State of Adaptech Investing H1 2026

Climate adaptation technology (adaptech) companies raised US$1.29bn in the first half of 2026, up 22% from the second half of last year and 84% from the same period a year earlier, even as the number of completed deals kept falling. Investors closed 80 primary funding rounds in the sector in H1 2026, down from 92 in H2 2025 and 99 in H1 2025.

The data, compiled by ClimateTech Navigator (CTN) for Climate Proof, covers primary capital raised by for-profit companies in the “Adaptation to Climate Impacts” category. There were 873 companies on CTN’s platform in this category as of the time of writing. “Primary capital” refers to equity, debt, grants, and blended finance raised by companies themselves — and excludes acquisitions, secondary offerings, and a handful of deals CTN judged were not genuine company-stage fundraising. All data reflects CTN’s platform as of August 17.

Perspectives on what characterizes an adaptech company vary widely, and CTN’s classification system may capture some organizations and exclude others that comparable data providers would not. Moreover, a number of “dual-use” technology companies are included in CTN’s count — those that provide adaptation-related data and services to commercial clients and monitoring and defense applications to militaries and governments.

These caveats aside, the dataset offers a convincing snapshot of where early-stage and growth venture capital flowed in the first six months of this year, and a guide to where it may move in the near future.

Climate Proof shared the top-level findings with a range of adaptation VCs to collect their viewpoints on a busy first half of the year and complement the below analysis.

The number of adaptech deals fell for the second straight half — to 80 — while average disclosed deal size increased to US$20.9mn, more than double the year-ago half. This reflected a handful of supersized later-stage equity raises by start-ups in the Earth Observation and Weather Forecasting solution areas.

Deal counts include rounds with no disclosed amount, so dollar totals should be read as a floor, not a ceiling, on actual capital deployed — particularly in H1 2026, where 18 of 80 rounds went unpriced.

*Deal counts include rounds with an undisclosed amount; dollar totals sum disclosed amounts only. Roughly a quarter of rounds each half went unpriced. Source: ClimateTech Navigator

The numbers suggest that adaptech capital is becoming more concentrated among a narrower set of maturing companies.

The distribution of investments by company stage supports this. Late-stage rounds, a negligible category in H1 2025, reached US$741.4mn in H1 2026 — 57% of the half’s total capital from just four deals. Seed and Series A funding held roughly steady in dollar terms across all three periods, while Series B funding roughly halved from H2 2025's US$229.5mn to US$103.8mn in H1 2026.

The early-stage funnel is not obviously wider than it was 18 months ago, but the top of the market raced away in dollar terms. CTN’s “Most Active Investors” list reflects the same shift: growth investors that backed the biggest raisers last half — including TCV, HarbourVest Partners, Stonecourt Capital, and Pitango — dominate H1 2026’s most-active ranking by deal count, a list that a year earlier was led by early-stage climate specialists like Congruent Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.

The ten largest rounds each half now claim a growing share of total funding — 60% of the half’s capital in both H1 2025 and H2 2025, jumping to 81% in H1 2026. Most of these deals involved Earth Observation Satellite companies. This solution area attracted US$593.6mn of funding in the last half, up from US$288.7mn in H2 2025 and US$152.3mn in H1 2025.

Last half, two companies swallowed the bulk of funding. Finnish satellite-imagery firm ICEYE raised US$552.9mn across a late stage round and a grant from Business Finland, 43% of all adaptech capital deployed.

ICEYE also attracted some US$217.9mn of funding in H2 2025, testament to the company’s rapid growth and capital consumption as it builds out Earth Observation capabilities for military and commercial operators. On the adaptation front, ICEYE made headlines earlier this year by cementing strategic partnerships with AXA Digital Commercial Platform and Munich Re, to which it supplies satellite imagery of unfolding climate-related disasters, including floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.

Weather intelligence company Tomorrow.io added another US$210mn across two late stage rounds — one announced in February and an extension finalized in May. These deals accounted for another 16% of total H1 2026 adaptech capital. (Note: While Tomorrow.io is tagged as a Weather Forecasting solution by CTN, the company operates Earth Observation satellites for this purpose).

Hydrosat, another Earth Observation start-up specializing in water-resource management, raised a US$60mn Series B in January, while Array Labs, a pioneer in radar satellites, closed a US$20mn Series A the same month.

Earth Observation Satellite deals may have attracted the most capital last half, but the highest number of transactions involved wildfire-focused start-ups — seven in the Wildfire Prevention solution area and another six in the Wildfire Response segment. These companies raised a combined US$22.4mn in H1. This continues a trend from previous halves — in H1 2025, there were 11 deals in these solution areas and another eight in H2 2025.

BurnBot, which creates machines that conduct prescribed burns for preventing runaway wildfires, announced a strategic investment from Mercury Insurance for an undisclosed amount in May. That same month, Team Wildfire — a developer of AI-enabled, jet engine-powered robotic firefighting vehicles — won a US$250,000 grant from Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Another grant, this one US$750,000 in size from the Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County, Washington, was awarded to Blaze Barrier, which is developing a biodegradable fire-suppression technology for protecting homes and infrastructure.

A handful of seed deals in the wildfire space also closed in H1. Among them: Argentina’s Satellites on Fire, which specializes in AI-powered wildfire detection, raised US$2.7mn. In Canada, NorthX — a climate tech “catalyst” supplying financing and support for start-ups — invested CAD$2.2mn (US$1.6mn) in follow-on capital for three wildfire tech companies: CRWN.ai, Nova, and Skyward Wildfire Technologies.

The Agricultural Climate Adaptation Technology solution area attracted seven deals in H1 2026, totaling US$30.1mn — building on a healthy prior-year period that saw five deals and US$26.1mn invested.

CryoBio, based in New York, was one notable raiser last half, netting US$1.3mn in Pre-Seed funding for a unique crop spray that protects against extreme frost. Belgium’s Rainbow Crops was another, securing €9.7mn (US$11.3mn) for its climate-resilient, high-performing crop varieties.

On the flipside, nature- and biodiversity-focused adaptation companies across a wide variety of solution areas saw capital flows decline, even while their deal count stayed roughly flat — 27 deals in H1 2026, from 25 in H2 2025 and 31 in H1 2025. These solutions absorbed a quarter of all adaptech capital in H1 2025 (US$171.5mn), but by H1 2026 that had fallen to under 6% (US$74.4mn).

While investors are not abandoning nature-based and water-focused adaptation companies — they are still funding roughly as many of them — the checks have shrunk significantly relative to a satellite and weather-data sector now commanding nine-figure rounds.

Parametric insurance and climate risk software start-ups together raised under US$45mn in H1 2026, down from US$101.3mn in H2 2025, even as climate risk pricing and insurability remain hot topics among insurers and regulators.

Raisers in H1 2026 included Neural Earth — an AI-powered geospatial risk intelligence platform for property and casualty insurers and institutional real estate firms — which secured a US$9.3mn seed round, and SmartResilience, a UK-based climate risk management software platform which announced a £1.1mn (US$1.6mn) round in February.

On the parametric insurance front, while deals were scant in H1, the early weeks of the current half saw Adaptive Insurance close an additional US$5mn round for its short-duration power outage and wind and hail deductible buy-back parametric business, and India’s InRisk raised US$27mn for its parametric insurance platform.

Acquisitions and public-market activity — tracked separately from primary funding — came to US$1.3bn across the last three halves, almost all involving climate risk data and analytics companies.

Moody’s bought CAPE Analytics — a geospatial AI company covering residential and commercial properties — for an undisclosed sum in early 2025. The company had raised some US$75mn across four funding rounds since its establishment in 2014.

In October 2025, Itron announced the acquisition of Urbint, an AI-powered operational resilience service provider for energy and utilities companies, for US$325mn.

The biggest exit belonged to private flood insurer Neptune Flood, the parent company of which went public at the end of September 2025 selling around US$368.4mn in shares, and followed up with a further US$270.6mn secondary offering in May of this year.

Most recently, MSCI acquired climate-risk data provider First Street for an initial US$120mn and — just outside the H1 2026 window — Schneider Electric bought out AiDash, a grid intelligence company focused on wildfire risk, at an all-in value of US$350mn.

The pattern across all these purchases is clear. Large incumbents in insurance, utilities, and financial data are buying their way into climate risk analytics rather than building it in-house — a consolidation trend running in parallel with, and arguably reinforcing, the funding data’s tilt toward monitoring and analytics companies.

ClimateTech Navigator is an AI-powered market intelligence platform tracking over 30,600 climatetech companies and more than 53,000 funding deals worldwide, giving investors and founders real-time visibility into where climate capital is flowing.

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor