A lot has happened in Europe’s climate tech scene in 2024, with the sector bringing in €16bn in equity and debt financing.
But despite the steady flow of capital into the ecosystem, some companies haven’t secured the funding needed to reach profitability. Swedish battery maker Northvolt, electric flying taxi company Lilium and UK mobility startup Arrival all went bust this year, despite having raised huge sums from big name investors.
So, as we come to close out a turbulent year, here are nine people who’ve helped shape climate tech in 2024.
The money masters
Nadia Calviño, president of the EIB
Calviño leads the European Investment Bank (EIB), Europe’s largest lender to startups in 2024. Debt financing has become a cornerstone for scaling climate tech startups and building infrastructure across the continent. Under her leadership, the EIB has pledged to support the EU’s Net Zero Industry Act — a regulatory framework designed to enhance Europe’s decarbonisation efforts — by increasing clean investment support to €45bn by 2027, a 50% boost from prior commitments.
Katherine Morgan, head of high growth and entrepreneurs at Barclays Bank
As debt funding fuels infrastructure projects and first-of-a-kind factories, private banks like Barclays play a vital role. Barclays is Europe’s third-largest lender to startups in 2024, following French state-owned BNP Paribas. Morgan heads the UK’s bank’s division for overseeing loans to emerging businesses across the continent.
Niklas Adalberth, founder of Norrsken Foundation and Norrsken VC
Klarna cofounder Adalberth is known for shying away from media attention, but he’s had a big impact on climate tech. Since stepping away from the fintech giant in 2015, he’s launched three co-working hubs for impact startups in Stockholm, Kigali, and Barcelona, as well as funding vehicles like Norrsken VC, Norrsken Launcher, and Norrsken Accelerator. Adalberth gains a spot on the list because Norrsken wrote the most cheques to climate tech companies this year out of any European VC. In May, the firm closed a €320m second fund to back more early-stage startups driving meaningful change.
The disruptors
Benoit Lemaignan, cofounder of Verkor
French battery startup Verkor has emerged as the leading large-scale battery project in Europe following Northvolt’s bankruptcy. In May, the company secured €1.3bn in loans to fund its gigafactory in northern France, bringing its total financing to over €3bn.
Lemaignan, along with his four co-founders, has also secured a strategic partnership with Renault, producing EV batteries for the automaker at its Dunkirk factory. Can Verkor succeed where Northvolt faltered? Only time will tell.
Katja Grothe-Eberhardt, Mads Emil Dalsgaard and Simon Bager, cofounders of Klimate
Danish startup Klimate topped the climate techs in this year’s Sifted 250 — a ranking of Europe’s 250 fastest-growing tech companies by revenue — with an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 645% over the past two years.
Founded in 2020, Klimate provides companies with carbon removal credits, equivalent to emissions removed from the atmosphere. The company has so far raised €5m from investors, including Antler and Rockstart. Dalsgaard, Grothe-Eberhardt and Bager have shown it’s possible to scale a startup with limited resources and, as Europe’s fastest-growing climate tech company, they’re clearly doing something right.
Harald Mix, cofounder of Vargas, H2 Green Steel, Northvolt and more
Some may count Mix as overrated following the bankruptcy of Northvolt, which he was instrumental in founding through his investment vehicle Vargas. But the Swedish company builder also has green steel scaleup Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel), which raised the largest equity and debt round of €4.5bn in January of this year (similar to Northvolt’s $5bn debt round).
He is also behind heat pump startup Aira and textile recycling startup Syre. Rumours say that Mix has an excel sheet dotted with ideas on how to make the world more climate-friendly. One thing on that spreadsheet may have been low-carbon aluminium production, a project that Vargas together with Mitsubishi, Rio Tinto and Tesi launched in Finland last week by the name Arctial.
The departing voice
Peter Carlsson, former CEO of Northvolt
Carlsson, the founding CEO of Northvolt, stepped down last month after the battery company filed for bankruptcy in the US. Having led the company since 2015, Carlsson was instrumental in raising over $13bn in capital and laying plans for six factories.
While Northvolt ultimately failed to achieve its vision of making Europe self-sufficient in EV battery production, it has inspired countless startups to dream big and push for transformative change in the sector.
The outsiders
Robin Zeng, founder and CEO of CATL
Zeng might not be a household name in Europe, but the Chinese billionaire is the founder and CEO of CATL, the world’s largest producer of EV batteries. Facing increasing competition in its home market, CATL has ramped up its international presence with new projects in Europe.
The company has already established plants in Germany and Hungary, and earlier this week, it announced a joint venture with Stellantis to build a factory in Spain. Zeng’s global ambitions and European focus will definitely be something for European projects to look out for.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Whether Musk’s impact on climate tech is positive or negative this year is a little hard to assess. First, he played a role in Donald Trump securing a second term as president, which many climate tech founders believe will hurt the sector. But, Tesla has also been a major beneficiary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides subsidies to green companies. Musk’s close ties to the incoming administration could ensure the bill remains intact under the new administration.
These dynamics will continue to influence European climate tech, as many of the continent’s startups expand to the US to scale their operations and Musk ends the year a more significant figure than ever.
