25 Climate Opportunities
Our Request For Founders in Residence
Written by Marble Team
on March 4, 2025
Marble partners with scientists, engineers and operators to create companies that solve hard climate problems in the world's largest industries. Our first seven spinouts are already building transformative products in clean chemicals, direct air capture, geologic hydrogen, building materials, and weather control. And we're just getting started.
In a world that feels more turbulent than ever, some have debated whether climate tech is dead. Meanwhile, temperatures hit 1.5°C warming last year, and extreme weather is becoming more commonplace. More than ever, we remain determined to build the solutions we need, which happen to be green but can compete on cost and performance alone.
We are looking for exceptional individuals who want to get their heads down and create this future, no matter what the headwinds are outside. We'll partner on day zero: pre-company, pre-team, pre-idea.
The 25 opportunity areas below are what we're most excited about today. If you're obsessed with one of them, we want to meet you!
This list is non exhaustive, so don't hesitate to apply if you're exploring a different climate tech idea that you're really excited about.
Energy Abundance
The world is going to need much more energy. This growth should be met with carbon-free, affordable, and reliable sources that do not depend on fossil fuel imports.
We're bullish on the potential of geothermal to meet a large share of this demand. We're also interested in a broad range of clean heat innovations for industrial and space heating.
Geothermal Power
Making clean firm power available almost anywhere, with the heat just below our feet.
What we want to build: solutions to slash the cost of deep geothermal below $50/MWh, such as better well completion technologies, surface equipment, drilling tools, EGS and AGS innovations, or even a full-stack, tech-enabled geothermal project developer.
Apply here.
Geothermal Heat
Delivering cheap low-carbon heat and energy security to buildings, cities, and industries.
What we want to build: a massive company that can leverage shallow geothermal's largely untapped potential in Europe (and beyond) for direct heat use. The prize: addressing the 50% of global heat demand that is below 200°C.
Thermal Batteries
Engineering thermal energy storage for carbon-free industrial heat, district heat, and power grid balancing.
What we want to build: novel approaches (e.g. materials, delivery vectors, etc) that integrate cheap intermittent renewables and unlock applications across industrial processes, district heat networks, and energy storage behind the meter.
Industrial Heat
Decoupling medium- and high-temperature industrial heat from fossil fuels.
What we want to build: solutions for cheap, low-carbon heat for industrial applications either in the 200-500°C range or higher, beyond 1000°C. Technologies that offer simple interfacing and easy retrofits with minimal modification to existing assets would be ideal.
Nuclear
Optimising small modular nuclear reactors to produce the cheapest high-temperature heat.
What we're building: SMR designs (and/or SMR interfaces) that can supply abundant clean firm electricity as well as a broad, flexible range of high-temperature heat (up to 900°C) for relevant industrial applications.
Looking for a CTO. Apply here.
Power Infrastructure
Global power demand will triple by 2050, and the grid is already under stress today.
We're interested in future-proofing power grid hardware, creating flexible demand, managing data center load growth, and removing power plant bottlenecks for clean resources.
Data Centers
Scaling clean compute for AI without crashing the power grid.
What we want to build: a clean energy-first tech stack to quickly develop data centers for AI and other compute-intensive workloads.
We're considering a broad range of ideas, across flexible designs, computing hardware, software middle layers, clean firm power integration, cooling, and waste heat management. Technical differentiation will be essential given the increasingly crowded space from an infrastructure angle.
Demand Side Flexibility
Balancing the grid to integrate renewables, manage rapid load growth, and minimise system costs.
What we want to build: a differentiated software approach (and/or connected hardware) which can shift loads and balance the grid – alleviating congestion, curtailment, and electricity prices. We know this space looks crowded, but we think it remains in its infancy.
Grid Hardware
Upgrading the grid with advanced systems to increase transmission capacity, resilience, and renewables integration.
What we want to build: products which can serve the massive investments to future-proof electricity grids. We're interested in multiple categories, such as advanced conductors, HVDC transmission, power electronics and substation equipment, underground cables, etc.
Responsive Industry
Turning the world's cheapest clean electrons into the cheapest, low-carbon industrial goods.
What we want to build: a new class of industrial processes designed to only use cheap solar power when it's available. Key criteria include high energy opex, electrified or electrifiable process, rampability, very low capex, and products which are high value and easy to transport.
Power Plants
Unlocking faster, cheaper geothermal and waste heat recovery with modular turbines and power blocks.
What we want to build: standardised, modular units or systems to meet the needs of the geothermal and waste heat power industries at minimal cost and delay, without sacrificing efficiency. Ideal solutions would allow for mass manufacturing.
Industrial Hyperscale
We've always been focused on decarbonising some of the world's largest industrial sectors, and that won't change.
We're also obsessed about the industrialisation of climate tech, whether it's construction retrofits, manufacturing clean energy hardware, or robotics enabled vertical integrators.
Aluminium
Reinventing mineral processing and advanced recycling to secure cheap, green aluminium.
What we want to build: the holy grail would be to slash process emissions from aluminium smelters (using inert anodes) and shift their huge electricity demand to times when renewable electricity is abundant. Other interesting ideas include low-temperature alumina refining and advanced purification to unlock cheap, circular high-grade aluminium.
Battery Manufacturing
Solving Europe's gigafactory problem with simpler, cheaper, more efficient battery manufacturing.
What we're building: a reinvented battery cell design that allows for higher energy densities and a radically simplified manufacturing process, that also happens to be environmentally benign. This unlocks superior economics and performance, and is compatible with all Li-ion chemistries.
Looking for a CEO. Apply here.
Construction
Streamlining energy efficiency, circular materials, and climate resilience in new builds and retrofits.
What we want to build: could we massively scale building retrofits and low-carbon new builds with a vertically integrated model? Are there deep unlocks in specific construction technologies, insulation materials, smart controls, digital twins? Could we reuse a much higher share of demolition and renovation waste in circular materials?
Manufacturing
Enabling the mass production of climate tech hardware and the mass decarbonisation of factories.
What we want to build: manufacturing innovations that could address one of the two following problems. First, are there innovations that could help mass produce climate tech hardware? (e.g. batteries, heat pumps, transformers, motors, turbines, compressors, bioreactors, carbon capture, etc)
Second, which technologies could slash emissions and water use across multiple manufacturing sectors? Examples: smart controls, digital twins, heat management, closed-loop water systems, and core process innovations (e.g. thermal and chemical processing, separations, drying, casting, forging, machining, etc.)
Robotics
Unlocking speed, scale, and automation in climate-critical sectors.
What we want to build: specialised autonomous machines for clean energy, agriculture, industrial decarbonisation, recycling, and more. Robots will likely be a key enabler of scale and vertical integration in climate tech, so this might become an exciting category. We're also curious about synergies with AI agents.
Bio & Materials
We're interested in better ways to manage biomass, to maximise efficiency and climate outcomes in sectors like forest products, fiber, biofuels, or wastewater treatment. Reducing net waste, energy and water use will be key.
Increasing the performance of bio-manufacturing and bio-materials is another area we're keen on, especially in plastics and textiles.
Advanced Biofuels
Creating scalable bio-refineries to convert agriculture and forestry residues into cheap biofuels.
What we want to build: improved processing and utilisation of lignin’s aromatic components. More efficient separation of cell wall components. Mechanical pre-treatments and new levers for supercritical fractionation. Systems to enhance feedstock flexibility.
Electro Fermentation
Enhancing microbial fermentation with electricity to boost yield, control metabolism, and enable sustainable bioproduction.
What we're building: an implementation of the above which cuts the carbon footprint of plastic production. Our process transforms CO2 and electricity into drop-in bioplastics, with a bit of biotech magic to overcome the mass transfer challenges of gas fermentation.
Looking for a CEO. Apply here.
Forest Industries
Increasing productivity and carbon sequestration across the wood, pulp and paper industries.
What we want to build: approaches that can sustainably increase the value per acre for major forest-based products, while minimising waste, energy, and water use, improving forestry ecosystem health and carbon sequestration.
Textile & Fashion
Transforming fashion with materials and processes that eliminate waste, water use, and emissions.
What we want to build: technologies that can reduce supply chain risks while slashing environmental footprint and cost. We'd love to hear about novel ideas in sustainable cotton and other fibers, advanced recycling, and dyeing. This industry can feel crowded, but it's massive in Europe, with the climate problems mostly unsolved.
Wastewater
Maximising wastewater treatment efficiency through energy recovery, sludge utilisation, and advanced water recycling.
What we want to build: there are many possible angles. Improving sludge management, for enhanced valorisation (e.g. biogas and other products), methane abatement and PFAS removal. Optimising the aeration step, to increase throughput, enabling smaller and modular tanks with less nitrous oxide. Heat recovery and energy efficiency.
One challenge: this industry is notoriously difficult to enter. However, the impact potential is vast, as treatment plants use 4% of the world's electricity, produce 3% of GHG, and only serve 20% of the world's population.
Apply here.
Climate Resilience
As the impacts of climate change become more acute, we want to create companies which can increase the resilience of agriculture and physical infrastructure. Relative to mitigation, adaptation is an overlooked space, and we'd love to see many apply.
Separately, we're building something massive to slash methane emissions and reduce near-term warming in the pipeline.
Infrastructure Adaptation
Preparing cities and infrastructure to withstand climate extremes.
What we want to build: technologies for the hardening of urban areas and other physical infrastructure (e.g. energy, transport, communications, defense, etc) that will face increasing threats from climate change.
Examples: materials innovations (self-healing or water, fire, heat-resistant), flood protection, wildfire management, urban cooling systems, early warning and disaster response, coastal resilience, computational tools, and real-time data analysis, etc.
Saline Agriculture
Expanding agriculture into saltwater and degraded land with salt-resistant crops.
What we want to build: technologies that improve the resilience of crops on a physiological level - from hormonal modifications to ROS scavenging. Our goal is to bypass genetic engineering and create formulations that strengthen crops against environmental stress.
Enteric Methane
Cutting methane emissions from ruminants while increasing animal productivity.
What we're building: the holy grail of enteric methane reduction – sustained high efficacy, safety, animal performance gains, and the ability to address range cattle, at a floor price which below $0.10 / cow / day before productivity gains are factored in.
Looking for a CEO. Apply here.
Animal Health
Solving preventable animal deaths from disease to increase food supply.
What we want to build: microbiome tools to eliminate common diseases in livestock, poultry, and aquaculture. High-efficiency enzymes that break down cell walls for better disease resistance, solutions that increase animal productivity, and land use efficiency.
Insurance
Securing critical assets in a warmer world.
What we want to build: risk evaluation tools that take into account interactions between compounding climate risks and variables, with easy integration into existing insurance model structures. Novel financial engineering solutions for risk pooling.
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