Climatelaunchpad 2025: World’s Largest Green Business Ideas Competition

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Submissions are now open for ClimateLaunchpad 2025, the world’s largest green business ideas competition. ClimateLaunchpad is part of the Entrepreneurship offerings of Climate KIC. Through ClimateLaunchpad, they create a stage for the people who have great ideas for climate innovation, and help them take the first steps of entrepreneurial thinking, business planning, and a pitch around their idea – developing those ideas into start-ups and making a global impact.

Because your idea has the power to shape a greener future! ClimateLaunchpad is your gateway to a global movement of changemakers tackling climate change with bold, innovative solutions.

By joining, you’ll gain the opportunity to test and refine your idea with through their boot camp & coaching, and connect with a worldwide network of experts and investors, and attract the visibility needed to accelerate your impact. Whether you’re looking to launch, scale, or secure funding, ClimateLaunchpad gives you the tools, knowledge, and community to turn your climate innovation into reality.

ClimateLaunchpad 2025 Themes

ClimateLaunchpad work with eight competition themes, representing a selection of the most pressing and relevant focus areas of our time in our fight against climate change.

This ensures that ideas are judged equally against their peers by industry experts, ensuring that the best of the best rise to the top.

The selected themes for this year:

Adaptation & Resilience
Blue Economy
Circular Economies
Clean Energy
Food Systems
Sustainable Mobility
Urban Solutions
The Next Big Thing

Prizes

2025 Prizes:
- In 2025, they are proud to announce that the number one winner from each National Final and the Top-2 in each Regional Final will be awarded with a trip to Vienna, Austria for their Global Grand Final event.
- Additional Prizes in the National and Regional Finals may differ per country and region, and prizes for their Global Grand Final will be announced soon.
- The big prize? A bunch of new acquired skills & knowledge and networking opportunities to get your business thriving.
In the event that the same participating team wins both the National Final and finishes in the Top-2 in the Regional Final, only one prize will be awarded
In the case of cash prizes, all prizewinners are responsible for any taxes, wire transfer costs and other possible costs related to receiving the prize.
Climate KIC reserves the right to withdraw or change prizes at any time at their discretion.

What kind of ideas is ClimateLaunchpad looking for?

They are looking for early-stage ideas with the potential to make a real difference in the fight against climate change. Whether your idea helps reduce carbon emissions, supports communities in adapting to climate impacts, or enables others to take climate action, they want to hear from you!
They welcome innovations across all cleantech sectors—from renewable energy and circular economy solutions to food system transformation, sustainable mobility, nature-based approaches, and beyond. Even if your concept is still just a sketch on the back of a napkin, you’re encouraged to apply.

Eligibility Criteria

Anyone with a promising cleantech idea who dreams of becoming an entrepreneur should join. You can be a new start-up, SME, researcher, student, public organisation, consultant, engineer, a combination of the above or something that doesn’t fit a job title. Don’t worry if you don’t have a business plan ready! They are here to help!
You can only submit your application in your own country.
You can only apply in your own country and you can only enter if:
- You have not yet started a business or your company has been incorporated for less than two years (definition: your legal entity does not exist for more than 2 years);
- Your new venture has attracted less than € 200.000 in total funding (this includes all funding, like grants, government loans, angel and/or VC investments, et cetera)
- You have not yet sold products, solutions or prototypes on commercial terms.
Eligible Countries:
- Angola, Argentina, Austria, Cape Verde, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, France, Ghana, Guatemala, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.

Ineligibility Criteria for ClimateLaunchpad

You cannot enter ClimateLaunchpad if you have:
- Already been accepted into Climate-KIC (pre-/Clim)Accelerator with the same idea;
- Already been accepted into ClimateLaunchpad (or the former CleanLaunchpad) in a previous year with the same idea.