate Tech, said the summit signalled a new level of coordination among Canada’s climate capital ecosystem.
“This week’s event demonstrated the power of bringing Canada’s leading capital allocators together around a shared ambition: scaling the climate hard tech solutions that will define our economic and industrial future,” Law said. “The strength of collaboration and backing in the room signals a new level of momentum and commitment behind climate capital in Canada.”