Join the Climate Draft!

Our network is now open for all climate-concerned individuals, and software engineers can apply for our next invite-only draft.

By: Jonathan Strauss

September 20, 2022

A year ago, ten volunteers got together to help solve an urgent need in climate tech. We’d heard from leading investors and entrepreneurs that even the most promising and well-capitalized companies working to decarbonize the global economy were being bottlenecked by limited access to people with experience building hyper-growth startups. So we launched an experiment to see if we could “draft” a group of climate-concerned senior leaders from companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Stripe to participate in a month-long program with education, speakers, and founder introductions. Our hope was that they would ultimately become more involved with some of the top venture-backed climate tech startups—as advisors, investors, and even possibly executives.

That experiment surpassed our wildest expectations, and grew into a network of 140+ companies, 30+ VC firms, and 200+ senior leaders from outside of climate, with a 1,000+ person waitlist. It quickly became clear that our scrappy, volunteer-led project had an ongoing role to play in this industry, so we formed a Public Benefit Corporation backed by leading climate funders, including Chris and Crystal Sacca, Incite.org, and Galvanize Climate Solutions, along with angel investments from participants in our prior drafts. The need for experienced people to work on climate has never been greater, the work has never been more impactful, and the financing is there.

Today, we’re excited to announce the official launch of Climate Draft as an on-ramp for all individuals who want to get more involved in climate tech, and as a collective resource for the startups and investors working to change our climate trajectory.

Climate Draft is founded on the belief that collective industry-wide action will drive far more impact than individual company efforts. As a coalition of climate tech startups and venture capital firms, we’re best able to show climate-concerned individuals reasons to be hopeful about combating climate change and the ways in which their specific skills and experiences can be put to work. Importantly, we believe we have a role to play in dispelling the assumption that working in climate is solely about mission by highlighting the lucrative career and investment opportunities. And while we’re starting with a focus on top talent in tech, we plan to reach every major industry with relevant expertise.