Charting the FOAK Gap in a Shifting Landscape

The world has evolved since Trellis launched in 2023: the policy, macroeconomic, and technology landscapes have shifted considerably. Increased international conflict, fractured global trade, diminished federal climate legislation, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence have each reshaped the landscape. For climate hard-tech startups, these shifts have only sharpened the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) financing challenge.

Our foundational reports, Barriers to the Timely Deployment of Infrastructure and Catalyzing Development of First-of-a-Kind Climate Projects, still ring true: there's a persistent mismatch between the capital available and the capital early-stage climate projects actually need. So, three years later, what's changed and what hasn't? Charting the FOAK Gap in a Shifting Landscape is our answer.

The report revisits the FOAK gap through the latest literature — our own and other thought leaders' — and evaluates proprietary, project-level capital requirements. Finally, we examine what past catalytic interventions, in climate and beyond, reveal about effective structures, in particular the need for significant capital, non-burdensome terms for companies and investors alike, and surgical timing.

The financing gap hasn't closed on its own. We're sharing these findings because bridging the gap requires an ecosystem of informed partners — funders, founders, and policymakers alike. We look forward to continuing this work together.

Executive Summary
Climate tech companies face a well-documented, persistent financing gap as they progress from technical demonstration to commercial scale. While the exact size of this gap is difficult to quantify, several analyses point toward global FOAK financing needs north of $125B. This funding gap consists of distinct FOAK and demonstration projects that will cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars each. The report revisits the FOAK gap, including key literature to date — both our own and that of other thought leaders — and assesses proprietary data on project-level capital requirements. Despite headwinds, the climate ecosystem has the tools to fill the climate commercialization gap: catalytic philanthropic and government capital, in particular, can ensure critical climate solutions advance.