Bellucci, Fatica, Georgakaki, Gucciardi, Letout, and Pasimeni examine whether green innovation helps startups attract venture capital, using a dataset matching VC transactions, company balance sheet variables, and firm-level patent data across Europe from 2008 to 2017. Using a novel, granular definition of green innovative activity that tracks patents at the individual firm level rather than relying on broad industry classifications, they find green innovators are significantly more likely to receive VC funding than otherwise comparable firms without green patents. They also find that a larger share of green versus non-green patents within a firm's overall patent portfolio further increases its probability of receiving VC financing, and robustness checks addressing several dimensions of heterogeneity confirm that green patenting is a genuine, meaningful driver of VC funding decisions rather than a spurious correlation tied to other firm characteristics.

Cleantech and climate-tech founders get empirical evidence that patenting green technology specifically, not merely operating in a green-adjacent sector, is a measurable factor that improves their odds of securing venture capital, which is a more actionable signal than generic advice to pursue sustainability. The paper is particularly relevant given that the European Commission itself flags a need to nearly triple green energy-related investment by 2030 to meet net-zero targets, an additional 350 billion euros annually versus the prior decade, so evidence that private VC capital already responds to firm-level green patenting is directly useful for policymakers designing complementary public funding instruments. Investors building a climate or cleantech thesis also get a concrete, patent-based methodology for identifying genuinely green innovators at the individual firm level, offering a more precise screening approach than relying on broad, self-reported ESG or sector classifications that can be prone to overstatement.