Trellis Climate

Trellis Climate is an impact-first catalytic capital program enabling novel climate infrastructure solutions to achieve commercial scale at speed. Committed to accelerating the deployment of first-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate projects, Trellis Climate focuses on opportunities with significant climate impact potential, a clear path to scale, and an acute need for catalytic capital. Trellis Climate addresses both financial and systemic barriers by offering risk-tolerant investment capital and sector transformation nonprofit programming. By leveraging philanthropy to crowd in as much commercial capital as possible, Trellis Climate aims to expedite the scaling of climate technologies to achieve net-zero targets by 2050.

Trellis Climate is a step toward a world where we can rapidly scale and build the climate infrastructure needed to address the climate challenge.

Climate solutions currently in early deployment stages will contribute 35% of emissions reductions in 2050, but are struggling to reach commercial scale due to the commercialization valley of death. Building a first commercial plant is a necessary step for most companies to take, but first-of-a-kind plants often cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars and promise uncertain financial returns. These projects are often too costly or too low-return for venture capital and too risky for traditional infrastructure finance. 

Trellis helps close the commercialization capital gap by investing risk-tolerant catalytic capital into climate projects alongside traditional financiers that cannot fund these projects alone. 

Trellis invests in first-of-a-kind climate projects that meet three criteria:

• Impact potential – The solution must have the potential for large-scale climate impact, while considering equity and direct environmental impacts

• “Bridge to somewhere” – The underlying climate solution must have a clear road to follow-on capital after achieving project milestones

• Additionality – Trellis enables a project to be built on time, at scale, and with terms that support the future fundraising for additional projects, as compared to a counterfactual in which Trellis does not participate

We also allocate a small proportion of funding alongside our investments for sector transformation programming, which enhances systemic outcomes, supports community engagement, and shares our learnings to benefit the whole field.

Learn about Prime’s phased approach to Trellis Climate.