Solutions for a Changing Planet

For decades, Israeli researchers have excelled in creating advanced technologies that compensate for the country's insufficient natural resources, including water, agricultural land and energy. Ronit Eshel, senior director at the Israel Innovation Authority and head of its Climate Tech division, explains that, for many years, Israel has recognized this crucial field, known as Climate Tech, as a strategic priority.

"Until five years ago, Climate Tech focused on environmental issues, and especially on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the sake of our planet's future. Today, we understand that it includes the need to find solutions that will enable humanity to continue living on Earth in a reasonable manner, especially given the continued growth in the world's population," Eshel elaborates. In particular, global geopolitical instability has accelerated Israel's adoption of technologies originally developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, repurposing them to decrease reliance on foreign oil and to strengthen energy and food security.

New models replace traditional processes

There are approximately 1,000 companies in Israel that deal with Climate Tech fields such as energy, transportation, green construction, materials, agriculture, water, food, and carbon management. These companies aim to mitigate the damage that has been caused to the environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution, but they are also increasingly trying to find "clean" alternatives to the polluting processes.

"It is no longer just 'How do we mitigate greenhouse gas emissions when manufacturing food?'; rather, we are asking 'How do we change the model entirely and replace the contaminating process itself?'" says Eshel. For example, given that the livestock sector contributes about 15% of global emissions, researchers are developing technologies meant to replace the traditional beef industry with innovative alternatives that are sustainable, such as cellular agriculture that produces meat by culturing animal cells in vitro.

According to Eshel, Israel is particularly strong in the field of bio-convergence, which combines knowledge from life sciences with engineering and AI, and has many potential applications for Climate Tech. "We have the ability to develop innovative solutions based on advanced biology and cutting-edge technologies, especially materials engineering and artificial intelligence," she insists.

Groundwork BioAg and Biotic are just two of numerous Israeli Climate Tech companies in the bio-convergence realm that offer deep solutions for fundamental climate challenges and receive ongoing support from the Israel Innovation Authority. Groundwork BioAg makes agriculture more sustainable by limiting the use of fertilizers, improving the quality of the soil, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Biotic developed biodegradable biological materials that can replace plastic and fossil oil-based raw materials, and it is now building its first production facility in Israel.

Strong support at all stages

The Israel Innovation Authority is an ardent advocate of Israel's Deep Tech capabilities—a broad term referring to industries grounded in advanced, science-based technologies rather than primarily software—and invests significant resources in supporting these sectors, many of which fall under the Climate Tech umbrella.

Ronit Eshel points out that the Israel Innovation Authority's investments in the Climate Tech sector—including startups, infrastructure, beta sites, industry, and R&D—have more than doubled over the past four years. In 2025 alone, the Authority invested over NIS 0.5 billion in Climate Tech projects. These funds are leveraged by companies at a rate of 2–3 times, bringing the total investment in Climate Tech projects in Israel to approximately NIS 1.5 billion.

The Israel Innovation Authority offers a range of programs aimed at supporting Climate Tech initiatives from the earliest stages and throughout their growth. For companies at the ideation stage, the Authority invests up to NIS 250,000, and the more advanced they are in the development process, the amount of money invested increases dramatically, although the rate of investment declines.

Early-stage startups are eligible for substantial support from the Israel Innovation Authority's Start-Up Fund in the form of non-dilutive funding. This enables young companies to complete pre-seed funding rounds and to continue to the proof-of-concept phase, which often takes several years for Deep Tech companies. "In the past, the Authority reevaluated its support for each company on an annual basis, which meant that startups faced uncertainty regarding the extent of support they would be receiving in upcoming years," Eshel explains. "Now, once approved, the Authority becomes a non-dilutive partner in the company, representing 60% of the total pre-seed funding. This makes it significantly easier for high-risk, early-stage startups to attract private investors, as approval from the Israel Innovation Authority serves as a strong signal of credibility."

The Authority also proactively supports more mature companies seeking to conduct pilot tests of their innovations. "Until last year, we focused on helping startups find test sites for their pilot projects; today we are also actively involved with establishing world-class beta sites in Israel," says Eshel. In 2025, the Authority sent out a call for proposals to provide funding for companies interested in establishing beta sites, and the response was enormous. The five winners received a total of NIS 40M to set up large-scale beta sites. Three of them were related to Climate Tech: Energy Infrastructure Ltd., in partnership with Bar-Ilan University and Energeek, is establishing a beta site for testing innovative green energy sources that can replace fossil fuels; Atidim Cityzone, a joint initiative of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, Tel Aviv University and Atidim Park, is building a living lab mainly for transportation and construction solutions; and the Ganey Yehoshua Company will offer a unique space focused on urban agriculture and sustainability. Startups will be able to benefit from these cutting-edge beta sites, as well as from the host companies' expertise and experience.

Facilitating collaborations

Eshel stresses the importance of collaborations that bring together small start-ups with large, established partners either in Israel or in other countries. "This is one of the strengths of Israel's ecosystem. The Israel Innovation Authority knows how to bring partners together," she says.

H2Pro, for example, is a startup that developed a groundbreaking technology for green hydrogen production. It recently partnered with Doral Hydrogen to create the world's first entirely off-grid solar-to-hydrogen project. The startup BlueTree Technologies, which developed a system to reduce sugar at the source, is another example of a successful partnership. BlueTree is collaborating with the Israeli juice maker Priniv to launch the world's first reduced-sugar orange juice using a natural, additive-free technology.

Israeli Climate Tech companies also collaborate extensively with partners around the world. "We're considered a country with very strong Climate Tech technologies," confirms Eshel. In the energy field, there are many successful partnerships between Israeli and American companies through the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. BIRD provides matchmaking support between U.S. and Israeli companies, as well as funding covering up to 50% of project development costs, up to $1.5M per project.

Among these partnerships: Brenmiller Energy is an Israeli clean energy company which, together with the New York Power Authority, received BIRD funding for a joint project to develop and test thermal energy storage with combined heat and power. AGM Communication and Control Ltd. from Israel and Element 16 Technologies Inc. from the U.S. collaborated to develop an innovative sulfur-based thermal energy storage solution for industrial heat applications, with funding support from the BIRD Foundation.

In addition, the Israel Innovation Authority established the Earth Alliance, which brings together five countries of similar sizes—Singapore, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Israel—which are interested in joining forces to promote their innovative Climate Tech technologies. The Alliance set up four work groups, each of which covers a different field.

Israel also has bilateral agreements related to Climate Tech with many other countries, including India, South Korea, Singapore and the United States. The US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (BARD) facilitates partnerships between Israeli and American researchers to develop solutions related to food, nutrition and agriculture.

Despite the last few years of war, Israel's Climate Tech ecosystem has been flourishing and Ronit Eshel is confident that Israel will continue to play a leading role in developing crucial technologies in this field.

For more information, visit innovationisrael.org.il

Partnered with the Israel Innovation Authority