Climate50 is the most up to date, comprehensive and insightful Global Climate VC database, built for the climate community.

The ranking methodology was created by Contrarian Ventures. We sought to craft a methodology that would incorporate metrics that define a great investor and to do this we reached beyond traditional financial performance metrics, taking into account the whole community - your voice also counts.

In the Climate50 ranking, investors are ranked based on 7 distinct metrics. We have split the metrics into direct and indirect metrics.

Direct metrics:
Direct metrics take into account the investment activity of the investor. We used the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework, and only included investments that directly and indirectly contribute to combating climate change through at least one of the following SDGs:
1. Zero Hunger (#2)
2. Clean Water and Sanitation (#6)
3. Affordable and Clean Energy (#7)
4. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (#9)
5. Sustainable Cities and Communities (#11)
6. Responsible Consumption and Production (#12)
7. Climate Action (#13)
8. Life Below Water (#14)
9. Life On Land (#15)

There are 10 direct investor metrics used in our methodology. Each metric was taken into account while calculating the overall Investor Score. Data for the direct metrics was provided by Dealroom.co and was also supplemented by the participating investors themselves where possible. This validation step is used to update the publicly available data and makes the Climate50 database the most trusted and up to date resource available.
Each direct metric has its own weighting and combined make up 85% of the total Investor Score

Direct Metrics are as follows:
Metric #1. SDG Aligned Investments (2023)
Metric #2. SDG Aligned Investment (Last 10 Years)
Metric #3. Exits (2023)
Metric #4. Exits (Last 10 Years)
Metric #5. Portfolio Company Valuations: Number of portfolio companies in each of the following ranges
a. USD 0-100M
b. USD 100M-250M
c. USD 250M-500M
d. USD 500M-1B
e. USD >1B
Metric #6. SDG Aligned Investments / Total Investments (2023). A higher ratio implies an investor with greater focus on SDG investments, differentiating SDG-focused funds from those with a broader investment scope.

Indirect metrics:
Indirect metrics take into account the non-investment related activity of the investor. The only indirect metric for this year is the Public Score which represents 15% of the total Investor Score. This is made up from the number of public votes of an Investor as cast by the general public during the Voting Period.
To standardise the dataset and to account for outliers, each of the variables (metrics) have undergone a lognormal transformation, have been winsorised at the 99th percentile and then max normalised. In all cases, a higher value is considered better.
Due to the dynamic nature of the Public Score, the final list and ranking will be published once the voting period closes.