As we close out the first quarter of 2026, a clear pattern is emerging across climate and infrastructure: The market is no longer asking what technologies can work; it’s asking which ones can win real customers.

This shift is unfolding alongside continued momentum in the broader ecosystem. Global investment in the energy transition reached a record $2.3 trillion in 2025, spanning renewables, storage, grids, and electrification. Yet even as capital remains abundant, it is becoming more selective, flowing toward solutions that can be deployed, contracted, and scaled in the real economy.

Across sectors, the center of gravity is moving from possibility to proof.

One of the clearest signals of this transition is the growing importance of contracted offtake alongside comprehensive development milestones as indicators for commercialization.

Within our portfolio at VoLo Earth, contracted offtake in the last quarter has now surpassed $5 billion — a reflection not just of traction, but of long-term customer commitment to both technology and execution.

Recent milestones across the portfolio exemplify this shift:

These milestones point to a broader change in buyer behavior: customers are committing earlier, prioritizing security of supply, and engaging more deeply with emerging solutions.

For early-stage companies, the implications are significant. In high-growth and geopolitically dynamic sectors, customers are actively addressing supply constraints by engaging with next-generation technologies. As a result, technical differentiation alone is no longer sufficient. Success increasingly depends on the ability to structure bankable agreements, navigate complex counterparties, and deliver with credibility.

Offtake is one pathway — but part of a broader shift toward early, high-conviction customer engagement. The most resilient companies are adapting their business models to fit market realities, whether through asset-light approaches, vertical integration, or hybrid strategies. Increasingly, flexibility itself is becoming a competitive advantage.

From an investment perspective, this reinforces our focus on backing companies designed to perform across cycles, not within them. While policy continues to shape the landscape, the underlying drivers — demand for reliable energy, secure supply chains, and cost-competitive infrastructure — remain durable regardless of administration.

At the same time, this phase of the market is raising expectations for what founders need from their investors. Structuring offtake, navigating counterparties, and advancing complex projects requires more than capital. It requires operator experience and deep sector fluency. This customer-first lens has been core to our investment approach from day one, particularly in climate, where complex B2B sales reward teams that deeply understand and engage their end users early.

We’re excited to welcome Erin Kirton as a Senior Associate as we continue to build that capability. Erin brings a rare combination of technical, operational, and investing experience across the energy value chain. At Munich Re Ventures, she backed companies like VEIR, Fourth Power, and Runwise, and previously worked in renewable energy development designing gigawatts of wind projects at Invenergy and helping scale a utility-scale storage company through acquisition by SK E&S. With both engineering and business training, she strengthens our ability to engage deeply with founders as they move from technical validation to commercial execution.

What we’re seeing now is a subtle but important shift: Advantage is accruing to companies that can align technology, timing, and counterparties, not just optimize any one dimension. In a market defined by constraint, that coordination becomes the moat. 

That’s where the energy transition gets real — and where we’re investing.

In WSJ Pro’s venture capital newsletter, Kareem Dabbagh commented on how oil price volatility could create near-term headwinds for startups while ultimately strengthening the case for technologies that reduce dependence on volatile fuel markets and bring new energy capacity online faster. Read more.

Heatmap quoted Joe Goodman on why rising AI and data center demand can actually create opportunities for next-generation climate technologies, rather than simply acting as a drag on decarbonization. Read more.

BuiltWorlds featured Elaine Hsieh in a conversation on how climate tech investing has shifted since 2022, including the challenges of proving ROI, the role of circularity in the built environment, and lessons from deploying federal clean energy capital. Watch here.

Axios Pro included Elaine Hsieh in its roundup of sector “valentines,” highlighting her view that grid congestion, shifting demand, and dispatch limits are where system pressure is showing up earliest — and that constraints are increasingly the central story in energy. Read more.

Edelman featured Elaine Hsieh among sustainability leaders forecasting 2026 trends, including the growing importance of virtual power plants as a fast path to adding clean capacity and the continued policy focus on fusion, geothermal, and nuclear. Read more.

BuiltWorlds recognized VoLo Earth Ventures as a finalist for its 2025 “Sustainability Investor of the Year” award, highlighting its impact advancing innovation across the built environment. Read more.