Venture capital just delivered its clearest verdict yet on where housing value is headed.
According to PitchBook's newly released Q2 2026 Climate Tech Report, investors poured $14.9 billion into Climate Tech companies last quarter across 479 deals, the largest single quarter since Q3 2023. That brought first-half 2026 funding to $29.2 billion across 1,087 deals, putting the sector on pace for $58.4 billion by year's end, its strongest showing since 2022.
Deal count is actually shrinking, but the checks are getting bigger: the median deal size hit $8 million, up nearly 38% from 2025's peak, while median pre-money valuations jumped more than 50% to $33 million. Exits are following the same trajectory, with $28.2 billion already realized in the first half of 2026—more than all of 2025 combined—powered by IPOs from home battery and energy storage company Sigenergy ($9.7 billion), nuclear reactor and fuel engineering company X-energy ($8 billion), and geothermal solutions company Fervo Energy ($5.8 billion).
North America has captured 44% of total global Climate Tech VC value since 2021, well ahead of Europe (27.3%) and Asia (26.5%). 20 of the 41 most active Climate Tech investors globally are US-based.
According to the Pitch Book report, Climate Tech capital is shifting "away from decarbonization as the primary investment driver and toward resilience, energy independence, and economic benefits."
For years, Climate Tech pitched itself primarily on emissions reduction, but investors are now underwriting a different story—one about homes and communities that can keep the lights on, keep operating costs down, and function independently of a strained grid.
Battery Storage's Breakout Moment
PitchBook identifies the battery storage category as a top-performer, spanning both established lithium chemistries and non-lithium alternatives like iron-air. Dispatchable energy sources, the broader category that includes storage, pulled in $7.5 billion across 118 deals over the trailing twelve months, the highest average deal size of any segment tracked. Form Energy's $495 million Series G, closed June 18, 2026, is a clean illustration of where that capital is going. The US-based company builds long-duration iron-air battery systems designed to discharge power over multiple days, aimed squarely at the resilience gap that lithium-ion alone can't economically solve. That institutional bet mirrors what is already happening at the rooftop level. Americans installed a record 673 megawatts of home battery storage in the first quarter of 2026 alone, led by California, Hawaii, Texas, and Arizona, states where high electricity costs, extreme weather, and utility incentive programs have made storage an easy sell.
It also mirrors what COGNITION Smart Data hears directly from homeowners: when asked what "resilient home" features matter most, energy independence—specifically solar paired with storage—is at the top of the list. And, installation rates for solar PV and battery storage grew exponentially in 2026, from 10% to 47% for solar panels and 5% to 45% for battery storage.
According to COGNITION Smart Data, solar panels and battery storage installations grew exponentially in 2026 from previous years. Click to view a larger image.
Geothermal's Quiet Opportunity
If battery storage is Climate Tech’s current darling, geothermal may be next in line. The report points to strong and growing investor interest in geothermal energy, alongside small modular nuclear reactors, as a source of steady, always-on power. Much of that near-term interest is being driven by AI datacenter developers hunting for reliable, low-carbon electricity to feed an insatiable compute buildout.
But the same physics that make geothermal attractive to a datacenter operator apply just as well to a subdivision. Geothermal heat pumps deliver predictable, resilient, weather-independent performance that COGNITION's research shows homeowners increasingly want and are willing to pay for.
As drilling costs come down and enhanced geothermal techniques (many of which are borrowed directly from the oil and gas industry) continue to mature, residential and community-scale geothermal looks less like a niche and more like the next logical extension of a fully electrified, resilient home.
AI Moves From Buzzword to Infrastructure
The report is also candid about a trend anyone in housing or building products has already noticed: AI is now integrated into infrastructure at all levels.
Climate Tech companies are incorporating AI into their core products, with much of Q2's capital flowing toward the energy needs of AI itself: efficient datacenter buildouts, colocated renewables, and the storage and dispatchable power required to keep them running.
Firmus Technologies, an Australian, Nvidia-backed developer of energy-efficient AI infrastructure for new datacenter builds and retrofits, raised $505 million in April 2026 on its way to a $5.5 billion valuation—a bet that the next wave of AI growth has to be paired with dramatically better energy efficiency to pencil out.
Iceye's $1.2 billion Series F, meanwhile, is funding satellite-based Earth-observation systems that increasingly lean on AI-driven analysis to monitor everything from utility infrastructure to insurance risk to climate exposure in near real time.
On the product side, AI-enabled smart panels and demand-side energy management systems are starting to do for individual homes what these AI datacenter operators are trying to do at grid scale: match supply, demand, and storage intelligently, in real time, without asking the homeowner to think about it.
What This Means for Builders and Manufacturers
None of this is abstract for the building industry: the money and the data point to resilience, energy independence, and lower operating costs as market signals worth building a strategy around.
The companies and technologies capturing record capital right now— battery storage, geothermal, AI-optimized energy management—are the same categories builders can use today to differentiate a project, and that manufacturers can use to align a brand with where the industry, and the capital behind it, is demonstrably headed.
Publisher’s Note: This content is made possible by our Today’s Homeowner Campaign Sponsor: ProVia.
As cofounder and CEO of Green Builder Media, Sara is a visionary thought leader and passionate advocate for sustainability. A former venture capitalist, she has participated in the life cycle (from funding to exit) of over 20 companies, with an emphasis on combining sustainability and profitability. She lives in Lake City, Colo., with her husband, where she is an avid long-distance runner, snowboarder, and Crossfit trainer. She is also on the Board of Directors at Dvele, runs the Rural Segment for Energize Colorado, and is a former County Commissioner.
Where the Smart Money is Going
Venture capital just delivered its clearest verdict yet on where housing value is headed.
According to PitchBook's newly released Q2 2026 Climate Tech Report, investors poured $14.9 billion into Climate Tech companies last quarter across 479 deals, the largest single quarter since Q3 2023. That brought first-half 2026 funding to $29.2 billion across 1,087 deals, putting the sector on pace for $58.4 billion by year's end, its strongest showing since 2022.
Deal count is actually shrinking, but the checks are getting bigger: the median deal size hit $8 million, up nearly 38% from 2025's peak, while median pre-money valuations jumped more than 50% to $33 million. Exits are following the same trajectory, with $28.2 billion already realized in the first half of 2026—more than all of 2025 combined—powered by IPOs from home battery and energy storage company Sigenergy ($9.7 billion), nuclear reactor and fuel engineering company X-energy ($8 billion), and geothermal solutions company Fervo Energy ($5.8 billion).
North America has captured 44% of total global Climate Tech VC value since 2021, well ahead of Europe (27.3%) and Asia (26.5%). 20 of the 41 most active Climate Tech investors globally are US-based.
According to the Pitch Book report, Climate Tech capital is shifting "away from decarbonization as the primary investment driver and toward resilience, energy independence, and economic benefits."
For years, Climate Tech pitched itself primarily on emissions reduction, but investors are now underwriting a different story—one about homes and communities that can keep the lights on, keep operating costs down, and function independently of a strained grid.
Battery Storage's Breakout Moment
PitchBook identifies the battery storage category as a top-performer, spanning both established lithium chemistries and non-lithium alternatives like iron-air. Dispatchable energy sources, the broader category that includes storage, pulled in $7.5 billion across 118 deals over the trailing twelve months, the highest average deal size of any segment tracked.
Form Energy's $495 million Series G, closed June 18, 2026, is a clean illustration of where that capital is going. The US-based company builds long-duration iron-air battery systems designed to discharge power over multiple days, aimed squarely at the resilience gap that lithium-ion alone can't economically solve.
That institutional bet mirrors what is already happening at the rooftop level. Americans installed a record 673 megawatts of home battery storage in the first quarter of 2026 alone, led by California, Hawaii, Texas, and Arizona, states where high electricity costs, extreme weather, and utility incentive programs have made storage an easy sell.
It also mirrors what COGNITION Smart Data hears directly from homeowners: when asked what "resilient home" features matter most, energy independence—specifically solar paired with storage—is at the top of the list. And, installation rates for solar PV and battery storage grew exponentially in 2026, from 10% to 47% for solar panels and 5% to 45% for battery storage.
According to COGNITION Smart Data, solar panels and battery storage installations grew exponentially in 2026 from previous years. Click to view a larger image.
Geothermal's Quiet Opportunity
If battery storage is Climate Tech’s current darling, geothermal may be next in line. The report points to strong and growing investor interest in geothermal energy, alongside small modular nuclear reactors, as a source of steady, always-on power. Much of that near-term interest is being driven by AI datacenter developers hunting for reliable, low-carbon electricity to feed an insatiable compute buildout.
But the same physics that make geothermal attractive to a datacenter operator apply just as well to a subdivision. Geothermal heat pumps deliver predictable, resilient, weather-independent performance that COGNITION's research shows homeowners increasingly want and are willing to pay for.
As drilling costs come down and enhanced geothermal techniques (many of which are borrowed directly from the oil and gas industry) continue to mature, residential and community-scale geothermal looks less like a niche and more like the next logical extension of a fully electrified, resilient home.
AI Moves From Buzzword to Infrastructure
The report is also candid about a trend anyone in housing or building products has already noticed: AI is now integrated into infrastructure at all levels.
Climate Tech companies are incorporating AI into their core products, with much of Q2's capital flowing toward the energy needs of AI itself: efficient datacenter buildouts, colocated renewables, and the storage and dispatchable power required to keep them running.
Firmus Technologies, an Australian, Nvidia-backed developer of energy-efficient AI infrastructure for new datacenter builds and retrofits, raised $505 million in April 2026 on its way to a $5.5 billion valuation—a bet that the next wave of AI growth has to be paired with dramatically better energy efficiency to pencil out.
Iceye's $1.2 billion Series F, meanwhile, is funding satellite-based Earth-observation systems that increasingly lean on AI-driven analysis to monitor everything from utility infrastructure to insurance risk to climate exposure in near real time.
On the product side, AI-enabled smart panels and demand-side energy management systems are starting to do for individual homes what these AI datacenter operators are trying to do at grid scale: match supply, demand, and storage intelligently, in real time, without asking the homeowner to think about it.
What This Means for Builders and Manufacturers
None of this is abstract for the building industry: the money and the data point to resilience, energy independence, and lower operating costs as market signals worth building a strategy around.
The companies and technologies capturing record capital right now— battery storage, geothermal, AI-optimized energy management—are the same categories builders can use today to differentiate a project, and that manufacturers can use to align a brand with where the industry, and the capital behind it, is demonstrably headed.
Publisher’s Note: This content is made possible by our Today’s Homeowner Campaign Sponsor: ProVia.
Learn more about building and buying homes that are more affordable and less resource intensive.
By Sara Gutterman
As cofounder and CEO of Green Builder Media, Sara is a visionary thought leader and passionate advocate for sustainability. A former venture capitalist, she has participated in the life cycle (from funding to exit) of over 20 companies, with an emphasis on combining sustainability and profitability. She lives in Lake City, Colo., with her husband, where she is an avid long-distance runner, snowboarder, and Crossfit trainer. She is also on the Board of Directors at Dvele, runs the Rural Segment for Energize Colorado, and is a former County Commissioner.