Melinda French Gates puts $1 billion behind women’s power; her investments back overlooked women tackling climate change |

Melinda French Gates is committing $1 billion through 2026 to advance women’s power and influence, while her investment platform is backing women-led funds working on climate solutions. Through Pivotal Ventures, Gates has invested in Planeteer Capital, a climate-tech fund led by Sophie Purdom that backs early-stage companies developing solutions to climate change. The investment comes at a time when women remain heavily underrepresented in climate-tech finance. PwC found that solo female founders accounted for just 5.28% of climate-tech deals and received 1.14% of the funding in the first nine months of 2024. Gates’s approach puts greater attention on both the women receiving capital and those helping decide where investment flows.

Melinda French Gates’s $1 billion commitment

Gates announced the additional $1 billion commitment in May 2024 as part of her next chapter of philanthropy. The money is being committed through 2026 to advance women’s power and influence globally. Pivotal said the funding would support organisations working to remove barriers for women in the workplace, advance women’s rights and power, improve women’s health and strengthen the wider funding ecosystem. The commitment also includes partnerships with a diverse group of global leaders. It is part of Gates’s broader focus on giving women greater ability to make decisions, control resources and shape policies and perspectives.The climate connection comes through Pivotal Ventures, which operates as the investment arm of Pivotal. Unlike Pivotal’s charitable grantmaking, its investments are designed to support funds and companies while seeking financial returns. Pivotal says its investment strategy looks for opportunities where traditional capital has overlooked founders and fund managers. It has specifically backed women-led funds as part of an effort to change who controls investment capital and which ideas receive funding.

Sophie Purdom

Planeteer brings the climate connection

Planeteer Capital is one of the clearest examples of that strategy. Pivotal’s investment portfolio lists the fund as an active investment focused on technology startups pursuing innovative solutions to climate change. The fund is led by Sophie Purdom and invests at the early stages of climate technology. Its areas of focus include food and land use, manufacturing, buildings and climate-risk mitigation and adaptation.Planeteer closed its first fund at $54 million in 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal. Pivotal Ventures was among the investors in the fund. The fund gives early-stage climate companies access to capital while putting a woman-led investment firm in a position to decide which emerging technologies deserve backing.

Women remain overlooked in climate-tech funding

Women continue to receive a small share of climate-tech investment despite their growing presence in the sector. PwC analysed more than 12,000 startups and found that solo female founders secured 5.28% of climate-tech deals but only 1.14% of funding in the first nine months of 2024. Male-only founding teams received 91.56% of the funding. Female-founded businesses also showed a strong focus on climate adaptation. More than one-third of their deals involved adaptation, while nearly half of the funding raised by solo female founders went to adaptation and resilience solutions. Food, agriculture and land use were among their leading areas of activity.

Putting women in control of climate investment

The funding gap also extends to investment decision-making. The International Finance Corporation says women hold only 11% of senior positions in private equity and venture capital firms in emerging markets. Pivotal has sought to address this imbalance by investing in women-led funds since 2018. In 2024, it said it had backed 20 women-led firms managing about $5 billion in assets. Planeteer Capital, led by Sophie Purdom, is one example. The climate-tech fund received backing from Pivotal Ventures and invests in early-stage companies developing climate solutions. By supporting women as both fund managers and entrepreneurs, Pivotal is seeking to increase women’s influence over where climate capital flows.