Amazon has just revealed the 11 European startups and scale-ups joining the 2026 class of its acceleration program focused on climate and sustainability. The selection process was highly competitive: more than 1,100 companies applied since the initiative launched, and only this select group from six different countries made it through every round. Since the program kicked off in 2024, a total of 28 startups have been selected across previous cohorts, with over $3 million invested in pilot projects spread across 16 initiatives — all without any equity dilution, which makes a huge difference for anyone building a company from scratch.
What really stands out about this initiative is not just the volume of resources involved, but the structure behind it. Scaling a climate tech solution is one of the biggest challenges in the sector because it involves overcoming barriers that go well beyond the product itself. Finding a partner willing to test the technology in a real-world environment, getting access to the infrastructure needed to run a pilot with concrete data, and gaining visibility with decision-makers at major organizations are obstacles that stall many of the most promising initiatives before they ever gain traction. It is not uncommon for a climate tech startup to spend years getting a product to a large-scale pilot inside a global organization. The Amazon Sustainability Accelerator Climate Tech was designed precisely to shorten that path.
The program is run in partnership with Founders Intelligence, an innovation strategy consultancy under Accenture, and lasts eight weeks of intensive immersion. During that period, startups work side by side with Amazon operations and sustainability teams to build the business case for deploying their technology within the European network of fulfillment centers. At the end, each company presents its solution directly to Amazon senior leadership, who then decides which participants move forward with fully funded pilots. On top of that, those selected receive mentorship, expert-led workshops, and $10,000 in AWS Activate credits, the Amazon Web Services program that provides free cloud resources for startups. 🌱
Results That Are Already Showing Up
One of the most interesting aspects is that the program is not just promises. Startups from the first two cohorts — such as Shayp, Cartesian, Valua, and HT Materials Science — are already running pilots across Amazon fulfillment network in Europe, working in areas like energy, water, and waste. The early results from these tests are even helping inform decisions about broader deployment of these technologies. This shows the cycle works in practice: from selection to pilot, and from pilot to real scale within one of the largest logistics operations on the planet.
The 11 companies chosen for this edition are organized into three thematic tracks: building decarbonization, water management, and biodiversity. Each one represents a different approach to the most pressing climate challenges, and what ties them all together is the intensive use of technology as a central tool for generating measurable impact. The selection reflects the current state of the European sustainable innovation ecosystem, which has been maturing rapidly with increasingly sophisticated, data-driven solutions.
Carbon Track
Bonvan (France)
Bonvan is a French company developing small-scale wind turbines designed for rapid installation. Founded by Benjamin Graux and Loris Goyet, who met while studying engineering at École Centrale de Lyon, the company was born from the search for a practical way to generate local, low-carbon electricity without the complexity and cost of conventional wind systems. The turbines install in just two hours, require no permanent foundations, and in most cases need no permits. Within the carbon track, Bonvan aims to explore the use of wind energy in logistics operations.
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Solum (Spain)
Solum created a solar pavement you can walk and drive on, turning everyday surfaces like parking lots and walkways into clean energy generators. Founded in 2019 by three engineers, the company developed portable panels that install without civil construction and can be reused across different locations, working around the structural and regulatory limitations of rooftop solar.
UV Energy (Germany)
UV Energy develops modular solar canopies for parking lots that require no permanent foundations or major construction, paired with AI-powered planning software. Co-founded in 2022 by Nicolai Ensslen and Kai Steffen Theurer, the company targets commercial parking areas as one of the largest underutilized asset classes in the world for renewable energy generation, expanding solar capacity without consuming new land.
MagnoTherm (Germany)
Born out of the Functional Materials group at the Technical University of Darmstadt, MagnoTherm uses a magnetic cooling process with water instead of the greenhouse gases found in conventional refrigerators and air conditioning systems. The team is one of the pioneers in bringing this type of refrigeration to market and offers multiple products to explore cooling applications within Amazon operations.
HeatVentors (Hungary)
HeatVentors develops smart thermal batteries that store and release heat on demand. Co-founded by Zoltán Andrássy and Rita Farkas, who began researching heat storage at Budapest University of Technology, the company entered the market in 2017 after four years of academic research. Its compact units integrate with existing HVAC and building management systems, helping reduce energy consumption and recover wasted heat.
Verv (United Kingdom)
Verv offers AI-powered HVAC monitoring, control, and maintenance intelligence for commercial buildings. Founded in 2015 by Peter Davies, the company uses high-frequency electrical data and machine learning to analyze and reduce energy consumption. Its retrofit hardware gives operators asset-level visibility, helping identify faults and improve refrigerant management with low-complexity installation.
Water Track
Nereus (France)
Nereus works in wastewater treatment and reuse, designing industrial systems that allow companies to recycle water directly on-site. The story began in 2013 when founder Emmanuel Trouvé, a former R&D director at Veolia, realized that certain industrial effluents could be treated as a resource rather than waste. The company grew from its first machine, which still recycles water in Dubai, into an operation delivering circular solutions across industry, food processing, tourism, and municipal services.
Qatium (Spain)
Qatium is an open, AI-powered water intelligence platform that transforms complex network data into real-time insights for utilities. Co-founded by Roberto Tórtola and Jaime Barba, the company spent six years developing and validating its predictive digital twin technology with real users before its commercial launch in 2025, helping networks optimize operations and prevent leaks.
Spacedrip (Estonia)
Spacedrip develops modular water reuse systems for commercial facilities. Founded by Joonatan Oras, Rainer Nõlvak, and Hannes Tamjärv, the company grew out of firsthand experience with the limitations of relying on conventional sewer connections, especially in smaller and remote locations. By treating and reusing wastewater locally, the technology reduces the demand for potable water and eases pressure on infrastructure.
Biodiversity Track
Hula Earth (Germany)
Hula Earth helps organizations monitor biodiversity at their sites, responding to the growing need for reliable ecological data to manage climate risk and meet regulatory requirements. Founded in Munich in 2023 by Florian Geiser and David Schmider, the company uses sensors that identify species in real time through sound alone, standardizing results across different terrain types and regions.
evolito (Denmark)
evolito provides continuous insect biodiversity monitoring to help organizations track the health of their ecosystems. The company emerged from FaunaPhotonics, a Danish organization founded in 2014 that developed automated insect monitoring for agriculture. After a decade of field research, it relaunched as evolito in 2025 with a next-generation sensor, serving sectors like energy, construction, and nature restoration.
Why This Acceleration Model Matters
The real differentiator of the Amazon program is not just the financial resources — it is the kind of access it provides. Sustainability startups tend to face a very specific problem: their solutions are technically solid but difficult to test at scale without a corporate partner willing to open up its operations for experimentation. Most accelerator programs offer mentorship, connections, and in some cases capital. What few manage to deliver is a real testing environment with the volume and operational complexity that a giant like Amazon represents.
When a climate tech startup manages to run a pilot inside a logistics network that processes a massive volume of deliveries, the data generated carries a completely different value than what comes out of controlled environments. This not only validates the technology in a much more robust way but also accelerates the learning cycle and product refinement. For investors and potential corporate clients, this kind of validation weighs heavily when choosing one solution over another. It is the type of proof of concept that can transform a promising startup into a scalable company in a much shorter timeframe than usual.
Beyond that, the no-equity-dilution model is a point that deserves special attention. In the startup ecosystem, giving up equity in exchange for capital or support is a decision that can have significant long-term consequences, especially for founders still in the early stages. Amazon choosing to fund pilot projects without requiring a stake in the business positions the program as genuinely impact-oriented rather than an acquisition strategy disguised as acceleration. That is rare, and the founders who make it to this level of selection know exactly what it means. 🚀
The European Climate Tech Ecosystem in the Spotlight
The decision to focus on European startups for this program is no coincidence. Europe has been one of the most active hubs for innovation in sustainability and climate technology, driven by progressive environmental regulations, access to impact capital, and a business culture that tends to value environmental metrics in a more structured way than other regions. This context means European climate tech startups generally have a clarity of purpose and technical sophistication that makes them attractive to global corporate partners.
When more than a thousand companies apply to a program and only 11 are selected per cohort, the selection process works as a very rigorous quality filter, and the outcome tends to reflect the strongest players within that ecosystem. The companies that made it here are not just promises — they are businesses with real potential to transform how large organizations handle their environmental impacts. The consistent growth of the program, which went from zero to 28 startups selected in less than two years, also signals a commitment that goes beyond corporate talk. 🌍
The Amazon Sustainability Accelerator Climate Tech has shown across its cohorts that it is possible to combine corporate scale with real impact — and the 11 startups in this 2026 class are one more concrete step in that direction.
