When NorthX launched its first Call for Innovation: Women in Climate Tech in 2024, it was about more than addressing the funding gap faced by women founders. It was an opportunity to learn how support for women-led climate ventures needs to be designed in practice, from capital deployment to commercialization support.
Women-led climate ventures remain underrepresented in investment pipelines, particularly when it comes to capital-intensive climate hard tech innovation. This underrepresentation slows the deployment of high-impact solutions that are essential to deep decarbonization. While access to capital is a known barrier, our work quickly showed that funding alone is not enough to move promising technologies from prototype to real-world implementation.
The first call gave NorthX the opportunity to work closely with women founders and those supporting them, across a range of sectors and technology pathways. What we learned has directly shaped our approach to the 2026 Call for Innovation: Women in Climate Tech.
Beyond the cheque: What we learned from working with women founders
Across projects supported through this first call, a consistent theme emerged. In addition to the challenge of raising capital, many founders were navigating gaps in commercialization readiness, customer access, technical validation, and market-facing expertise.
These insights prompted NorthX to go beyond funding in how we support our portfolio of women-led climate ventures: support needs to be practical and tailored to the realities of scaling climate solutions. Ventures benefit most when funding is paired with hands-on guidance that helps them validate performance, connect with customers and partners, and de-risk pathways to deployment.
When women-led climate ventures have the right support at the right time, they move faster. According to the MaRS Discovery District, climate tech startups with at least one woman founder commercialize technology 13% faster on average, reduce time to exit by one to seven years, and generate $0.47 more per dollar invested. Increasing the number of women-owned SMEs by just 10% could add nearly $200 billion to Canada’s GDP—while accelerating emissions reductions and strengthening Canada’s innovation economy.
To date, $17M of NorthX funding—37% of our portfolio—has gone to women-led companies, outperforming the venture capital industry, where only 7% of global venture-backed climate funding goes to companies led by women. In NorthX’s portfolio, women-led companies have raised over $69M in follow-on funding.
NorthX 2026 Call for Innovation: Women in Climate Tech
The 2026 Call for Innovation: Women in Climate Tech is focused on addressing the practical barriers that slow commercialization, including limited visibility, validation, and access to decision-makers. Our approach is designed to support founders at critical moments as they move from technical progress to real-world deployment.
In addition to up to $3 million in non-dilutive funding across multiple projects, this funding call integrates targeted programming to support commercialization and market readiness. Companies advancing to Stage 2 will have access to select NorthX-led and partner programs, including participation in Web Summit Vancouver through the Climate Innovation Zone and a dedicated Women in Climate Tech POWER PITCH session, the Road to Web Summit Women in Tech & Impact Pitch Showcase delivered in partnership with the Vancouver Entrepreneurs Forum (VEF) and Innovation UBC, lifecycle assessment validation in partnership with UBC, curated investor and industry introductions, and visibility through NorthX platforms such as the annual CONVERGE conference.
By embedding these resources into the structure of the call, NorthX is unlocking opportunities to accelerate and scale high-impact climate solutions and strengthening Canada’s long-term economic competitiveness.
This is where the future gets built.
Applications close March 13, 2026.
