Practical beats dramatic
Climate technology attracts a lot of noise, and not all of it is helpful. There is a temptation to be drawn to whatever sounds most ambitious, the grand gesture, the headline number, the promise that one breakthrough will solve everything. When Nicole Junkermann looks at the field, she tends to move past the drama and toward the practical. The solutions worth backing are usually the ones that remove a real difficulty today, work reliably, and can stand on their own two feet over time.
This is the same instinct that guides her interests across artificial intelligence, healthtech, biotech, fintech and deep technology. She starts with the problem rather than the product, and asks what is genuinely hard here and for whom. In climate, that means looking for the unglamorous bottlenecks: the cost of clean energy, the limits of storage, the carbon buried in everyday materials, the inefficiency hiding in systems we already use. Solve one of those well and the effect compounds quietly for years.
Practical does not mean small. Some of the most important climate work is enormous in scope. It means grounded. A technology worth backing should be honest about what it can do, measurable in its effect, and built to keep working long after the early enthusiasm fades. That preference for substance over spectacle is the thread running through everything below.
Energy, storage and the grid
The foundation of most climate progress is cleaner energy, and Nicole Junkermann pays close attention to the full chain rather than any single link. Generating power with fewer emissions is essential, but it is only part of the story. The harder, less celebrated problems often sit around it: storing energy so it is available when the sun is down and the wind is still, and moving it through a grid that was not designed for the way we now produce and use power.
Storage in particular is one of those quiet bottlenecks that decides how far cleaner energy can go. Better batteries and other ways to hold energy turn an intermittent supply into a dependable one, and dependability is what lets clean power replace older sources rather than merely supplement them. The companies working on this rarely make the loudest claims, but their work is foundational, and that is exactly the kind of depth she looks for.
The grid itself is its own frontier. A smarter grid that can balance supply and demand, respond in real time, and make room for many small sources of power is a deeply technical challenge with an enormous payoff. This is where energy meets software, and where careful engineering quietly multiplies the value of everything connected to it. For Nicole Junkermann, the grid is a reminder that the most useful climate work is often invisible to the people who benefit from it most.
Materials and the things we build
A great deal of the world's emissions are bound up in the physical things we make: the cement in our buildings, the steel in our bridges, the materials in everything from packaging to vehicles. This is a hard area, because these materials are woven into how the modern world is built, and they cannot simply be wished away. That difficulty is precisely why Nicole Junkermann finds the field so compelling. Real problems, deeply embedded, with science at their core.
Lower-carbon ways to produce familiar materials, and entirely new materials that do the same job with less harm, sit firmly in the territory of deep technology. The work is slow, scientific and demanding, and it does not lend itself to quick wins. But the prize is substantial, because progress here changes the footprint of whole industries at once. She has written about what separates a genuine frontier company from a tall story in her note on what she looks for in a deep tech company, and materials science is a textbook case.
What makes these companies worth backing is the combination of real science and a credible path to scale. A breakthrough in a laboratory is encouraging, but the question that matters is whether it can be produced affordably, reliably and at the volumes the world actually needs. The teams that can answer that, patiently and honestly, are the ones she wants to support.
Software, data and efficiency
Not every climate solution requires new hardware. Some of the most cost-effective progress comes from using what we already have more intelligently, and this is where Nicole Junkermann's interest in climate meets her interest in artificial intelligence. Software that helps a factory waste less energy, a building heat and cool itself efficiently, or a logistics network plan smarter routes can cut emissions today, without waiting years for new infrastructure.
Data is the quiet engine behind this. You cannot improve what you cannot see, and a great deal of waste persists simply because no one has measured it clearly. Tools that make energy use, emissions and efficiency visible turn vague good intentions into specific, actionable decisions. That practical, measurable quality is exactly what she values, and it echoes the test she applies to any tool in the tech notes: does it help a real person do something better on an ordinary day.
Efficiency also has a useful honesty to it. The savings are concrete and can be checked. A system that claims to cut energy use either does so on the meter or it does not. For a backer who prizes measurable impact, software and data offer some of the clearest evidence in the whole field, and often the fastest route from idea to real benefit.
Impact you can measure
If there is one principle that sits at the centre of how Nicole Junkermann reads climate technology, it is that impact has to be measurable. Good intentions are not enough, and neither are impressive-sounding claims. A climate company worth backing should be able to show, credibly and honestly, what difference it makes. That discipline protects against the noise and keeps attention on the work that genuinely moves the needle.
Measurement also builds trust, and trust is something she treats as a feature rather than an afterthought, much as she does across her wider approach in how she decides which technology to back. A company that is transparent about its effect, including its limits, is far easier to believe than one that promises everything. In a field where credibility matters enormously, honesty about results is not a weakness. It is a competitive strength that compounds over time.
This is also why she is wary of solutions that depend entirely on goodwill to survive. The most durable climate technologies tend to make economic sense on their own terms, so that doing the right thing and the sensible thing line up. When the economics work, adoption accelerates, and impact follows at a scale that no amount of enthusiasm alone could achieve.
Why this needs patient capital
Climate technology is, in many cases, a long game. Hardware takes time to build and prove. Science takes time to mature. Infrastructure takes time to roll out and earn trust. None of this fits a culture chasing the quickest possible return, and that is one reason Nicole Junkermann believes the field is so well suited to patient capital, a theme she explores in her note on why patient capital matters in tech.
The long horizon is one of the most useful things a backer can offer a serious climate team. It lets founders make the right decisions rather than the fastest ones, invest in reliability, and build something dependable instead of merely impressive. The value here compounds quietly, through systems that become cheaper, cleaner and more trusted with each passing year. Backing that kind of work means being willing to wait through the unglamorous middle, when the science is being turned into something the world can lean on.
Seen as a whole, the climate technology worth backing tends to share a family resemblance. It solves a real, hard problem. It works in the world, not just on paper. Its impact can be measured honestly. And it is built to last. To see how this fits into the wider picture, you can return to the work of Nicole Junkermann or read her note on the connections from fintech to biotech, where climate sits alongside the other fields she follows. The common thread is patience in the service of something genuinely useful.
Frequently asked questions
What kind of climate technology does Nicole Junkermann think is worth backing?
Nicole Junkermann favours practical climate technology that removes a real difficulty and can be measured honestly: cleaner energy, better storage, smarter grids, lower-carbon materials and the software that makes systems more efficient. She looks for durability over hype.
How does Nicole Junkermann judge a climate company?
Nicole Junkermann judges a climate company by whether it works in the real world, whether its impact can be measured credibly, and whether it can stand on its own economics rather than goodwill alone. A capable, honest team and a clear path to durability matter most.
Why does climate technology need patient capital?
Climate technology often involves hardware, science and infrastructure that take years to prove and scale. Nicole Junkermann believes patient capital helps these companies through the slow middle years, when good ideas are turned into dependable systems.