Climate tech is more important than ever, but the systemic challenges entrepreneurs face in shepherding these solutions to commercial success is formidable. Most have incredibly long R&D lead times, while the systems that typically support startups cater to ones promising shorter-term payoffs.

That’s why earlier this year, clean economy nonprofits Rocky Mountain Institute, known for its thought leadership on climate change issues, and New Energy Nexus — with deep bottom-up resources for founders — combined forces to create a joint venture centered on finding and scaling climate-tech startups focused on addressing climate change across the electric grid, transportation, buildings, manufacturing and agriculture.

Their mission: create a network of financial, technical and market development resources — including credible and powerful corporate connections — that gets these critically important solutions to commercial scale more quickly. The thesis: The most successful climate-tech startups will be those with early access to economic analysis, policy resources, financing and technical support.

This week, the venture, Third Derivative (D3), is launching with a portfolio of close to 50 startups and the support of nine corporate partners and nine venture capital firms. D3 is particularly interested in accelerating solutions for "hard to abate sectors" where there aren’t currently good options for decarbonization, according to its website.

"It is incredibly hard for investors to source, vet and execute investments across the many varied climate solution sectors," said Jan Van Dokkum, the former Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers partner who became chairman of Imperative in 2019. "We are excited to make seed investments in those startups, and our ability to work with them over the duration of the program should dramatically increase their investability by the time they are ready for follow-on funding."

Read the full article about supporting climate tech entrepreneurs by Heather Clancy at GreenBiz.