2026 Impact Report
In April 2026, Project W's second Women Entrepreneurs Boot Camp | Climate Tech (WEB | Climate Tech) convened a group of climate investors and executives to share their expertise with founders building a new generation of solutions to address the critical problems created by our warming planet.
Unlike the first wave of climate innovation focused on large scale and expensive solutions—alternative energy sources, electric vehicles, and grid storage at utility scale—the nine women founders in the 2026 WEB | Climate Tech cohort are developing systems-level solutions that improve efficiency, circularity, and resource productivity across multiple sectors.
In this report, we share how the companies in the 2026 WEB | Climate Tech cohort are at the forefront of exciting trends in climate innovation: solutions that are interdisciplinary, that are focused on rebuilding and enhancing existing systems, and that are developing ways to improve and sustain current infrastructure.
Resilience, reliability, and adaptation are the throughlines of the solutions these innovators are building.
Elaine
Albrich
PARTNER & CO-CHAIR, Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Practice | Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Hear from Elaine Albrich why solutions that focus on resiliency and reliability are the way to address the urgent need to get clean megawatts on the grid.
Sonam
Velani
CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER | Streetlife Ventures
Sonam Velani explains why she focuses on solutions that enable cities to adapt to climate change.
Biology Is the New Climate Technology
Liz
Onderko
CO-FOUNDER & CEO | Capra Biosciences
Capra Biosciences uses microbes and a patented bioreactor to enable cost-effective onshore production of high-value chemical ingredients like retinol and salicylic acid, reducing dependence on global supply chains. Capra's bioreactor is a unique design that is less expensive, modular, continuously operating, and capable of connecting directly into downstream processes.
Lisa
Chen
CO-FOUNDER & CEO | SetaTech
SetaTech transforms keratin-rich waste materials like chicken feathers into bio stimulants for regenerative agriculture and biodegradable materials for oil spill remediation, designed to support soil health, crop productivity, and environmental cleanup without synthetic chemicals.
Lisa Chen, Co-Founder & CEO, explains that SetaTech products support the planet in multiple ways:
"By transforming waste into sustainable biostimulants, our products not only keep waste out of landfills but also help improve soil health and increase crop yields. The result is a cleaner, healthier Earth."
AI Is Making Systems Smarter and More Resilient
Buzz Solutions, Planette, and XTRIUM all use AI not as the end product, but as a tool to make physical and operating systems smarter and more resilient. These companies are using AI to develop intelligence in situations where human oversight and analysis are expensive, intermittent, or impossible. Their solutions drive climate progress through faster and smarter decision making.
Kaitlyn
Albertoli
CO-FOUNDER & CEO | Buzz Solutions
Buzz Solutions applies AI-powered visual intelligence software to utility inspection imagery—drone and helicopter footage of power lines and substations—to automatically detect wildfire ignition hazards, equipment damage, and vegetation encroachment, enabling utilities to monitor asset conditions, accelerate storm response, and prioritize maintenance.
Kaitlyn Albertoli, Co-Founder & CEO, explains the power of Buzz Solutions' platform to make energy infrastructure more reliable and resilient:
"From hurricanes to ice storms and derechos, severe weather is hitting harder and more often. Energy infrastructure is under unprecedented strain, and the traditional methods of grid hardening are no longer enough. Traditionally, utilities have relied on infrastructure upgrades to build resilience. Although these investments reduce exposure to known risks and improve long-term system stability, they're also expensive, slow to implement, and often limited by geography, regulation, or available resources. What we need now is a smarter, more dynamic layer of resilience. That's what we do at Buzz Solutions with our AI-powered visual inspection platform—help utilities assess the true condition of assets before storms hit and accelerate post-storm damage assessments."
Hansi
Singh
CO-FOUNDER & CEO | Planette
Hansi Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, uses AI to augment physics-based forecasts to predict climate and weather events over six months in the future.
Planette combines physics-based climate models with scientific deep learning to produce high-resolution, daily updated forecasts of temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather risk over the next year. This enables utilities, insurers, and infrastructure operators that have never had reliable access to long-range forecasts to plan operations, investments, and resilience strategies in a changing climate.
Sirisha
Kuchimanchi
CO-FOUNDER & COO | XTRIUM
Sirisha Kuchimanchi, Co-Founder & COO, explains how XTRIUM leverages AI and data to improve supply chain efficiency and mitigate supply chain risks.
XTRIUM's AI-driven platform helps manufacturers and engineering teams make faster, lower-risk material selection choices by integrating material properties, application requirements, and supplier data into a single-decision layer. This tool enables users to reduce discovery time, improve supply‑chain resilience, and identify new use cases for existing and emerging materials across industrial sectors.
Technology Is Transforming Waste for a Cleaner Environment
Disposing of waste not only uses resources like energy and water but, if left in landfills, also emits greenhouse gases that accelerate rising global temperatures. EVRNU and change:WATER Labs have built technologies that convert waste streams into nonpollutants.
Stacy
Flynn
CEO | Evrnu
Evrnu regenerates cotton garment waste into performance fibers for the fashion industry. Evrnu has developed patented technology to convert cotton garment waste into high-performance, recyclable fibers, and holds additional patents covering the separation of blended textiles, which will eventually allow cotton, polyester, and stretch components to be recovered and returned to their respective supply chains.
With an extensive educational and professional background in textiles and the apparel industry, Stacy Flynn, CEO, shares why Evrnu aims to disrupt longstanding industry practices and models.
"For decades, the fashion industry has been working within a supply chain model that operates under the misguided idea that our resources are endless. We're here to disrupt this thinking. Our mission is to reduce the negative environmental impact of the textile ecosystem so that humanity and the planet thrive in harmony."
Diana
Yousef
FOUNDER & CEO | change:WATER Labs
Diana Yousef, Founder & CEO, shares how her unique technology addresses one of the biggest contributors to climate change.
change:WATER Labs, although not "recycling" in the traditional sense, is converting a waste stream (human-sanitation waste) by evaporating it on site rather than piping it away. change:WATER's iThrone is a toilet that uses a proprietary membrane material to convert liquid water content into pure water vapor and rapidly dehydrate solid waste. It requires no flush, no sewer connection, and no conversion of waste to greenhouse gas.
Software/Hardware Solutions Are Making the Grid and Energy Infrastructure More Resilient and Reliable
Thola Energy and MicroEra Power focus on the aging, increasingly strained electric grid. They address the grid's full-stack problem—generation, storage, and demand management—all of which demand innovation, especially as data center and electrification demand grows.
Nneile
Nkholise
FOUNDER & CEO | Thola Energy
Nneile Nkholise, Founder & CEO, explains how Thola Energy's solution is addressing the fragility of the U.S. grid.
Thola Energy is automating the design, financing, and deployment of off-grid microgrids. Its software platform connects to existing meters, generates finance-ready designs, and matches projects to capital and engineering partners.
Ellie
Rusling
CO-FOUNDER & CEO | MicroEra Power
Ellie Rusling, Co-Founder & CEO, describes how thermal energy storage is so critical for energy efficiency and resiliency.
MicroEra Power is an innovator in thermal energy storage, delivering affordable, resilient, and sustainable electrified heating and cooling for commercial buildings and data centers. Its THERMAplus system uses thermal energy storage and remote monitoring to enable customers to shift HVAC demand away from expensive, carbon-intensive peak electricity toward cheaper, cleaner off-peak power.
The Future of Climate Innovation
The next generation of climate innovators will be defined by their mission to adapt existing systems to make them smarter, more efficient, and more resilient. The founders of Capra Biosciences, SetaTech, Buzz Solutions, Planette, XTRIUM, Evrnu, change:WATER Labs, MicroEra Power, and Thola Energy embody this trend. The solutions they are developing are built on science—biology, chemistry, and physics—and on AI and data. They deploy these disciplines to transform industrial processes, improve physical and operating infrastructure, mitigate risks to the grid and energy assets, and eliminate waste or convert and recycle it into new products.
The women leading the companies in WEB | Climate Tech include naval researchers, atmospheric scientists, semiconductor engineers, computer engineers, data scientists, and serial social entrepreneurs. Their domain depth and scientific and technical expertise are foundational to the solutions they are building to address the breadth of the problems presented by our warming planet.
Project W is honored to support these game-changing innovators and grateful to the many champions who make this work possible.
Be Part of the Change
Joining us in supporting the women building a sustainable future.
The Champions
Thanks to all the experts and investors who gave of their time and talent to support the women of WEB | Climate Tech.
Murat Aktinhanoglu, Remarkable Ventures
Elaine Albrich, Davis Wright Tremaine
Disha Anandpara, Independence Point Advisors
SaLisa Berrien, COI Energy
Sara Brand, True Wealth Ventures
Veronica Breckenridge, First Bight Ventures
Laurel Buckner, BHP New Business Ventures
Pamela Charles, Davis Wright Tremaine
Sarah Chong, E8
Nicole Conner, Airbus Ventures
Beth Devin, HearstLab
Raluca Florea, Decarbonization Partners
Therisa George, Paine Schwartz Partners
Knute Gregg, Davis Wright Tremaine
Carol Magalhães Isaacs, BBG Ventures
Kange Kaneene, Morgan Stanley
Dana Kanze, Georgetown University
Allison Lee, Western Technology Investment
Shannon O'Neil, Davis Wright Tremaine
David Muldoon, OXEA
Jill Ni, ReThink Impact
Kavita Patel, MUUS & Company LLC
Olga Polunina, Independence Point Advisors
Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Emmeline Ventures
ShoYoung Shin, Remarkable Ventures
Andrea Turner Moffitt, Future Heights Ventures
Jeff Uhrig, BeechLab
Sonam Velani, Streetlife Ventures
Avra van der Zee, SOSV
Shelby Wagner, Stifel Bank
Independence Point Advisors
Independence Point Advisors (IPA) is a women-owned advisory and investment banking firm headquartered in New York City. Founded by Anne Clarke Wolff following her 30+ year Wall Street career championing female leaders, the IPA team specializes in providing capital markets advisory, private capital raising, and M&A advisory to leading innovators and entrepreneurs.
Project W
Project W, an initiative of Davis Wright Tremaine, helps women achieve positions of influence—as CEOs, business and professional leaders, and investors—where they drive positive change and make a lasting impact. We do that through our programs for women entrepreneurs, our peer communities, and our support of women founders.
Davis Wright Tremaine's Energy & Sustainability Practice
DWT advises companies, investors, and innovators on energy, natural resources, environmental, and sustainability matters. The practice supports project development, regulatory compliance, environmental review, and climate-related governance needs across the evolving clean energy and natural resource landscape.
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