An APAC-first Lens for Climate Innovation
Australia often frames its climate innovation story in comparison to Silicon Valley or Europe. We benchmark ourselves against their venture models, unicorn metrics, and policy settings. We celebrate when local startups raise US-style rounds, or when our policies catch up to the EU.
But what if we’re looking the wrong way?
I saw this firsthand during my time in Singapore with Antler. The conversations, the capital flows, the urgency of demand in the region made it clear: Australia doesn’t just need to look west for climate leadership. The real momentum is much closer to home.
The overlooked region
Southeast Asia is in build mode, not retrofit mode. Entire energy systems, transport networks, and industrial bases are being shaped right now. That creates deployment pathways that are faster and more scalable than in mature economies where decarbonisation often means slow, costly retrofits.
The report notes that investors in the region are pragmatic, commercially minded, and often more receptive to hardware-intensive businesses than US-style venture capital. Asian family offices and corporates are already backing renewable infrastructure, grid upgrades, and clean fuels.
And yet, Australian founders remain fixated on the US. Why? Two reasons stand out:
Cultural bias – For decades, Australia’s startup scene has looked to Silicon Valley as the gold standard. Success is defined by billion-dollar “unicorns” (startups valued at $1B+) and rapid scaling, even though climate ventures often grow differently.
Structural inertia – Capital mandates, government programs, and even media coverage benchmark against Western models. This reinforces the idea that credibility flows from the US, even when demand and capital may lie closer to home.
The result: Asian capital, manufacturing depth, and customer bases are still largely overlooked.
Why this matters for climate tech
The APAC opportunity isn’t abstract. It’s structural:
Deployment speed – APAC markets are building new systems rather than retrofitting old ones.
Patient capital – Regional family offices and corporates often have longer horizons and different risk appetites than Western VCs.
Strategic demand – Customers in APAC are actively seeking clean fuels, renewable capacity, and low-carbon materials — not just commissioning pilots, but scaling real supply.
For climate hardware ventures — the ones building hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), or industrial decarbonisation solutions — this difference is crucial. Australia’s “missing middle” finance gap (too big for venture capital, too risky for infrastructure funds) is one hurdle. But the bigger question may be: are we aiming at the right markets in the first place?
Australia’s choice
If we stay narrowly focused on sovereign manufacturing and Western benchmarks, we risk squandering the regional opportunity on our doorstep.
An APAC-first mindset doesn’t mean abandoning domestic capability. It means seeing Australia as an anchor — a hub of research, renewable resources, and financial depth — that connects into regional supply chains and customer bases.
It means building the connective tissue:
Standards and traceability systems that interoperate across borders.
Partnerships linking Australian innovation with Southeast Asian deployment.
Investment structures that blend concessional Australian capital with patient regional capital.
From my own experience in Singapore, working with founders and investors through the Antler program, I saw how differently regional capital approaches climate tech. Investors and corporates in Asia were pragmatic, often more comfortable with hardware, and quicker to move when opportunities aligned with infrastructure build-out. That perspective shapes how I think about ZerraLedger — not as a tool just for Australian compliance, but as an interoperability bridge for the whole APAC ecosystem.
A lens for sustainable fuels
For sustainable fuels, the case is even clearer. Aviation demand growth is in Asia, not Europe. Shipping corridors run through Singapore, Manila, and Jakarta, not Silicon Valley. If we build fuel traceability systems only for Australian compliance, we’ll miss where the real growth lies.
ZerraLedger is built on this premise: interoperability matters. Trust in sustainable fuel markets won’t scale if it stops at national borders. From day one, the design challenge is regional. The question isn’t how we meet one country’s reporting scheme, but how we unlock trusted, liquid markets across APAC.
Closing reflection
Australia’s climate leadership won’t come from looking west. It will come from leaning into the region — from positioning ourselves not as a follower of US venture models, but as a bridge for APAC climate ecosystems.
We talk often about ambition, about whether Australia wants to be a climate leader. But leadership is not just about announcing targets. It’s about where you choose to place your gaze.
The capital is here. The demand is here. The urgency is here.
The only question is whether we’re willing to reframe where we look for it.