April 2025 Highlights

$110M Problems … but Closing Ain't One

We are thrilled to announce the final close of our Fund III at $110 million! For 18 months, our team has had thousands of meetings with a pipeline of hundreds of potential partners globally. The fund was co-anchored by Northleaf, who joined as a new investor, and Fondaction, a returning major investor. Fund III is nearly double the size of Fund II and brings in much greater institutional backing with Boann, Co-operators Corporate Venture Capital Fund, Deloitte Ventures, InBC and others. We’re immensely grateful to the 53% of Fund III investors that are invested in prior funds, over half of which are investors in all three of our funds.

It is a difficult time to raise capital, but climate change doesn't care about market conditions or political cycles. Some VC's have delayed plans to raise new funds, and some that were previously deploying into climate have started to shy away. We are more bullish than ever on the opportunity climate tech holds—particularly in Canada.

Fund III will make 25 portfolio investments with the majority being based in Canada. Canada is emerging as one of the best places in the world to build a climate tech company. We have the essential ingredients for global leadership in climate innovation: world-class affordable talent, strong public support, effective policies like IRAP and SR&ED, and respected and stable leadership. Canada is also an increasingly attractive destination for elite talent through the Tech Talent Strategy work permit program and academic talent avoiding the US.

The seven companies Fund III has already invested in are off to the best collective start we’ve seen. Now that our fundraising efforts have wrapped, we are full throttle on finding the very best teams and ideas. We are searching for outstanding founders or operators that want to build a climate company. If you’ve been successful with another venture and you want to build something massive, we want to talk!

Fresh financing: GlacierGrid

GlacierGrid held the final close of an oversubscribed $5 million Series A extension round to scale their virtual power plant energy management product. GlacierGrid closed last year with 20X YoY revenue growth of the energy segment while reducing overall burn. Fund I participated in the initial round and increased its ownership.

Welcome Isabel!

We're thrilled to welcome Isabel Baker as the newest member of our investment team! As our portfolio continues to grow, we recognized the need to strengthen our team with complementary skills and fresh perspectives. We took a strategic and thoughtful approach to the search—assessing work styles, behaviours, and problem-solving through a rigorous process that went beyond traditional interviews. From hundreds of applicants, Isabel stood out, and we’re excited to have her join us in the Vancouver office.

Founder Spotlight: Jack Rusk of C.Scale

The construction industry is a major source of emissions, but did you know that most of those emissions are baked in during the design process? C.Scale is a software platform built by architects for architects to understand the carbon basis of building design choices. Their software was built for their firm’s use initially but quickly grew organically to 1000s of users across architecture, engineering and construction.

With C.Scale, the building industry can comply with the myriad of state, local and institutional regulations while also gaining a competitive edge that helps to win new work and clients. Designers can execute sophisticated modelling, including materials and spatial configurations with a level of sophistication that used to require specialized consultants.

In this 13 minute conversation with Mike, co-founder and CEO Jack Rusk explains how his software uses the same data from supply chain management and cost assessment to create lifecycle assessments that achieve specific climate goals. Despite the climate policy backsliding at the US federal level, Jack explains how their tool coupled with the state and industry commitments is continuing to reduce built environment emissions.

Another record month of heat pump upgrades completed. Gearing up for an accelerated geographic expansion beginning in July. Featured in BCBusiness.

Booked ~$1 million in new revenue including their largest expansion to date with Treasury Wine representing 2000 acres.

Received their first commercial commitment from a Canadian tower company and began the certification process for their antenna monitoring product to enable public network deployments at scale.

Signed $47.8K in new ARR and added $217K to the sales pipeline, including a $20K expansion with Joseph Phelps Vineyards.

Secured $1 million in leafy greens and sprouts seed sale commitments. Commissioned their 2nd and 3rd machines from Columbia Tech, which have 42,000 lbs of monthly capacity.

Secured a $5 million order and unveiled their new hydrogen dispenser design at the Canadian Hydrogen Convention.

Received a large purchase order for both product solutions for a new site with an existing customer in California.

Opened their first flagship Japan Microfactory and launched a campaign with KOKUYO during their Earth Day event in Tokyo.

Awarded a $3.8 million grant from the California Energy Commission to deploy hundreds of chargers at multifamily housing in disadvantaged communities across the State, in partnership with Greystar Properties.

Roles we're actively recruiting for

Metafold: Sales Director

SWTCH: Chief Financial Officer, Head of People & Culture  

Not seeing the right role? Tell us more about you here.

In case you’re new to us

Thanks for subscribing (or making it this far into our newsletter). Active Impact Investments is a Certified B Corp based in Vancouver, BC, whose mission is to support environmental sustainability through profitable investment. With three limited partnership funds totaling $180M in assets under management, we provide money and talent to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies that are capable of achieving venture scale and becoming extremely profitable while solving the most urgent environmental issues.

If you qualify as an accredited investor and you’re interested in having us contact you about the possibility of joining our next fund, please take a minute to fill out this form.