Financing the Next Wave: Unlocking Capital to Scale Bluetech Ventures and Transform the Blue Economy

Bluetech holds immense potential to address some of the most pressing challenges around food systems, circularity, energy, and ecosystem protection — yet the sector faces persistent barriers to scale. Briter’s latest analysis reveals four core dynamics holding back growth and innovation:

• Less than one-third of Bluetech ventures in Africa raise over $1M, with only about 3% ever surpassing $20M
• Capital pathways are fragmented and slow, often requiring a decade or more of blended financing to achieve scale
• Funding innovations such as blended finance, revenue-based financing, and impact-linked grants are emerging but remain hard to access, especially for ventures transitioning from pilot to commercial scale
• Aligning funders with appropriate ticket sizes and instruments is critical to match the capital-intensive, science-driven nature of Bluetech solutions

Briter’s data highlights how Bluetech solutions are mainly clustering around four emerging themes: Blue Infrastructure and Energy, Blue Food Systems, Blue Circularity, and Blue Protection. However, the lack of later-stage debt and growth capital continues to stall promising solutions between early commercialization and scale.

To bridge this gap, Briter proposes a staged financing approach:

• Build: Flexible, non-dilutive capital to test ideas and form teams.
• Commercialize: Patient, concessional capital to validate product–market fit and revenue models.
• Grow: Dilutive growth capital and specialized debt to accelerate scale.

To explore the details around using this sustainable capital continuum, read the report where we analyse this here: https://www.briter.co/insights/reports/build-commercialise-grow-a-playbook-for-financing-climate-ventures-in-africa

All data presented is sourced from Briter Intelligence, our real-time business intelligence platform tracking investments, funding flows, and company activity across emerging markets. With deep insights into Africa’s climate tech and bluetech ecosystems, Briter helps governments, DFIs, corporates, and investors identify opportunities, align financing strategies, and unlock the potential of science-based, capital-intensive ventures driving the future of the blue economy.