Moving cleantech from pilot to scale

As real and perceived differences between startups and corporate buyers impact their uptake of cleantech, how can both sides close the gap?

The bar for cleantech is high. To help close the gap between promising pilots and scaled procurement, cleantech suppliers and corporate buyers should have a shared playbook on how to find each other, prove readiness, structure financing, and manage the realities of scaling inside a large organization.

How the cleantech landscape could get complicated

Cleantech has entered a new phase, creating a different set of dynamics for stakeholders looking to scale it. As costs have declined for many of the proven technologies from cleantech’s first wave¹—solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles—systemwide deployment has grown to industrial scale. Global clean investment hit a record US$1.96 trillion in 2025, nearly tripling from just seven years earlier.²

A second wave is vying to become the next generation of commercially viable clean technologies, as climate tech venture funding has picked back up. Funding in the first half of 2026 rose 55% year-over-year to about US$26 billion, driven in part by data center demand.³ The second- and even third-generation technologies are moving from research and development breakthroughs toward pilots that could lead to widespread adoption.⁴

But getting these next-gen technologies beyond the pilot stage has often proved difficult. Scaled deployment (including offtake agreements, multi-site rollouts, and integration into core operations) requires strong alignment between corporate buyers and cleantech suppliers, and real and perceived gaps that risk derailing that alignment and stalling procurement in the pilot stage can be challenging. To understand those gaps, Deloitte surveyed 250 US-based corporate procurement leaders and 250 US-based cleantech startups in June and July 2026 (see methodology). One finding from that survey is that cleantech procurement is struggling to scale. Roughly 70% of both groups surveyed reported that fewer than half of their cleantech pilots converted to scaled deployment over the past two years.⁵

Gaps lie in how the two groups—corporate buyers and cleantech suppliers—view each other’s priorities, requirements, and willingness to commit to cleantech programs. These gaps can be especially impactful, given that this purchase category is already under a microscope: More than half of both groups say cleantech faces greater scrutiny than other categories of technology purchases.

Getting a technology to scale is rarely just a matter of whether it works or what it costs. It is also about broader expectations, requirements, and readiness, supported by new models of collaboration between stakeholders and industrial networks. The mismatch between corporates and startups along those dimensions shows up in three key areas: proving the tech, funding it, and scaling it.

table of contents

Proving the technology

Sourcing and vetting a cleantech supplier or buyer often looks different depending on the side of the table you sit on, which can keep promising partnership matches from finding one another. Deloitte survey data shows that corporate buyers tend to look to traditional procurement channels such as business unit outreach and tier 1 suppliers to source cleantech. Startups lean more strongly on investor networks. Corporate buyers surveyed want real data from operating facilities, preferably from their own sites. Startups are less likely to see such data as a top priority for buyers, instead relying on technical and engineering specifications and demonstration data to convey the value of their technologies.

Supplier perspective:Startups lean heavily on investor networks to reach corporate buyers: 38% of startup respondents cite investor networks such as venture capital portfolios among their top pathways, compared with just 16% of corporate buyers (figure 1). Startups also put more weight on technical specifications and engineering documentation (41%) and demonstration plant data (34%) as the evidence used to pitch their cleantech solutions (figure 2). Notably, startups are less likely to put weight behind pilot results than corporate buyers during the evaluation phase of potential solutions.

Procurement perspective:Forty-eight percent of corporate buyers surveyed source cleantech suppliers primarily through tier 1 suppliers and existing supply chain partners (compared with only 21% of startups that cited these as top channels to reach buyers); 44% source suppliers through internal business unit or operations outreach (compared with 30% of suppliers that reach out through those channels) (figure 1). And when it comes to evidence, buyers want proof from their own assets: 57% point to pilot results from their own site or operations, and 54% point to performance data from operating facilities as most influential, well ahead of technical specifications (figure 2).

Common ground: Both sides converge on one pathway: Roughly half of corporates and startups surveyed each rank industry events and conferences among their top ways of finding a match, and both value reference customers (who are at a comparable scale) about equally. Having the right presence at the right events could make the difference between a new relationship and a missed opportunity. Startups exploring potential partners should be careful to pick ones whose profiles resemble the market they ultimately want to scale into, not just the buyer most eager to sign a deal.

Funding the technology

How a deal gets structured and financed is another point of friction, shaped by each side’s appetite for risk and commitment. As with source identification, companies surveyed have a stronger preference for traditional procurement models under standard terms and with a clear pathway from pilot to next steps. Startups, on the other hand, see advantages in corporate venture investment, advance offtake agreements, and joint development. Financing itself can also be a constraint, especially from the startup’s perspective.

Supplier perspective:Startups surveyed see more upside in deeper, more committed engagement models. For example, joint development agreements (49%), offtake agreements (48%), and corporate venture investment (41%) all rank higher among startups than corporate buyers (figure 3). That preference is likely sharpened by need: 32% of startups cite project funding as a top-three challenge in converting a pilot to scaled procurement, compared with just 25% of corporates.

Procurement perspective:Corporate buyers surveyed gravitate toward familiar territory, including structured pilots with clear next-step criteria (60%) and direct supplier partnerships under standard procurement terms (45%). They also rate those models as more effective at converting pilots to scale (70% and 77%, respectively) than startups do (figure 4). Notably, buyers rate offtake agreements (43%) and venture investment (39%) as far less proven than startups do (60% and 58%, respectively), suggesting a gap in perception around which financing structures actually work.

Common ground: Both groups agree that strategic partnerships can be an effective engagement model overall, with 82% of buyers and 85% of startups ranking it highly. To overcome the funding challenges, startups should work to develop comprehensive business cases with clearly articulated returns on investment, an area where fewer than half of corporate respondents said startups were ready.

Scaling the technology

Even a well-financed, well-proven pilot can stall once it collides with the internal machinery of a large organization. Both startups and corporate buyers seem to recognize organizational complexity as a constraint in getting to scaled procurement, although each side experiences that friction differently.

Procurement perspective:Corporate buyers are often measuring the ability of novel solutions to meet reliability, operating performance, engineering, and site-level integration challenges. They have an insider’s perspective on decision-making and what it takes to make cleantech work in a complex organization, which likely shapes their view on what enables successful scaling. Fifty-four percent of buyers surveyed cite demonstrated technical reliability during the pilot as a top enabler, and 53% cite cross-functional alignment across procurement, operations, sustainability, and finance as one (figure 5). Their top obstacles are operational: site-level integration and engineering complexity (43%), as well as reliability or performance concerns (39%) (figure 6).

Supplier perspective:Startups may experience the same complexity from the outside, and it shows up as friction with the process itself: 46% of respondents cite slow decision-making and long procurement cycles as their single highest-ranked obstacle. Roughly 85% of startups report at least occasionally being passed between multiple corporate stakeholders (figure 7). A similar number (86%) say they’ve engaged with someone who wasn’t the real decision-maker and lost momentum when their internal champion at the buyer changed roles or left.

Common ground: Startups that go in with their eyes open could stand a better chance of navigating the corporate procurement maze. That can mean mapping a buyer’s organizational structure, decision-making culture, and pain points before the first pitch, and cultivating an internal champion who can not only advocate inside the company but also help them understand the informal processes that might not be visible from the outside. Corporate buyers, for their part, can act as true partners or guides to their own purchasing complexity, not simply as customers in a transaction.

Closing the gap

The distance between buyers and suppliers appears to be bridgeable with strategic and focused effort from both sides.

Startups can benefit from translating technical promise into operational proof, financing structures, and organizational understanding that corporate buyers may need to say “yes.” Consider:

• Designing backward from scale-up to pilot.Agree upfront on the operating metrics, reliability thresholds, site data, decision owners, and next-step criteria required for a broader rollout.
• Leading with operational proof and financial value.Pair technical specifications with results from comparable operating environments, reference customers, and quantified returns on investment.
• Mapping the buyer before the first pitch. Identify the real decision-maker(s), cross-functional approvers, procurement path, and an internal champion. Develop a backup plan if that champion leaves.

Corporate buyers, for their part, can build more transparency around how a technology gets buy-in. Consider:

• Making the pilot-to-scale path explicit. Set transparent success criteria, decision dates, budget requirements, and accountable owners.
• Convening the full buying team at the outset. Bring procurement, operations, engineering, finance, and sustainability into the process early rather than passing the startup between stakeholders.
• Matching the financing model to the technology.Assess standard procurement approaches alongside offtake, joint development, and corporate investment, instead of defaulting to familiar structures that may not fund deployment.

Finally, venture capitalists can better tailor support for their startups on how corporate buyers often prefer to engage. Consider:

• Opening the channels corporate buyers actually use, not just to other investors.Connect portfolio companies to tier 1 suppliers, operating business units, procurement leaders, and targeted industry events.
• Making procurement readiness part of portfolio support. Before introductions, pressure-test each company’s operating data, returns on investment, reference customers, rollout plan, and understanding of the buyer’s decision process.

Those who embrace a better understanding of what the other party needs can help determine how quickly the next wave of clean technology follows the first, from promising pilot to procurement at scale.

Methodology

During June and July 2026, Deloitte worked with a third-party vendor to conduct a survey of 500 US-based respondents, divided evenly between cleantech startups and corporate buyers. Startups were developing one or more technologies across the following areas: clean baseload power, clean molecules and materials, clean mobility, and carbon capture and removal. Startup respondents were at different funding stages, from pre-seed or seed (31%) and Series A (26%) to Series B (21%) and Series C and beyond (20%). Corporate buyers spanned a range of industries and included C-suite executives, procurement leads, and sustainability leads. Sixty-two percent reported annual revenue of US$5 billion or more.

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ENDNOTES

1. Lazard, “Lazard releases 2026 levelized cost of energy+ report,” press release, July 13, 2026.

2. Clean Investment Monitor, “Tracking global clean technology investment,” March 18, 2026.

3. CTVC, “H1’26 climate tech funding up 55% to $26bn, thanks to data centers,” July 13, 2026.

4. Breakthrough Energy, “BEV 2026 investor update,” accessed Sept. 3, 2026.

5. Deloitte survey of 250 US-based corporate buyers and 250 US-based cleantech startups, conducted from June to July 2026 by Oxford Economics.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Philippine Ancel, David Novak,Ireen Jose, and Rithu Thomas for their support in developing this article, as well as Alice Pickthall and Mario Passera for their research and editorial contributions.

Editorial (including production and copyediting): Rithu Thomas, Shyamili M, and Anu Augustine

Design: Molly Piersol and Rahul Bodiga

Knowledge services: Vanapalli Viswa Teja

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