Green tech funding surge puts Ballarat startups on global map as investors bet big on climate

Ballarat’s green-technology sector has pulled in more than $340 million in venture capital and government grants since January, a figure that local accelerators say is double the total for all of last year and signals a fundamental shift in how institutional money views climate risk.

The surge is part of a national trend: Australian climate-tech startups raised $2.1 billion in the first six months of 2026, according to data released Thursday by the Australian CleanTech Network. That already surpasses the $1.9 billion raised in all of 2025. But Ballarat is outpacing the national curve, local firms captured 16 percent of that total, up from 8 percent in 2024.

From Wendouree to the world: two startups leading the charge

The biggest single deal closed last month when Ballarat-based battery recycler ReGen Metals secured a $97 million Series B led by Singapore’s Temasek and Melbourne’s Breakthrough Victoria. The company operates a pilot plant on Gillies Street North in Wendouree, where it uses a proprietary solvent-free process to recover lithium, cobalt and nickel from end-of-life EV batteries. CEO Lisa Tran told investors the funds will go toward a full-scale facility on a 12-hectare site near the Ballarat West Employment Zone, expected to employ 140 people by 2028.

On the other side of town, agri-solar startup SunPasture closed a $22 million round in April. Its headquarters on Sturt Street in the CBD houses a 30-person team that designs elevated solar arrays allowing sheep grazing underneath. The company has signed leases with three farms in the Ballarat region, near Learmonth, Burrumbeet and Mount Clear, and plans to install 8.5 megawatts of capacity by December.

The money flowing into these firms isn’t just coming from venture capital. State and federal programs are playing a big part. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has allocated $140 million specifically for Ballarat-based climate tech through its new Regional Innovation Fund, announced in March. Ballarat City Council’s economic development unit on Armstrong Street North processed 22 green-tech business registrations in the June quarter alone, up from nine in the same period last year.

Why now? The numbers behind the green-tech gold rush

The pace of investment has accelerated sharply since late 2025. According to the Australian CleanTech Network’s mid-year report, the average deal size for Ballarat green-tech companies rose to $4.6 million in H1 2026, compared with $1.2 million in H1 2025. The total number of deals, 74, is more than triple the 23 recorded in the first half of last year.

Several factors are driving the trend. The federal government’s expanded SAFE (Scaling Australian-Focused Enterprises) tax incentive, which took effect on 1 July, offers a 30 percent non-refundable tax offset for investors backing climate-tech startups with annual R&D spend under $5 million. At the same time, Australia’s mandatory climate reporting requirements, phased in from January, forced large superannuation funds to reassess their portfolios, and many redirected capital toward verifiable emissions-reduction plays.

“The compliance tailwind is real,” said Michael Chen, an analyst at the Ballarat-based investor network Capital Coalition, in a phone interview. “Every major super fund has a net-zero target now, and they need to deploy into real assets. Ballarat has the land, the grid capacity and a growing talent pool from Federation University’s engineering program.”

The local impact is visible. Vacancy rates in B-grade office space along Lydiard Street have dropped to 4.2 percent, the lowest in five years, driven largely by green-tech firms leasing floor space. The Ballarat Innovation Lab on Camp Street, run by Federation University, reports a waiting list of 18 startups, the longest since it opened in 2019.

What happens next depends on execution. The $97 million ReGen Metals plant requires planning approvals by February 2027, and the company is still negotiating power purchase agreements with two of Ballarat’s three major electricity distributors. SunPasture faces a different bottleneck: finding enough suitably oriented farmland within a 50-kilometre radius of its grid connection points.

For the investors writing the cheques, these are risks worth taking. The Australian CleanTech Network’s full-year forecast, due in October, projects Ballarat’s green-tech funding could hit $700 million by December, more than seven times the 2024 total. If even half of that materialises, the city’s reputation as a climate-tech hub will move well beyond the local business pages.