📢🌍 $5.5m to power the transition economy

Happy Monday! 

We usually celebrate other companies’ fundraises, but today, we’re celebrating our own! We’ve raised a $5.5m Seed round, co-led by The Westly Group and Molten Ventures, to scale Sightline — our market intelligence platform powering strategic decision-making and capital allocation across the global transition economy. (ICYMI, we launched Sightline at the end of 2023 to build on the foundation of this newsletter and go beyond the inbox for key transition stakeholders.)

This fundraise comes at a critical moment. The movement towards cleaner, better, and cheaper is underway, but the transition’s underlying competitiveness faces its most existential questions yet — AI-driven power demand, shifting US energy policies, wavering net zero commitments, climate tech racing to scale, and escalating risks in a world beyond 1.5°C. 

More than ever, companies and investors need trusted information and a clear line of sight to build competitive strategies and deploy capital. That’s why we built Sightline — to help key stakeholders think bigger, go deeper, and act faster to compete and win in the transition that is rapidly transforming the energy, transport, and industrial sectors. 

So far, the numbers speak for themselves. In just one year since launching Sightline, we’ve grown to over 70 international customers across leading corporates, financiers, and governments — including HSBC, Southern Company, BHP, Galvanize Climate Solutions, and the US Department of Energy. (Of course, we’re also proud to count all 70,000 of you loyal CTVC readers as part of this journey, guess 70 is our lucky number 😉)

A strategic line of sight for decision-making

Our customers use Sightline to get closer to the decisions that matter — whether it’s shaping strategy, getting a deal done, or designing a policy or funding program. Here are just a few (of many) examples:  

• 🧠 Shaping strategy – How do we meet rising power demand while meeting our decarb goals? 
  • Sightline in action: A major US utility used Sightline to evaluate power generation solutions like nuclear, geothermal, renewables with storage, and abated gas to address rising energy demand from data centers and electrification. With Sightline’s data and industry expertise, it assessed the commercial, deliverability, and economic viability of these options and identified notable projects that could align with their strategy.
• 💸 Doing a deal – What are investable opportunities in the transition landscape that align with my strategy?
  • Sightline in action: Over 70 corporates, investors, and banks use Sightline to understand value chains and identify leading technologies, players, and projects to generate investable opportunities. 
    • A European energy company leveraged Sightline’s insights to partner with and invest in an enhanced geothermal company, supporting their renewable energy strategy.
    • A CVC used Sightline to pitch a turquoise hydrogen deal by benchmarking companies across the hydrogen landscape.  
    • A global investment bank uses Sightline daily to originate promising transition-focused companies hitting commercial milestones and investors to partner with across the Climate Capital Stack. 
• 📜 Designing a funding program – How can public funding bridge critical gaps for transition solutions to scale?
  • Sightline in action: A government agency used Sightline to identify transition sectors such as long-duration energy storage and low-carbon cement in need of public funding to catalyze private investment. It was able to identify high-impact projects and companies in its region to target providing funding programs.

The AI-powered Sightline edge 

And as the transition economy rapidly evolves, so do the tools to understand and take action. With this new wave of AI innovation and LLMs, there’s never been a better time to build actionable intelligence. Gone are the days of manually tracking datasets in spreadsheets and writing reports — now, we can integrate unstructured data and surface insights faster than ever before. 

But AI is only as effective as the frameworks that guide it — and that’s always been the Sightline edge. We’ve built the leading taxonomy, tracking over 600 transition sectors, that connects company, investment, project, and partnership data to give a real-time view of the market.

Then, layering on our research expertise, we distill the “so what”, through intelligence tools like the Sector Compass to navigate transition value chains and competitive landscapes, Notable Projects to go deeper into project case studies of what’s working (and what isn’t), and Sightlines to analyze key market events in real time. 

And we’re only just getting started. We’re building deeper AI-powered tools to help our customers monitor commercialization tipping points, evaluate tech and project economics, and ultimately know what’s real and what might work for them.  

Sightline doesn’t just provide data or analysis — we help our customers take action. Whether it’s identifying the next strategic move, finding the right partners, or making deals happen, we empower decision-makers with the intel and relationships they need to succeed in the transition economy. 

What’s next

We’re thrilled to partner with leading investors like The Westly Group and Molten Ventures to take Sightline to the next level. With expertise spanning the US and Europe, climate, and software, they’re a power duo that reflects the global scale and the interconnected physical and digital dimensions of the transition we’re accelerating. 

Now with $5.5m fresh in the tank, we’re building on our momentum and hitting the accelerator to provide a line of sight for key stakeholders at this critical moment in the transition. Want to join in the fun? Here’s how you can get involved: 

• Join the team. We’re hiring! We've got a long sales pipeline, super-engaged customers, and a product solving real challenges, but of course, we need the team to match. If you're passionate about shaping the next chapter of the transition, then join us. 
• Join the club. Whether you’re an investor, banker, corporate strategist, or policymaker, Sightline helps you think bigger, go deeper, and act faster. If you’re curious about what we do and how we can help, let’s talk! 

Thank you, as always, for following along our journey. And we’ll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled programming 🌎!

— Kim Zou and Mark Taylor, Co-Founders of Sightline