Venture capital is obsessed with unicorns. Unicorns are indeed pretty, and reward all when they actually happen (not very often) but they might not really be able to create the conditions to address climate change.

When it comes to cleantech and greentech, what is needed are a raft of solutions that can together provide answers to specific problems. Hunting down unicorns might create winners but it will not build systems.

“The climate crisis demands something different. Something more holistic. Something more interconnected. It demands entrepreneurship that works like a forest, not like the quest to find a unicorn,” explains Chris Roe, entrepreneurship, solutions & ventures orchestrator at Climate KIC.

Central to the problem is that for the past decade, climate entrepreneurship has largely borrowed the tools of traditional venture capital. The focus has been on single businesses, evaluated on individual milestones: revenue, patents, avoided CO2 or jobs created. As a result, too often venture capital rewards short-term outputs that look good in a report but do little to transform the structures that hold economies and communities in place.

Roe defines this as a “narrow model is especially ill-suited for the climate challenges. Early-stage financing rewards speed and scale, not collaboration and endurance. It prioritises commercial returns above social and environmental ones. And it leaves entrepreneurs competing for resources rather than collaborating to build shared capacities”.

What Roe is suggesting is more of a funding ecosystem, connecting entrepreneurs, communities, investors, and governments for collective learning and knowledge sharing. This systemic form of entrepreneurship would not replace venture building, but it reimagines the context around it. Instead of backing ad hoc projects, funders support networks of entrepreneurs. Instead of chasing individual “heroes,” nurturing “collective heroism”.

Climate KIC has done more than just propose such a system, in Nairobi three start-ups supported 792 informal workers in 2024 and cut emissions by an estimated 15 Kt of CO₂eq: the annual equivalent of four large wind turbines. In Bengaluru, seven ventures, supported 135 informal workers and adopted measurable strategies to strengthen social inclusion and gender equity.

These ventures highlight some, but not all, of each cluster’s work. In both Nairobi and Bengaluru, the clusters not only fostered collaboration between ventures, but also focused on market shaping, government partnerships, behavioural change, understanding financial and policy barriers, and building capacity to strengthen the broader ecosystem. In fact, so far, Climate KIC has connected more than 10,000 ventures, 400 partners, mentors, and investors in over 80 countries.

Will VC’s now stop the chase? With the rewards so high it is unlikely, but at least there is a different model of climate entrepreneurship that offers an option. It may be the only option to keep the planet safe.

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