Abstract: Venture capital (VC) occupies an ambivalent position in the climate crisis. Long associated with scaling carbon-intensive industries, it is now increasingly celebrated as a key lever for financing climate solutions. This talk introduces my new DFG-funded research project, carried out at the University of Hamburg, which conceptualizes this shift as the climatization of venture capital: a process through which VC firms reconfigure their expertise, valuation practices, and public performances in response to climate change. Empirically, the project focuses on venture capital markets in Germany and their ties to broader European policy and innovation arenas, examining the period from 2015 to the present and thereby covering both the rapid expansion of “climate tech” investing following the Paris Agreement and its more recent slowdown amid geopolitical tensions, rising interest rates, and an intensifying global climate backlash. Rather than treating venture capitalists simply as fi

On March 12th, Cornelius Heimstädt invites us for a discussion on the role of venture capital in the climate crisis in his talk ‘The Climatization of Venture Capital’. Cornelius is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg. He is a sociologist whose research lies at the intersection of economic sociology, environmental sociology, and Science and Technology Studies (STS). His work focuses on how private companies engage with questions of sustainability. He has examined how so-called “agtech” start-ups transform agricultural markets and societal conceptions of sustainability. At the University of Hamburg, Heimstädt leads the DFG-funded project The Climatization of Venture Capital: Transformations of Financial Expertise, Valuation, and Performances, which investigates the emerging field of “climate venture capital” in Germany and is affiliated as an Associate Researcher with the Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS).