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Nature-Positive Innovation: From Pipeline to Traction

Funding, market traction and impact across the I4N Award portfolio

Nature-Positive Innovation: From Pipeline to Traction

Funding, market traction and impact across the I4N Award portfolio

Nature is becoming investible, but the pipeline is hard to find.

  • Regulatory and reporting pressure (TNFD, SFDR, EU taxonomy) is pushing nature-related risks onto every institutional agenda.
  • Capital is not the constraint. Credible, well-structured opportunities are. Private finance still covers a small share of what nature-positive innovation needs.
  • Deal sourcing today is fragmented. Mandates, conferences and cold inbound rarely surface the strongest nature-positive solutions early.

Global high demand for the I4N Award resulting in a strong pipeline

The two call for solutions that Innovate 4 Nature ran in 2024 and 2025 resulted in 800+ global applications from more than 100 countries. From there, we selected 36 vetted finalists (~4.5% acceptance rate) and eight winners.

These solutions have already converted diligence into hard commercial and ecological traction. 

The result is warm-introducible, co-investable deal flow that has already cleared independent scientific and commercial diligence.

$86M+

Capital raised across all I4N Finalists and Alumni

30+

Named investors & backers, incl. a16z, Lowercarbon, Pebblebed, Dalus Capital

40+

Grants, awards and accelerators across solutions

15+

Corporate pilots and partners, incl. Coca-Cola, Nestlé, BMW or Henkel

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Funding snapshot: I4N Award winners 2025

Carbon-negative NetZero Pallet from coconut & coffee husk agri-waste (Vietnam).

$350K P4G grant · Touchstone Partners · East Ventures (Net Zero Challenge) · 100+ Accelerator · ASEAN Startup Award · UNDP BPP programme · Coca-Cola pilot (automated warehouse, Vietnam)
Website

Agroforestry platform for biodiversity credits & carbon (Brazil).

$4M+ seed (Yield Lab Latam; Seedstars; Wedgetail) · $23M BNDES financing · B Corp Certification · Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst List 2024
Website

Nature-based urban circular rainwater reuse systems — BlueBloqs (Netherlands)

$1.9M Seed (Connect the Drops; Tailwind Climate; Amplifica Capital; Omusubi Venture Fund) · WEF UpLink Top Innovator 2024 · Partners for Water Award 2024 · Change 100 Winner · Microsoft partnership through the Water Replenishment Initiative in Madrid and Amsterdam
Website

eDNA biodiversity monitoring — one sample, a world of data (Switzerland)

€1.1M EU Horizon grant · CHF 1M+ cumulative service revenue · CHF 250K Foundation catalytic capital (Climate Collective & Foundation Valery) · Tech4Regen cohort · RESPOND Accelerator (BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt) · Biodiversity Digital Academy (digitalswitzerland)
Website

FROM VALIDATED SOLUTION TO DEPLOYED CAPITAL