Vietnam Climate Tech Funding Halves to $49.86 Million as Mid-Range Deals Vanish

Vietnam's climate tech startups raised $49.86 million across 33 deals in 2025, down 52 percent from $104.2 million across 60 deals in 2024. That figure comes from the Vietnam Climate Tech Ecosystem Report 2026 series, produced jointly by New Energy Nexus Vietnam, SNV Vietnam, World University Service of Canada, and RMIT Vietnam, with support from the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program.

The headline decline distorts the picture. A single deal explains most of it: Techcoop's $70 million Series A in 2024. Strip out the largest deal of each year, and total funding fell only 19 percent, from $34.2 million to $27.86 million.

The real problem sits elsewhere. Startups cannot find capital in the range where grants end and institutional money begins.

What is the 'missing middle'?

No investment deals between $350,000 and $1 million were recorded in 2025, according to the report. In 2024, four deals closed in that range.

This gap marks the transition point. Early-stage startups receive grants to develop technologies, test products, or establish business models. To expand, they must meet stricter financial and commercial requirements to attract institutional investors. The instruments that fit in between barely exist.

Previous research confirms the bottleneck. The Vietnam Climate Tech Funding Ecosystem Report 2025 found only 11.11 percent of climate tech enterprises had progressed beyond seed funding, versus 32.2 percent across the broader technology sector.

Yet demand from capital providers is real. Of 15 funders surveyed for the 2026 report, 10 either held a Vietnam-specific climate investment mandate or were actively evaluating opportunities in the market. New funders from Japan, Singapore, Europe, and Taiwan entered in 2025.

Tran Thi Phuong Thao, country director of New Energy Nexus Vietnam, said investors had indicated that funding was available, while founders were eager to raise capital. Yet no deals landed in the $350,000-1 million band, which she described as a critical stage for businesses moving from grant support to their first major commercial investment.

The researchers identified three obstacles:

• a shortage of financial instruments suited to this funding range;
• too few businesses ready to access such financing;
• weak coordination between grant providers, investment funds, and banks.

Why can't startups get bank loans?

None of the 22 surveyed enterprises had secured a green loan from a domestic bank. Bank lending still relies on collateral rather than business performance, which penalizes startups with few assets to pledge.

The barrier hits women-founded enterprises hardest. They account for 33 percent of active climate tech businesses and drew 56 percent of total grant funding in 2025 — but secured just 1.7 percent of overall investment capital.

Sector concentration explains part of the disparity. Women-founded firms cluster in agriculture, food production, and the circular economy, where average deal sizes run from $44,000 to $77,000. Energy and mobility deals range from $3.82 million to $7.35 million.

Thao noted that many women do not hold land titles in their own names, making bank lending requirements harder to meet. The report also cites investor bias and limited intermediary support as barriers.

Is talent the other constraint?

Skilled workers are scarce. Some 73 percent of surveyed businesses ranked technical expertise among their top three workforce needs, and 50 percent called it the hardest category to recruit. Meanwhile, 86 percent had provided in-house training over the previous two years, mainly through on-the-job learning.

Lindsay Umalla, head of energy at SNV Vietnam, said capital was entering the sector faster than the workforce could keep pace. To scale up, she said, Vietnamese climate tech startups need more experienced professionals with cross-disciplinary skills.

Funders weigh team capability when assessing deals, though it is rarely built explicitly into formal investment scoring systems.

What would fix the gap?

Vietnam introduced 29 policies related to climate action, investment, and innovation in 2025. Implementation guidelines, certification systems, and matching financial products are still being developed.

The report's recommendations are specific:

• build financial instruments tailored to $350,000-1 million funding needs;
• let banks accept equipment and contracts as collateral and consider cash-flow-based lending instead of relying on land or real estate;
• have support organizations create clearer grant-to-investment pathways, share due diligence costs, and prepare startups for investor requirements;
• push startups to build stage-by-stage financing strategies, prepare investor-ready financial records early, and pick instruments that fit their business models.

The researchers' conclusion is blunt: bridging the gap requires more than investor interest. It depends on appropriate financial instruments, investment-ready enterprises, and stronger coordination among funding providers.