Venture investors riff on headwinds, hype, and wildcards of 2023

Turbulent. Equilibrating. Those are the words that investors Gabriel Kra and Carly Anderson use to describe the last year for venture capital in climate tech. 

We now have a full picture of the year for climate tech venture investing in 2023. Fresh data from Sightline Climate shows a decline in deal counts, round sizes, and a dropoff in repeat investors. 

It was a year of rising interest rates, declining valuations, a bank collapse, and falling exits. But it was also when many companies started building factories, and forging a path toward a green industrial economy.

“If rates go up and IPO markets dry up, we all suffer from that just like everybody else does,” said Kra. “But when we look back, we're going to realize, that's when products started rolling off the lines.”

“I think it was a year of looking around and figuring out, ‘hey, what's real and we, where is, where is the ground?’ And I think we're at a pretty solid place now to go forward, “ said Anderson.

This week: we feature perspectives from two investors on the mixed environment for fundraising, the impact on different sectors, and why we may actually look back on 2023 in a positive light.

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