You Won't Believe How $5.1M from JLL Foundation is Transforming Climate Startups—Find Out What’s at Stake!

Annual report highlights four-year impact across 62 companies and five continents

CHICAGO, March 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The JLL Foundation has taken a significant step in combating climate change by deploying its largest loan pool to date in 2025, investing over $5 million in innovative climate startups. This funding is part of the Foundation's ongoing commitment to accelerate solutions for a sustainable future, as highlighted in the newly released 2025 JLL Foundation Annual Report.

Since its inception in 2022, the JLL Foundation has made impactful strides, helping startups raise nearly $165 million in follow-on funding to scale carbon emission reduction solutions. This year’s report underscores an important validation of its unique circular funding model, which leverages repaid funds to enhance annual support. The Foundation received and redistributed $1 million in returned loans from 2022, allowing for increased investment capacity in 2025. Thus far, the JLL Foundation has invested more than $16.8 million in a total of 62 companies spanning five continents, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and China.

“Our zero-interest loans support a range of technologies and infrastructure-ready solutions to address climate change by decarbonizing the built environment, powering renewable energy transition and advancing the circular economy,” stated Erin Meezan, Executive Director of the JLL Foundation. She emphasized the importance of the Foundation's "beyond the loan" approach, which includes providing mentorship in business and marketing, further fostering founder independence and sustainable company growth.

In 2025, all investments supported by the Foundation contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Notably, 93% of the supported technologies focused on decarbonizing the built environment, while 37% targeted waste reduction. Among the promising climate startups in the 2025 cohort are:

• Calcarea: This company converts CO2 from cement kilns into stable oceanic bicarbonate using seawater and limestone, enabling permanent carbon storage without the need for pressurized pipelines or geological injection.
• Conry Tech: Their BullAnt system drastically reduces building HVAC energy use by 60-70%, avoiding approximately 1,500 tons of CO2 emissions annually per building.
• Calectra: This startup electrifies industrial heating up to 1800°C for steel, cement, and glass production, reducing manufacturing emissions by 35-76% and addressing 20% of global CO2 emissions.

“It’s encouraging to see early support translate into real progress over time,” Meezan reflected, citing the success of the biocarbon and carbon removal company Carba, which opened its first facility with initial funding from the Foundation. Since receiving support, Carba has successfully closed a $6 million fundraising round, demonstrating the value of early-stage investment at a pivotal moment in a company's development.

As these companies advance beyond initial development, the visibility of their progress in terms of securing further investments and achieving measurable climate outcomes becomes evident. For instance, early support has facilitated further investments in several companies across the JLL portfolio:

• Carbonwave (2022 cohort): This company secured a $3 million partnership with The World Bank Group and is transforming Caribbean coastal seaweed from an environmental issue into solutions that cut methane emissions and replace fossil fuels.
• Mati (2023 cohort): Winner of the $50 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, Mati now collaborates with over 16,000 smallholder farmers across India and Africa, creating economic opportunities while capturing carbon at scale.
• Novoloop (2024 cohort): Closed a $21 million Series B funding round. Founded by women, Novoloop specializes in transforming plastic waste into virgin-quality materials, embodying a true circular solution for plastic.

To learn more about the JLL Foundation's impact, visit foundation.jll.com.

About JLL Foundation
The JLL Foundation is dedicated to addressing climate change now and in the future. As a non-profit founded and backed by JLL, one of the largest global real estate companies committed to sustainability, the Foundation aims to be a catalyst for climate-impacting startups. For further information, visit foundation.jll.com.

About JLL
JLL (NYSE:JLL) is a leading global commercial real estate services and investment management company with annual revenue of $26.1 billion, operations in over 80 countries, and a global workforce of more than 113,000 as of December 31, 2025. For over 200 years, clients have trusted JLL to help them confidently buy, build, occupy, manage, and invest across various sectors. Driven by the purpose to shape the future of real estate for a better world, JLL focuses on providing coordinated, end-to-end delivery of real estate services for a broad range of global clients.