The Hard Tech Founder’s Toolkit: Building the Right Capital Stack and Commercial Path in 2026

What does it take to build a scalable climate company when the old fundraising playbook no longer works? Where do you find the capital and customers that will get you there?

The climate hard tech operating environment has fundamentally shifted. Impact-focused VCs are fewer and further between, fundraising cycles are longer, and founders are increasingly stranded from the pre-seed to series A gap. But the capital and customers are there – they’re just not where most founders are looking. GigaClimate Founder & CEO Nick Halla, alongside a curated bench of founders and capital allocators, will host discussions and workshops centered around funding and commercialization frameworks every early-stage hardware founder should be running today. Attendees will leave with tools to build the appropriate capital stack and commercial approach to scalable growth and impact.