The Nordic countries and Estonia have the most active climate technology sectors, expressed in terms of population size.

· Large countries such as Germany and the UK have the most ‘climatetech’ companies. But when expressed per head of population the numbers are far higher in northern Europe. When calculated in this way, Denmark has the most businesses, followed by Iceland.

· Similarly, the list of new fund-raisings in the last eighteen months is dominated by companies in the bigger states but Estonia and Iceland have the most number of new fundings per inhabitant.

· Businesses in Estonia and Sweden raised most money per head of population. New funding was equivalent to over €1,000 per head of population in Estonia in the period from the beginning of 2021 until mid 2022. France and Germany were less than a tenth of this figure.

The data.

Europe’s most complete database of young ‘climate tech’ companies produced by Net Zero Insights shows a total of almost 23,000 ventures across the continent.[1],[2] The data covers companies from Iceland in the west to Turkey in the east, covering all the EU and states such as Ukraine and Russia.

These businesses contained in the database are in sectors as diverse as greenhouse gas capture and the built environment.

The table below shows the number of climate tech companies in each sector.[3]

Table 1

Source: Net Zero Insights

Number of companies in each country

In which countries do the companies operate? As we might expect, bigger countries have a high share. Taken together, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands have over half the near-23,000 start-ups.

The top 15 countries out of the 46 states in the database account for 90% of the companies. Portugal, the last of the top 15, contributes about 1.5% to the European total.

Table 2

Source: Net Zero Insights

Companies per inhabitant

The pattern changes if we examine the number of climatetech companies per head of population. Smaller countries rise to the top, with Denmark being the location of 136 companies per million people.[4] Not far behind are Iceland and Estonia. 6 out of the top 10 countries are in the Baltics or the Nordic region.

The Netherlands in fourth position is the only large country near the top of the list. Ireland has slightly more companies per head than its neighbour, the UK, which doesn’t quite make the first ten. Germany is at number 15 but France, Spain and Italy don’t make the cut.

Table 3

Source: Net Zero Insights

Companies raising money in the eighteen months from January 2021.

Over 2000 businesses in the database raised outside equity in the period from January 2021 to June 2022. That’s just under 10% of the list of companies. The UK had almost a quarter of this total, with Germany and France next on the list.

Table 4

Source: Net Zero Insights

Numbers of companies raising money, expressed per inhabitant

But once again it was the Baltic States and the Nordics that came top of the list when the figures are expressed per head of population. Six out of the top 10 countries were from this region, with Estonia at the head of the list followed by Iceland.

Germany was in thirteenth position, with only about a sixth of the new fundraisings per head seen in Estonia. Denmark was at position 7 for fundings even though it is top of the list of climate tech companies per head in Chart 3

Table 5

Source: Net Zero Insights

Money raised.

A total of over €40 bn flowed into the 2,000+ companies raising money in the January 2021 to June 2022 period. UK climate tech companies raised the most money, accounting for more than a quarter of the total funds raised in Europe. Germany came second. The UK and Germany combined accounted for almost one half of all money raised and the top five countries were almost three quarters of the total.

Table 6

Source: Net Zero Insights

Money raised for climate tech per head of population

Estonia and Sweden are far ahead of Norway, their nearest competitor, when we look at the money raised per person. Estonia raised more than €1000 per head of population in the eighteen month period while Norway’s equivalent figure was about €330. The numbers for the rest of the top 10 concentrate around €160 a head. The UK saw more funding per head than any other large country. 4 out of the top 10 countries were in the Nordic or Baltic regions.

Table 7

Source Net Zero Insights

In the next few days I’ll write about the destination of the money raised. Which sectors did it go into? Which are the areas of the hottest interest to companies and their investors?

Footnotes

[1] By Europe, we mean all EU27 states and countries from Turkey to Iceland.

[2] The data in this article comes from NetZero Insights, a firm based in Lisbon. (I am a small shareholder in this company).

[3] Some companies have been allocated to more than one sector.

[4] I have excluded countries with less than 10 climate tech companies in the database. This excludes Monaco and Liechtenstein with 6 and 5 businesses respectively but tiny populations. If included, Monaco would have more climate tech companies per head than Denmark and Liechtenstein only slightly fewer.