What It Takes to Build Climate Solutions Today
In the race to decarbonize the planet, bold ideas aren’t enough. Today’s climate-solution founders must do more than invent — they must convince, navigate, and persevere through some of the most complex innovation landscapes in the world. From financing and policy risk to strategy, talent, and timing, the path from lab to market is filled with contradictions.
During the latest Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) Paris Climate Stream session, the HEC Paris Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute team sat down with a number of these founders to better understand the real barriers they face.
Their insights reveal a powerful truth: building a climate startup isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s a test of storytelling, timing, and resilience.
From Breakthrough to Business: The Climate Valley of Death
At CDL, founders are often deeply technical — scientists, engineers, domain experts. But bringing a climate solution to market requires more than a solid prototype.
"There’s a challenge to shift mindset — to complement that technical focus with the commercial focus, and really build the strategy for how to commercialize the technologies."
— Lisa Aberg, CDL-Paris Climate Mentor
"It’s not a small investment. It’s enormously capex-intensive. We need to attract both clients and investors who are ready to fund the scale-up of technologies that are still risky."
— Aurélie Gonzales, Venture Founder
One theme echoed across the board: the infamous “valley of death” — that precarious stage between developing a viable solution and securing enough traction to commercialize it.
Founders spoke of the difficulty accessing pilot programs, navigating fragmented procurement processes, and the need for long-term validation when short-term results are demanded.
"Our biggest obstacle wasn’t proving that our technology worked. It was proving that it could work in someone else’s system."
The Climate Capital Paradox
While climate investment has surged globally, early-stage founders still face friction when raising funds.
The paradox? There’s more capital than ever, but it often comes with expectations misaligned with the climate innovation timeline. Deep-tech, infrastructure-heavy models, and long regulatory paths make many investors hesitate.
Risk, Capital, and the Financial Gap. Climate solutions are often long-term and systemic. That makes them tough fits for traditional VC expectations.
"One of the main barriers is getting the economic incentives of the decision makers aligned with the need to produce clean tech."
— Alden Christianson, Venture Founder
Even when capital exists, it may not align with the maturity, risk profile, or long timelines of a climate solution. That’s where mentorship and trust-based ecosystems like CDL can act as a bridge. Livia Kalossaka, CDL-Paris Climate Lead, highlights "We need to be more prone to taking risks — especially on the financial side."
Policy, Regulation, and the Global Puzzle
Many founders cited regulatory uncertainty as both a blocker and an opportunity. From permitting delays to inconsistent climate incentives across markets, the policy landscape remains difficult to navigate — especially for early-stage teams without legal resources. As climate policies tighten globally, some doors are opening and others are slamming shut.
"There’s a huge opportunity, but also big risk factors. Transitions like decarbonization take an economic cost. Regulators are pushing it, carbon taxes are forcing it, and customers and staff are demanding it — but regulatory change puts pressure on corporations that they don’t really want."
— David Rowan, CDL-Paris Climate Mentor
Startups are often caught in the crosswinds of policy uncertainty, incentive shifts, and sector-level resistance to structural change.
The Weight of Communication
When science meets the market, complexity becomes a liability. Several founders shared their struggle to pitch with clarity without compromising accuracy. Explaining climate innovation — whether it's carbon capture, ocean alkalinity, or thermal storage — demands storytelling as sharp as the science itself. You have 90 seconds to explain a solution that took 9 years to develop. That’s the challenge.
Strategy, storytelling, and the talent crunch. Founders often start with small teams and immense pressure to wear all hats — from tech to business development to narrative building.
According to Livia Kalossaka, "the main challenges are always the funding, but also the team skills. When you're young, you only have two or three people. Having the right team from the start, with complementary skill sets, makes a huge difference."
This is a point also highlighted by Hélène Musikas, HEC Paris Professor. As the CDL-Paris Climate Stream Moderator since the program’s inception, she has witnessed firsthand the intense evolution ventures experience over the course of the eight-month journey.
"The process is very detailed and very powerful — but also a little bit stressful, because we’re going into something very dense and deep in a very short time."
— Hélène Musikas, HEC Paris Professor & CDL-Paris Climate Stream Moderator
From Isolation to Ecosystem
Many founders spoke about the mental and strategic load of trying to innovate amid uncertainty — not just technological or financial, but climatic and systemic.
"We need to be more insightful in understanding how climate change will impact business models. We still have trouble understanding how events will unfold and what the real impacts inside business will be."
— Priscille Beguin, Venture Founder
Forecasting the unpredictable. Above all, what these founders need is not just funding or visibility — it’s connection. Creative Destruction Lab’s unique model brings them into direct contact with mentors, investors, and scientists who not only understand the science, but also the stakes.
Programs like the CDL-Paris Climate Stream give founders the space to test their assumptions, challenge their thinking, and scale their vision without diluting their mission.
Ready to Build Something Massive?
Applications are now open for the next CDL-Paris cohorts, featuring specialized streams in AI, Climate, Space, Next Generation Computing, and Carbon Removal.
Climate founders aren’t just building technologies — they’re building new models for growth, regulation, financing, and impact. And they’re doing it under pressure, with urgency, and often against the grain.
If you're building a science- or technology-driven startup with bold ambitions, this is your opportunity.
CDL connects founders with world-class mentors, scientists, and investors to refine your strategy and accelerate your growth.