Climate and energy (climate-tech) startups can accelerate the commercialization of innovative technologies but face low investment and high failure rates. Here we analyse the effects of recent growth in corporate investments, combined with public grants and other private investments, on startup outcomes. We apply the Cox Proportional Hazards model to a dataset of 2,910 US climate-tech startups founded 2005–2020. We find that corporate and other private investments are significantly associated with both exits (initial public offerings, mergers/acquisitions) and failures (bankruptcy, going out of business). While public grants are not significantly associated with these outcomes, they fill important funding gaps in high-risk sectors. Publicly funded startups also exit at a higher rate with the addition of corporate investment (155% increase) compared with other private investment (78% increase). These findings highlight the roles of different investors in scaling startup technologies to meet climate goals and are robust across sectors, timelines and types of public funding (national, subnational).

气候和能源（气候技术）初创公司可以加速创新技术的商业化，但面临投资低和失败率高的问题。在这里，我们分析了近期企业投资增长以及公共拨款和其他私人投资对初创企业成果的影响。我们将 Cox 比例风险模型应用于 2,910 家 2005 年至 2020 年成立的美国气候技术初创公司的数据集。我们发现，企业和其他私人投资与退出（首次公开募股、合并/收购）和失败（破产、停业）显着相关。虽然公共拨款与这些结果没有显着相关，但它们填补了高风险部门的重要资金缺口。与其他私人投资（增长 78%）相比，公共资助的初创企业在加入企业投资（增长 155%）后退出率也更高。这些发现凸显了不同投资者在扩大初创技术以实现气候目标方面的作用，并且在各个部门、时间表和公共资金类型（国家、地方）中都是稳健的。