Global Fund closes first fund for climate change technical assistance with more than $300 million

European climate technology investment firm Global Fund has closed its fund at 300 million euros ($320 million) in preparation for investment expansion.

The Berlin-based fund was first announced in 2021 and has steadily raised capital from sources including the European Investment Fund.

Other investors in the now-closed fund include KfW Capital, BPI France, PwC Germany and a number of pension funds.

Managing partner Daniel Bycevic said raising capital for the fund was difficult given the broader downturn in the technology industry seen over the past two years.

“Last year was really tough. Things looked bright.” [in 2021]It was difficult to get the first investors when we started, but once we got the investors, who were mainly high net worth, it was relatively easy to convince even institutional investors like the European Investment Fund to invest. “I did,” he said.

“We closed the European Investment Fund. War had already broken out in Ukraine, interest rates were starting to rise, and the environment was becoming increasingly difficult. The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank I have to say it really hurt the whole market.”

The €300 million fund is now closed and the Global Fund will focus on investing in start-ups that can support carbon emissions reduction goals.

The fund is not sector-specific and will only invest in companies that can significantly reduce emissions in that sector. Investments include supporting food startups like Planet A Foods and investing in the quantum computing space with IQM Quantum Computer.

The Global Fund will set aside a portion of its capital for follow-on investments, investing in seed and Series A stage companies.

Vicevic said the Global Fund would also address the so-called “Series B valley of death,” which refers to the lack of capital for companies in capital-intensive scaling stages.

“Unfortunately, these challenges are huge, especially in Europe, because European funds still lack two things: one is the amount of capital, and venture capital is too small. That’s also why we started our first fund at this size. “If you don’t prepare for follow-on investments and you don’t have the capital, climate change technology will die at Series B,” he said. said.

“But the second thing is also that we in Europe don’t understand that hardware is scalable. We’re very focused on software, and anything we don’t understand is We don’t invest, so we need engineers, chemists, etc. We also have scientists on board.”

He said the Global Fund’s team includes people with engineering and scientific backgrounds who help vet investments as part of a rigorous due diligence process focused on their ability to reduce emissions.

Visevic runs the fund with Daria Sakharova, Tim Schumacher and Craig Douglas. They plan to make 25 to 30 investments over the life of this fund.

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