Climate Tech Commercialization Forum

At #VERGE24, leaders in climate tech commercialization gathered for the invitation-only Climate Tech Commercialization Forum, hosted by Trellis in partnership with Activate. This half-day event brought together 60 hand-selected participants—corporate representatives from hard-to-abate industries, startup founders, accelerators, and innovation experts—to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in climate tech: scaling breakthrough innovations.

Held on October 29 at the VERGE 24 Conference, the forum addressed the friction that often arises when early-stage startups need a variety of factors to align to ensure growth will be established for their technologies, especially as they approach corporations. Issues such as misaligned cultures, communication gaps, financing gaps and differing timelines can slow adoption and hinder the positive climate impact of these innovations. Through moderated discussions and focused ideation, the forum aimed to identify actionable solutions to accelerate commercialization and scale.

"Scaling climate tech isn’t just about the technology. It’s about navigating the complex interplay between startups and corporates to ensure promising innovations succeed," explained Joel Makower, moderator and founder of Trellis Group.

Hard-to-Abate Sectors: A Focal Point for Impact

The forum zeroed in on hard-to-abate sectors—industries like manufacturing, logistics, aviation, concrete, steel, and chemicals. These sectors are pivotal in achieving climate goals, as they tend to be the ones drawing atoms out of the atmosphere, yet their unique challenges make collaboration between startups and corporates particularly fraught.

The insights and strategies discussed during the forum apply broadly but are especially crucial for these sectors, where scaling innovations requires cross-sector collaboration, sustained financial commitment, and aligned incentives.

"This forum was an opportunity to bridge the gap between innovators and industry, unlocking pathways for technologies to make measurable climate impacts," said Cyrus Wadia from Activate.

‍

Key Takeaways from the Forum

1️⃣ Commercialization Starts on Day One

The commercialization journey begins well before a pilot or first-of-a-kind (FOAK) deployment. Startups must align their goals with corporate partners from the outset, ensuring clear incentives and trust are built early. This proactive approach prevents breakdowns during the critical handoff stages. Startups that have reached FOAK and growth stages have noted the establishment of relationships and the time taken to sign an offtake agreement of about 2 years.

"Think of commercialization as building a bridge—if you wait until the river is at your feet, you’re already too late," noted Jake Mitchell from Trellis Group.

‍

2️⃣ Corporate Champions Are Game-Changers

Corporate champions play a critical role in shepherding innovations through the internal hurdles of large organizations. However, reliance on a single champion can backfire if they leave or shift focus. Startups and corporates alike benefit from cultivating redundant relationships to ensure continuity. This of it as a three legged stool, focus on the engineering champion or end user, focus on the innovation team and finally on the decision makers, also gather more than one champion for each.

"Corporate champions are essential—but they can’t be the only point of contact. Broader relationships safeguard progress," emphasized Cyrus Wadia.

‍

3️⃣ Stages of Corporate Partnerships

Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) partnerships are rarely linear. Instead, they progress through three distinct stages:

• Interest: Initial enthusiasm and alignment on strategic goals.
• Due Diligence: Rigorous evaluation of technical, financial, and market fit.
• Relationship Building: Post investment, long-term collaboration leading to scaled deployments. This last step is where the relationship will be truly developed. 

Clear communication at each stage ensures these partnerships move from intent to impact.

"Successful partnerships don’t end at due diligence—they begin there," said Joel Makower.

‍

4️⃣ Aligning Incentives: A Two-Way Street

Misaligned incentives are one of the most common barriers to commercialization. Startups must take the time to understand corporate drivers and reward structures while corporates must adjust traditional power dynamics to better support innovative solutions. 

Corporate huddle rates (i.e. MPV and IRR) are being compared versus established projects with shorter than expected timelines and returns. This aspect should be critically evaluated to add other factors like regulatory pressures and ability to increase future viability.

‍

5️⃣ Beyond TRLs: Adoption Readiness Levels (ARLs)

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) assess technical feasibility, but they miss critical factors like unit economics and market demand. Adoption Readiness Levels (ARLs), introduced by Dr. Vanessa Z Chan, provide a complementary framework, focusing on the real-world scalability of technologies. This framework evaluates 17 angles of commercialization. My point of view is that simplifications in the due diligence process could be seen if both investors and founders used a common structure for evaluating risk through these dimensions. This would reduce time wasted by founders communicating and restructuring their messaging on each of the 17 factors alone. For more on ARL check out my previous blog here: https://www.adripenu.com/post/understanding-the-adoption-readiness-levels-arl-framework-a-game-changer-for-commercializing-innovations

"ARLs aren’t just a metric—they’re a mindset for scaling," Dr. Vanessa Z Chan explained.

‍

6️⃣ Trust & Transparency: The Currency of Collaboration

Building trust and maintaining transparency between startups and corporates are fundamental to successful partnerships. Open communication about risks, expectations, and market realities fosters alignment and accelerates commercialization. As it was explained by one of the corporate speakers, it is critical to create trust in the champions that have been developed. These champions are putting their corporate reputation in the line for a new technology with enormous risk. Creating confidence in these champions to drive your message internally with critical trust and transparency will drive faster open channels of communication and potential offtake agreements.

"Trust isn’t optional—it’s the foundation of every successful partnership," said Jake Mitchell.

‍

7️⃣ Leveraging Government & Philanthropy Support

Programs like the DOE’s EPIC Voucher and initiatives like Frontier’s advance market commitments provide non-dilutive funding that bridges critical gaps. These resources enable startups to de-risk their technologies and attract private capital, particularly during the early stages of commercialization. I wrote about a very interesting case study of Twelve on how they have been able to use Buyers Allainces like SABA to develop their Sustainable Aviation Fuel with an economic pull. Read more here: https://www.adripenu.com/post/advancing-market-commitments-for-sustainable-aviation-fuel-saf-a-real-life-case-study-from-twelve

"Non-dilutive funding is the keystone of scaling climate tech in hard-to-abate industries," emphasized Joel Makower.

‍

8️⃣ Financial Innovation: Tackling Hurdle Rates

Moving from FOAK to Second-of-a-Kind (TOAK) to Nth-of-a-Kind deployments requires innovative financial structures. Grants, equity, debt, equipment financing, insurance, and government guarantees (among others) can reduce risks and make corporate hurdle rates more achievable for startups. My point of view is that the blended capital should be simplified to reach viability by more companies capable of truly reducing GHG in the atmosphere, understanding this space and havobg someone in a startup’s ranks, very early on diving into the differentiated avenues to access capital is a critical factor for success. Risk needs to be communicated, presented and well understood between the different stakeholders and having a training ground, a place to share notes and be trained on transformation is critical for heavy industry growth.

"To scale transformative technologies, we need to rethink risk-sharing models," said Dr. Vanessa Z Chan.

‍

9️⃣ Long-Term Relationships Drive Long-Term Impact

The commercialization of climate tech isn’t a short-term endeavor. Startups and corporations must commit to sustained collaboration, often over years, to achieve scalable, impactful solutions. Would a 30 question to fall in love between corporates and startups allow to expand the relationship building between startups and corporates? Which questions truly make a difference in this relationship.

‍

The Path Forward

The Climate Tech Commercialization Forum at #VERGE24 underscored the importance of collaboration, alignment, and innovation taking the discussion from the initial gap of funding to the clarity of value proposition by deep tech startups in a sector where commodity prices in a pot market make it harder to transform but has a critical need for planetary survival. By bridging gaps between startups and corporates, leveraging non-dilutive funding, and fostering trust, the climate tech ecosystem can accelerate the adoption of transformative solutions.

Scaling climate tech isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s an ecosystem challenge. By applying the insights from this forum, we can turn promising innovations into impactful, scalable solutions.