Halcyon Global Climate Accelerator

Benefits & funding

• An equity-free stipend per venture, paid in instalments that include payments before the residencies and at the end of the program. Halcyon does not publish the Global cohort’s figure on its current pages; its two other 2026 climate cohorts, in Africa and in Latin America & the Caribbean, each list a $6K equity-free stipend per venture plus $10K in Amazon Web Services credits.
• Two week-long in-person residencies in the United States. The 2024 and 2025 editions were hosted at Halcyon’s Washington, DC headquarters.
• Training in Halcyon’s methodology and founder workshops on product-market fit, capital strategy, scaling and leadership.
• Climate skill series and office hours covering climate and blended finance, non-dilutive funding and grant writing, impact and resilience metrics, financial modelling, go-to-market, and business development for clean energy, nature tech and water systems.
• Access to Halcyon’s expert network of advisors and leadership coaches, plus an alumni community of nearly 600 founders.
• Connections into Halcyon’s financing vehicles and investor network.

Eligibility

• For-profit ventures past the idea stage, with a working minimum viable product and users or paying customers.
• Impact embedded in the core business model — something that cannot be removed or sidelined — and aligned with one or more UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Founders working full-time on the venture, and able to attend every residency and program activity.
• Climate adaptation and resilience solutions: resilient infrastructure, disaster preparedness, adaptation finance, climate insurance, agriculture and food security, community resilience, water tech, nature-based solutions, the blue economy, energy resilience, and the climate-health intersection. Mitigation-only ventures fall outside the criteria, unless mitigation is a secondary benefit of adaptation and resilience work.
• Open to founders based anywhere. The global cohort takes ventures from the United States and from abroad.
• Across Halcyon’s 2026 climate cohorts, applicants must be at least 21 by the start of the program, fluent in English, and the venture’s CEO or primary decision-maker; one co-founder may apply alongside the lead applicant.

Application process

1. 1
   Submit Halcyon’s year-round eligibility form, which is open at any time and reviewed on a rolling basis. One form per venture covers every Halcyon program.
2. 2
   Wait for an invitation. When a matching program opens its multi-week call, eligible ventures receive an email invitation to a second-round application, with about two weeks to complete it.
3. 3
   Complete the invitational application, which asks for detail on the team, traction and impact.
4. 4
   Halcyon’s team scores the second-round applications and shortlists finalists.
5. 5
   Finalists pitch an external Selections Committee of subject-matter experts, which picks the cohort of up to 10 ventures.
6. 6
   Selected founders are notified by email and join the virtual program kickoff.

Program timeline

1. first Global Climate cohort, eight ventures, residency in Washington, DC

   2024

2. June to August 2025

   2025 edition hosted at Halcyon’s Washington, DC headquarters

3. eligibility applications for the 2026 cohort closed; Halcyon has since removed the 2026 cycle page from its site

   Jan 15, 2026

4. April to September 2026

   the 2026 cohort runs

5. invitations for the next Global Climate cohort; the eligibility form stays open year-round

   Expected late 2026 to early 2027