Applications are now open for the 2026 edition of ClimateLaunchpad, widely regarded as the world’s largest competition for green and climate-focused business ideas.
The programme invites innovators, entrepreneurs, and early-stage founders working on climate solutions to submit their ideas and compete for global recognition, funding opportunities, and access to a powerful cleantech network.
Organised by Climate KIC, the initiative helps transform early ideas into viable climate businesses by offering structured training, mentorship, and international exposure.
Winning teams benefit from prize money, investor connections, specialised coaching, and access to a global community of climate innovators and partners working to tackle environmental challenges.
In the 2025 edition of the competition, the programme received more than 2,700 applications from participants across 40 countries, highlighting the growing global interest in climate entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation.
Since launching in 2014, ClimateLaunchpad has supported nearly 5,000 climate-related ideas across 97 countries, helping many early-stage concepts evolve into scalable businesses addressing climate change, energy transition, sustainable agriculture, circular economy solutions, and other green innovations.
Participants in the competition go through multiple development stages designed to refine their ideas and prepare them for investors and markets.
These stages include an initial mini-course to help founders sharpen their concepts, followed by an intensive Boot Camp led by expert trainers. Participants also receive targeted coaching to improve their value propositions and investor pitches before progressing to national and regional finals, and eventually the global grand final.
This year’s competition will also mark a new milestone as Singapore prepares to host both the regional final and the global grand final for the first time.
The chief executive of Climate KIC, Kirsten Dunlop, described the expansion as a major step for the programme and the wider climate innovation ecosystem.
“Strengthening ClimateLaunchpad’s presence in Asia marks a profound new chapter for this programme and for the climate innovation movement more broadly,” Dunlop said.
She added, “Asia is where so much of the world’s climate and nature future will be shaped, through business leadership, public-private partnerships and long-term strategic thinking.”
Also commenting, the chief executive of Better Earth Ventures, Rebecca Sharpe, said hosting the global event would bring climate innovators together.
“Climate solutions are emerging from every corner of the world, and bringing them together creates the kind of cross-border exchange and collaboration this moment demands,” Sharpe said.
