Diamond List
Shining a light on the next generation of impactful climate companies
2023 Cycle
The climate investment community has spoken! Meet their top picks for 2023—early-stage climate companies ripe for investment and poised for impact.
Accredited investors: Click here to access pitch decks / videos from the startups, and please don’t hesitate to email us if we can facilitate any introductions for you.
SF Launch Celebration - May 18th!Join us for an evening of celebration and talks from Diamond List startups in the bay area that are reinventing metal production, aviation, cooling and more.
Details and RSVP here.
Details for Berlin, NY and London events coming soon...
This Year's Nomination Criteria
Investment Worthy. You believe in this idea, the team, and the potential for impact.
Climate Focused. Addressing climate change in some way, shape, or form is core to the business.
Early Stage. The earlier, the better. <$5M raised in dilutive capital (grants not included).
Differentiated. Solving a unique sub problem in climate change, or have a unique approach to a popular sub problem.
We accept nominations with or without revenue, anywhere in the world whether you've invested in them or just wish you had.
2024 Cycle Dates
Nominations Open: Feb 19th
Nominations Close: March 9th
Diamond List Does Its Magic: March and April
List Release: Mid April
The Nomination Criteria
Early Stage. Less than $5M in total dilutive capital raised (any amount of non-dilutive capital, such as government grants is ok).
Climate Focused. Addressing the climate crisis in some way, shape, or form is core to the business.
Investment Worthy. You believe in this idea, the team, and the potential for impact.
Differentiated. Solving a unique sub problem in climate change, or have a unique approach to a popular sub problem.
For Profit. Any for-profit structure, including b-corp, is fair game.
We accept nominations with or without revenue, anywhere in the world whether you've invested in them or just wish you had.
2022 Cycle
The climate investment community has spoken! Meet their top picks for 2022—early-stage climate companies ripe for investment and poised for impact.
Accredited investors: Click here to access pitch decks from the startups, and please don’t hesitate to email us if we can facilitate any introductions for you.
Thank you to our cohost, sponsors and hundreds of people who showed up for the 2022 launch events:
London on April 25th - hosted in partnership with London Climate Connection and Carbon Catchers, sponsored by Climate.vc and the IP Group.New York on May 19th - hosted by Zeina with Collaborative Fund, NY Climate Tech, and Citylight VC.San Francisco on May 19th - Hosted by Olya with 50Years and sponsored by Goodwin law and the Filecoin Foundation.
Impact
Stats & Data
A few months after publishing the 2021 Diamond List, we sent out an initial feedback survey to nominated climate startups. Of the received fractional feedback, we learned that the Diamond List resulted in startups receiving at a minimum:
Over $12 million in investment thanks to connections made through the list
Inbound interest from job seekers who learnt about their work through the list
Media coverage, including articles, social media coverage, and requests to be featured in climate-focused films and documentaries
VC Testimonials
"Efforts like Diamond List are foundational in raising awareness of leading climate tech startups and elevating the field as a whole. While early-stage climate companies can be perceived as riskier to both investors, as well as, awesome tech talent, the truth is that there is unprecedented upside in these opportunities. As a climate investor, two of the things I spend the most time on are helping portfolio companies hire and raise their next round -- Diamond List accelerates both by helping to unlock access to more capital and talent."
--- Lily Bernicker, Principal @ Wireframe Ventures
"We found several awesome startups through the 2021 Diamond List, one of whom we've invested in. I'm definitely going to use the Diamond List as an important part of our deal flow in the future."
--- Peet Denny, Founding Partner @ Climate VC
Startup Testimonials
"As a pre-seed startup, the Diamond List has immensely valuable to us. It has given us exposure to many new investors who have been a great fit for us. The Diamond List already has the feel of a strong community, and I hope it continues to grow this influential network."
-- Eric Chaves, CEO @ Terrament
"Our inclusion on the Diamond List drove inbound investor enquiries that ultimately helped us secure investment from a leading Climate VC."
--- Jon Kornik, CEO @ Plentify
The 2021 Diamond List
The climate investment community has spoken! Meet their top picks for 2021—early-stage climate companies ripe for investment and poised for impact.
Media Coverage: Canary Media
Watch the 2021 Diamond List Launch Event
In 2021, we hosted an online event to celebrate the first ever release of the Diamond List. The event also included fast pitches from three Diamond List startups: Atmos, NxtGrid and Rebellyous Foods.
Spotlight Series: Sustainable Fashion
The spotlight series were hosted by Zeina Fayyaz Kim. This film covers our sustainable fashion event, which highlighting Diamond List Founders:
- Beth Esponnette & Brooke McEver from unspun - custom fit clothing
- Jen Keane from Modern Synthesis - new and regenerative materials
Notes about the data:
Eligible startups were series A and earlier
We accepted nominations from VCs, angels, accelerators, and family offices that have made at least two climate investments - and often over fifteen.
Despite receiving nominations, Frost Methane was excluded from the list as Olya is a co-founder of both the Diamond List and Frost Methane, and she would like to avoid conflict of interest.
While we did our best for an international reach, our network is strongest within the US, and the nominations reflect that. We’ll do better next year—if you want to help in this respect, contact us at hello@diamondlist.co.
We excluded startups that were nominated but did not expressly consent to appear on the list by replying to our survey. If you were one of these startups and you’d like to be on the list after all, contact us at hello@diamondlist.co
Our Supporters
A big thank you to the following entities (and many more) that supported us in countless of ways since our inception.If your logo should be here and it isn't, contact us at hello@diamondlist.co
About
What is the Diamond List?
Published once per year, the Diamond List is a list of climate startups that have been nominated by qualified climate investors.The Diamond List enables:
- Climate investors to access a list of nominations submitted by other qualified investors, helping with deal-flow
- Nominated climate startups to receive additional exposure, which has historically led to press coverage and further VC investment
Why was the Diamond List created?
The Diamond List is an attempt to surface the untapped gems in climate — early-stage companies that deserve investment, but have so far been overlooked. Investment in climate ventures increased 40x in the last 6 years, but the sector is still experiencing growing pains, some of which the Diamond List can help solve:
- Angel investors, philanthropies and VCs new to the space have the risk appetite to support promising, early-stage companies but smaller staffs and fewer resources to do the due diligence and keep up with all the new regulation and climate market changes.
- VCs regularly turn away strong teams with high potential because of thesis fit or the opportunity is just a little too early or too risky at that time.We decided to help bridge these groups and ask leading climate investors to spotlight the strongest early stage climate companies so that they could reach high risk capital and get to scale and profit faster.
Inspiration for the Diamond List
We modeled Diamond List after Hollywood’s Black List for under-the-radar screenplays. Since 2005, the Black List has uncovered hidden gems such as ‘Argo’, ‘Juno’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and ‘The King’s Speech.’ Black List films have grossed over $25 billion and have been nominated for over 240 Academy Awards, winning more than 45.
Team
OLYA IRZAK
I am the CEO of Frost Methane. I was previously a system architect at Zola Electric, working on early stage climate projects at Google X, a team lead at Google Energy. Starting Frost Methane, I thought I was in a great position: deep domain expertise, super talented friends that jumped in to build our first prototype and install it in Alaska, amazing network, some cash cushion to self-sponsor our first deployment and not take a salary for a while. Yet, getting Frost Methane from idea to where it is today was by far the hardest thing I’ve done and wouldn’t have been possible without the early support of the Mulago Foundation and Lowercarbon Capital.I co-founded the Diamond List to match the philanthropic, angel and nonprofit capital and resources that want to flow to climate change with super promising early stage startups that need it. To give amazing founders with brilliant climate mitigation ideas the same shot at turning their visions into reality that I got.Frost Methane is ineligible for the Diamond List to avoid any possible conflict of interest. Any reference to it will be scrubbed from the final list.
ZEINA FAYYAZ KIM
I am an operating partner at Climate Capital Collective (C3) and Head of Strategy & Programs at The Plant, a global home for climate solutions. Previously, I was chief of staff at Imbellus, an assessment technology company, where I managed fundraising ($50M Series B) and M&A (sold to Roblox). Prior to Imbellus, I held grantmaking and investing roles at Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, NewSchools Venture Fund, Goldman Sachs, and Sonen Capital. I started my career running accelerator programs—one with a geographic focus on New England and one with a population focus on American Black males. The latter was born out of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative and ran in partnership with Open Society Foundations and the Campaign for Black Male Achievement.
JEREMY BREWER
I am a socially focused investor who previously helped lead investments for the Google alumni community, a California based PE firm, and an Atlantic Canada based family office. I have worked product, data analysis, and anti-abuse roles at companies including Google, Facebook, and Dataminr. I previously co-founded a renewable energy startup with my close friend Sam Levac-Levey, which led me down the VC path. I help organize the Work on Climate community; a group of high skilled individuals looking to have climate impact through work & volunteering.
JULIEN FREDONIE
I am a strategic investor deploying capital in European & African deeptech and climatetech startups for Honda. I started as a founder and operator in digital and sustainability startups in Paris. After 12+ years building and growing companies I got out of my comfort zone and joined a 200K people consulting firm, where I helped global corporates on their innovation journey and where I created our own deeptech innovation lab in Berlin. I love supporting the founders who are changing the World and the Diamond List is a great way to build bridges between ecosystems and to give early-stage climate tech founders the boost they deserve.
Contact Us
We love feedback - contact us at hello@diamondlist.co