All Aboard Coalition Closes $133M Climate Tech FOAK Fund
TL;DR
All Aboard Coalition, the co-investment vehicle founded by former TED curator Chris Anderson and Partners Capital founder Stan Miranda, has closed its inaugural fund at $133 million, well short of its original $300 million target. The coalition doesn't invest like a traditional single-GP fund; it matches checks from its own pool of committed capital alongside deals already backed by at least three of its 13-plus member VC firms (Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, and others representing more than $60 billion in combined AUM), targeting the $100 million-plus rounds that fund a climate tech company's first commercial-scale plant. It matters because the shortfall against target, closing at roughly 44% of goal, is one of the clearest data points yet that even a coalition backed by some of the biggest names in climate investing is finding this a genuinely difficult fundraising environment for capital-intensive first-of-a-kind climate infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
The coalition model is a structural answer to a real capital gap, not a marketing gimmick. The "valley of death" All Aboard targets is well understood in climate tech: pilot-stage funding is available from early-stage VCs, and later growth capital exists once a technology is de-risked, but the first commercial-scale plant, the project that actually proves a technology works at scale, is too large for early-stage funds and too risky for growth or project-finance investors. By pooling capital that automatically co-invests once three or more member firms commit to a deal, All Aboard is trying to solve a coordination problem, not just a capital problem.
Missing the target by more than half is the real headline, not the $133 million raised. A coalition anchored by Vinod Khosla, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and a roster of climate-focused funds representing over $60 billion in AUM should, in theory, have an easier time hitting a fundraising target than almost anyone else in the category. That it landed at 44% of its $300 million goal is a meaningful signal about how much LP appetite for capital-intensive, long-duration climate infrastructure has cooled, particularly as federal climate funding support in the US has pulled back over the same period.
This is co-investment capital, not lead-investor capital, and that changes how founders should think about it. All Aboard doesn't source or lead its own deals. It matches checks once a critical mass of its member VCs has already committed. That makes it a capital multiplier for deals that already have strong VC conviction behind them, useful, but structurally different from a fund a founder would pitch directly and expect to lead a round.
The portfolio so far, Zanskar and Terra CO2, tells you exactly what "ready to scale" means in practice. Zanskar's $115 million Series C in January 2026 for geothermal exploration and Terra CO2's commercial-scale green cement plant in May 2026 are both capital-intensive, physical-infrastructure bets, exactly the profile that struggles to raise from either early-stage VC or traditional project finance. That's the coalition's thesis working as designed, even if the fund itself came up short of target.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: All Aboard Fund (run by All Aboard Coalition)
Fund Size: $133 million closed (against an original $300 million target)
Stage: Growth/scale-up — specifically first-of-a-kind (FOAK) commercial deployment financing
Check Size: Co-invests into rounds typically sized $100–200 million or more, matching capital already committed by 3+ coalition members
Geography: Global, with disclosed portfolio activity concentrated in the US
Focus: Long-duration energy storage, geothermal, nuclear, carbon capture, clean hydrogen, and marine decarbonization
Key LPs: Not a traditional LP base — capital is anchored by, and co-invests alongside, a coalition of 13+ climate-focused investment firms, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, Ara Partners, Clean Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Future Ventures, Gigascale Capital, NGP Energy Capital Management, Obvious Ventures, Prelude Ventures, and Spring Lane Capital, publicly reported to represent more than $60 billion in combined AUM
Why This Fund Matters
Climate tech's "missing middle" problem has been discussed for years, but All Aboard is one of the more structurally interesting attempts to actually solve it rather than just fund around its edges. Instead of trying to be the biggest single check-writer, the coalition built a mechanism where its capital only deploys once a deal has already cleared the bar of three or more sophisticated climate investors independently choosing to back it. That's a genuinely different underwriting model than a traditional fund, and it's specifically designed to reduce the coalition's own diligence burden while still deploying into the highest-conviction deals in the category.
The shortfall against the $300 million target deserves more scrutiny than most coverage of this close has given it. This is not an unknown emerging manager struggling to build a track record; it's a coalition with Vinod Khosla and Breakthrough Energy Ventures at the table, launched with real fanfare at a September 2025 convening in Half Moon Bay. If a vehicle with that level of credibility and that combined LP-adjacent firepower still landed at less than half its target, that's a strong signal the broader capital markets have gotten meaningfully more cautious about capital-intensive, multi-year climate infrastructure bets, independent of any one fund's execution.
Some of that caution is almost certainly downstream of US policy. All Aboard's own public materials have explicitly framed its mission around "federal funding falling," a direct reference to the pullback in US government climate support that's been underway through 2026. When public capital retreats from de-risking early commercial deployments, private capital typically demands a higher risk premium to fill the gap, and a $167 million shortfall against target is roughly what that higher risk premium looks like in practice.
Still, $133 million of dedicated FOAK co-investment capital, even short of plan, is a real and useful pool for the category. The alternative for most climate tech companies at this stage has been stitching together strategics, sovereign wealth, and project finance debt on a deal-by-deal basis with no dedicated coordinating capital at all. All Aboard existing, even undersized, is better than the coordination vacuum that preceded it.
The Team
Chris Anderson, the longtime curator of TED, is the coalition's convenor and public face, drawing on TED's convening power to bring climate investors into the same room in the first place. Stan Miranda, founder of the London-based investment firm Partners Capital, co-founded the coalition and brings the institutional LP relationships and operational infrastructure needed to run a pooled co-investment vehicle. Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, is one of the coalition's earliest and most vocal anchor backers, along with investor John Arnold; both are member-firm principals lending credibility and capital rather than serving as day-to-day GPs of the All Aboard vehicle itself. Jay Dessy has been publicly quoted representing the coalition on deal activity, though the coalition's own materials are not explicit about a formal GP structure in the way a traditional single-firm fund would be, consistent with its member-coalition design.
Early Portfolio
All Aboard has disclosed two co-investments to date. In January 2026, it participated in Zanskar's $115 million Series C alongside coalition members to back the Salt Lake City-based geothermal exploration and development company. In May 2026, it backed Terra CO2, a green cement startup building its first commercial-scale production plant, with the specific check size undisclosed.
What This Means for Founders
This capital is not for founders shopping a first institutional round. It's specifically built for climate tech companies that have already proven their technology at pilot scale and are raising the $100 million-plus round needed to build a first commercial plant, and that already have genuine conviction from at least a few of All Aboard's member firms. If you're in that position, in geothermal, long-duration storage, carbon capture, clean hydrogen, nuclear, or marine decarbonization, All Aboard is worth understanding as a potential capital multiplier once you have lead investors from within its member network engaged.
If you're earlier than that, the more useful move is building relationships directly with the member firms themselves, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, and the rest, since it's their independent conviction that triggers All Aboard's capital in the first place, not a direct pitch to the coalition.
Fund Momentum Take
We're genuinely torn on this one. The coalition-matching model is one of the more thoughtful structural innovations we've seen in climate tech fund design in the last few years, and solving a coordination problem rather than just a capital problem is the right instinct for a category where too much money has historically been spread too thin across too many uncoordinated bets. That part of the thesis is sound and probably worth other categories borrowing from.
But a $133 million close against a $300 million target, from a coalition with this much combined firepower and credibility behind it, is not a footnote. It's the most important data point in this story. Either LP appetite for FOAK climate infrastructure capital has cooled more sharply than the coalition anticipated when it set the target in 2025, or the mechanics of getting capital committed to a shared vehicle (versus each firm just writing its own bigger check) are harder to execute at scale than the model's elegance suggests. Both are plausible, and founders relying on this pool of capital should plan for it to be thinner and more selective than the original $300 million framing implied.
Our bet: All Aboard's model survives and likely gets replicated in other capital-intensive categories (grid infrastructure and advanced manufacturing both have similar missing-middle dynamics), but this specific fund will need a stronger second close, or a second vintage that actually hits target, before we'd call the coalition-matching structure proven at the scale climate tech's capital gap actually requires.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does All Aboard's co-investment model actually work?
The coalition's capital automatically matches checks into a deal once at least three of its 13-plus member VC firms have independently committed to invest, functioning as a capital multiplier for deals that already have strong backing rather than sourcing and leading its own investments.
Why did the fund close so far below its $300 million target?
The coalition has publicly linked the shortfall to a tougher fundraising environment for capital-intensive climate infrastructure, compounded by a pullback in US federal climate funding support during 2026. The exact split between market conditions and coalition-specific execution challenges is not disclosed.
Is All Aboard a traditional venture capital fund?
Not in the traditional single-GP sense. It's best understood as a member coalition and co-investment vehicle: 13-plus climate-focused VC and investment firms, representing more than $60 billion in combined AUM, that pool a portion of committed capital to match deals its members already believe in.
What stage and check sizes does All Aboard target?
It focuses on first-of-a-kind (FOAK) commercial-scale deployment financing, typically co-investing into rounds of $100 million to $200 million or more, well beyond typical early-stage VC check sizes and squarely in the "missing middle" between venture and project finance.
What has All Aboard invested in so far?
Two disclosed co-investments: Zanskar, a geothermal exploration company, as part of its $115 million Series C in January 2026, and Terra CO2, a green cement startup, in May 2026.
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