Climate-tech procurement cycles — why your B2B sale takes 18 months

Stage 4 — Procurement (3-6 months). Once the technical evaluation is positive, the deal moves to procurement. RFI, RFP, vendor onboarding, legal review, MSA negotiation, security review. This is where deals stall most.

Stage 5 — Budget alignment (timing-dependent). The deal is approved but the budget sits in next fiscal year. Often 3-9 months of waiting.

Stage 6 — Close + onboarding (1-2 months). Signature, kickoff, deployment. Anti-climactic after the previous 12-18 months.

Total: 12-18 months for most climate-tech enterprise deals. Some close faster; some take 24+ months.

What compresses the cycle

• Strong internal champion who can navigate the org. This is the single biggest variable. Found a champion who can navigate procurement faster? You're at 9-12 months. No champion? You're at 24+.
• Established reference customer in their industry. A peer who's already deployed dramatically accelerates technical evaluation. "Company X is using this" beats any deck.
• Pilot programme with defined success criteria. Joint planning of "if we hit these metrics in 90 days, we go to full deployment" pre-aligns expectations. Removes the "let's keep evaluating" trap.
• Procurement-friendly contract terms. MSAs already aligned with the customer's standard terms, security questionnaires answered preemptively, DPAs ready. Procurement is rejection-by-default; preemptive answers move it forward.
• Aligning to their fiscal year. Position deals to land Q1 budgets (US), April UK, July JP, etc. Forcing a Q3 close in a customer's slow quarter doesn't accelerate it.

What lengthens the cycle (avoid these)

• Selling to the wrong stakeholder first. Going through sustainability when finance has to approve the cheque means you've added a stakeholder rather than removed one.
• Pilot scope creep. Pilots that expand beyond original scope take 2-3x as long without producing better proof.
• Custom contract terms. Every redline at every customer creates a 4-12-week delay. Standardised contracts that 80% of customers accept beats bespoke contracts.
• Disappearing during evaluation. The customer's enthusiasm peaks at conversation 3 and decays from there. Weekly cadence even when "nothing's happening" keeps the deal alive.

What to model financially

• Sales cycle: 12-18 months for enterprise (climate-tech-specific; longer than general SaaS).
• [CAC payback](/glossary/payback-period): 18-30 months post-close, depending on contract size.
• Win rate from qualified pipeline: 15-25% for early-stage climate-tech.
• Cash conversion: customers often pay annually upfront, which improves your cash position even on long-cycle deals.

The implication: at any given quarter, your active pipeline should be ~4-6x your quarterly revenue target. Founders who run 1-2x pipeline coverage routinely miss because climate-tech cycles slip.

What to do today

1. Map every active enterprise deal to its current stage. If you can't, you don't have a sales process yet.
2. Identify the strongest champion in each deal. If you don't have one, the deal is at the early end of the cycle regardless of how many conversations have happened.
3. Standardise contract terms now, before the first enterprise close. Custom-per-deal is 2-3x slower in aggregate.
4. Plan budget alignment with customer fiscal years. Some deals can't close on your preferred timeline; better to know now than at the moment.