What Does SET100 Recognition Do for a Startup?

What impact does being part of the SET100 community really have for startups? 

Getting a climate-tech startup funded can be notoriously difficult. The technologies take time to develop, capital requirements are high, and investors often lack the tools to assess the quality of deep-tech innovations. While governments traditionally respond by offering public grants, a growing body of evidence suggests that credible, expert recognition (independent of any direct financial prize) can help mobilize private capital. 

To understand this dynamic, a new analysis was conducted by the SET Global Innovation Platform Team at the German Energy Agency (dena), developed in close academic collaboration with the Professorship of Innovation and Technology Management at TUM Campus Straubing. Examining five cohorts of SET Award applicants from 2020 to 2024, the study examines whether SET100 recognition may act as a market signal to private investors. 

The findings contribute to a broader global conversation: To what extent do non-structured endorsements by independent experts influence venture success? To what extent does structured endorsement by independent experts help unlock capital for promising early-stage startups?  

Demystifying the SET100 Selection Process 

To understand why this recognition might carry weight in the ecosystem, it helps to look at the evaluation process behind the list. 

Each year, dena’s global innovation platform opens applications to climate-tech startups worldwide for their SET Award within five categories: Buildings & Construction, Clean Energy & Storage, Industry, Mobility & Transportation, and Quality Energy Access & SDG-7. A third-party partner, ScaleX, conducts an initial screening of all eligible applicants to narrow the field. These startups are then evaluated by a jury of approximately 50 independent experts drawn from venture capital firms, energy corporates, research institutions, policy makers and international organisations. 

Each judge independently scores candidates across ten core business and technical criteria: business model clarity, innovative quality, sustainability, diversity, team composition, scalability, technology adoptability, product development plans, revenue realism, and financial outlook. The top 100 high-scoring startups form the annual SET100 List, gaining access to dena’s global network of over 70 international partners, investor matchmaking and the annual SET Tech Festival. 

What the Data Suggests 

Across the five cohorts analysed (2020-2024), baseline VC funding rates for applicants were 23% at 12 months and 35% at 24 months. SET100 recognition was associated with a 14.4 percentage higher probability of VC funding at 12 months, and 18.0 percentage points at 24 months. In other words: at a baseline roughly 1 in 4 applicants received VC funding within a year, among SET100 startups, that figure was closer to 2 in 5. However, from an analytical standpoint, establishing clean causal links remains challenging; these figures should be interpreted as indicative results rather than definitive proof. 

Interestingly, the effect on securing public grant funding was smaller, but still positive (6.1 and 8.5 percentage points at 12 and 24 months). This gap is consistent with the idea that SET100 recognition works mainly as a signal to private investors, rather than simply triggering further public funding, a leverage effect that makes low-cost recognition programmes highly relevant for ecosystem builders. 

Real-world trajectories from past cohorts reflect these data patterns: 

• Frankfurt-based solar startup ENVIRIA, SET100 class of 2022, had no prior institutional VC backing. Three months after the award, it closed a €22.5M Series A led by Redalpine and Galileo Green Energy, with BNP Paribas Développement and Alter Equity also participating [1]. ENVIRIA’s own announcement listed SET100 membership alongside the round. 

• Reverion, a TUM spin-out developing reversible biogas power plants and also part of the 2022 cohort, raised its very first funding round, a €7M seed led by Extantia Capital [2], just three months after the award; the company had been founded that same year. 

• UK-based NanoSUN, recognised in 2021, had no prior institutional equity investors and raised a £12M Series A led by HydrogenOne Capital Growth, with strategic investor Westfalen Group joining [3], nine months after the award to scale manufacturing of its mobile hydrogen refuelling stations. 

• Danish EV charging platform Monta, also from the 2021 cohort, had raised only a small pre-seed before closing a €15M Series A with Creandum and Headline in January 2022 [4], ten months post-award. 

• Dutch battery innovator LeydenJar Technologies, likewise in the 2021 cohort, secured a €22M Series A in August 2021 [5], five months post-award, from a consortium including YARD ENERGY, Catalus Capital, and Invest-NL. 

None of these funding rounds can be attributed to a single certificate. Market conditions, technology readiness, and the individual execution of each founding team are always the primary drivers. Still, these examples are consistent with the aggregate findings. 

Who Benefits Most? 

The most striking insight from the analysis concerns first-time fundraisers. 

For startups with no prior funding, SET100 recognition was associated with a 21.1 percentage point higher probability of VC funding at 12 months after being selected, rising to 22.8 percentage points at 24 months. For startups that already had investor backing, the estimated effect was 6.2 percentage points and not statistically significant, a pattern that also persisted at 24 months (13.1 percentage points, not significant).  

The mechanism behind this is straightforward: when an independent panel of venture capitalists, corporate partners, and technical experts thoroughly vets an early-stage company, it provides institutional validation. For startups who lack a track record or prior investor relationships, this independent stamp of quality bridges the credibility gap where information scarcity is highest.