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Pre-Seed Angel Investment · Climate Tech · Construction Tech

Backing founders
enabling the
great transformations.

Terrae Capital is an angel investment vehicle focused on pre-seed startups developing foundational innovations in Climate Tech and Construction Tech. We bring more than capital — we bring operator experience from two decades inside the industry.

Connect With Us Our Focus

Investment Thesis

The adjacent enabler is the next
frontier of transformational investment.

The built environment is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions and one of the least digitized sectors in the global economy. That gap is where the most important entrepreneurial opportunities of the next decade will emerge. We back founders who are reimagining how the built environment is created, operated, and sustained.

01

Urgent Climate Pressure

Construction and infrastructure account for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. Regulation, capital markets, and customer demand are converging to force rapid decarbonization across the value chain.

02

Significant Modernization Gap

Construction remains one of the least digitized industries globally. Process inefficiency, fragmented data, and manual operations create structural opportunities for technology-enabled disruption.

03

Operator Edge

Our edge comes from operator experience. We have led businesses in construction materials, digital transformation, and sustainability across 50+ countries. We understand the industry from the inside — its decision cycles, its constraints, and where technology can genuinely unlock value.

04

Critical Supply Chain Gap

The electrification of the global economy depends on critical minerals — graphite, rare earths, nickel, lithium — overwhelmingly processed in geopolitically exposed supply chains. Diversification is both a strategic imperative and a structural investment opportunity.

Six Investment Domains

Six adjacent enabler domains.

◈

Climate Tech

Technologies directly reducing carbon emissions in materials, buildings, and industrial processes. Low-carbon cement, carbon capture, circular economy, bio-based materials.

Low-Carbon Materials Carbon Capture Circular Economy
◇

Construction Tech

Digitisation and automation of the construction value chain — material passports, AI generative design, B2B platforms, supply chain digitisation, and prefabrication technology.

Material Passports AI Design B2B Platforms
◉

Physical AI

AI foundation models that operate in physical environments — robotics, autonomous systems, computer vision for site inspection. Harder and less crowded than software AI.

Robotics Autonomous Systems Computer Vision
◎

Digital & Data

Digital transformation and strategic data monetisation across construction, industrial, and sustainability sectors. Carbon MRV, ESG reporting, supply chain transparency, data center efficiency.

Carbon MRV ESG Reporting Data Monetisation
◬

Energy & Storage

Next-generation energy generation and storage to power the transformation. Enhanced geothermal, SMRs, nuclear fusion, agrovoltaics, iron-air batteries. Primarily IPO Watch — strategic positioning.

Geothermal SMRs Long-Duration Storage
◐

Critical Materials

Supply chain security for the minerals required by the energy transition — graphite, rare earths, nickel, lithium. A structurally distinct thesis from energy generation.

Graphite Rare Earths Battery Recycling

Investment Criteria

What we look for
in a founder.

01

Early Traction

Functional prototypes or operational pilots. Exploratory agreements or letters of intent. Evidence that the idea has been tested against reality, not just designed on paper.

02

Domain-Deep Founders

Passion, experience, and transformative vision. Founders who understand the industry they are disrupting from the inside — not just the technology, but the customer, the market structure, and the decision cycle.

03

Strategic Clarity

A compelling narrative backed by technical and operational rigor. The ability to articulate what problem is being solved, for whom, and why this team is uniquely positioned to solve it.

04

Scalable Business Model

Business models with regional scalability and global vocation. We look for ventures where the unit economics improve with scale and where the path from pre-seed to Series A is legible.

Manuel Toro

The Founder

Manuel Toro

Founder & Managing Partner · Terrae Capital

Manuel Toro brings over 21 years of executive experience at a global leader in construction materials, where he led digital transformation, sustainability strategy, and commercial excellence across 50+ countries and 2,500+ people.

He led a sustainable product and solutions portfolio to $7.6B in revenue, with a Net Promoter Score of 74 against an industry average of 40, and a 15% reduction in Cost to Serve. He is an active member of Andes Angels and invests through Socialatom LLC and Tribu Tech Latam.

His academic formation includes graduate programs in management, innovation, and technology at MIT, sustainability strategy, and board governance at leading institutions in Europe and the Americas. He holds executive credentials from MIT, Stanford, INSEAD, IE Madrid, and LSE, among others.

21+
Years of experience
50+
Countries
$7.6B
Sustainable revenue led
74
NPS achieved

Get in Touch

Building something that
enables a more sustainable world?

We co-invest alongside Andes Angels, Socialatom LLC, and Tribu Tech Latam. If you are a founder at pre-seed or seed stage in one of our six domains — or a fellow investor — we would like to hear from you.

Thank you. We will be in touch shortly.