Another week, another venture fund focused on climate change. Last week, Wind closed its first round of EUR90 million. This week, Blackhorn Ventures closed a final close of $150 million.
Climate change is a major threat to humanity, and the rise of climate funds will no doubt continue to be a hot topic. We have created a dedicated webpage to house all our climate-related articles, as well our exclusive listing of the 55 climate-focused venture fund raised since 2022.
We update the master listing whenever new data is available. We have updated the fundraising total for Blackhorn and added several LPs, thanks to new reporting by affiliate Private Markets.
Blackhorn Ventures Industrial Impact Fund II has closed, bringing our total fundraising for the year to date to nearly $4.8 Billion raised by 17 funds. This compares to the $5.2 billion collected in 2023 by 26 climate funds.
See our list of 2024 climate fundraisers for a running total of funds raised in this year alone.
Since we began tracking climate fundraising in 2022, we’ve identified 55 funds which have raised more than $13.4billion.
Blackhorn’s fundraising was slower than other funds on our listing and it missed the $250 million target that it set in a filing at the time it began fundraising in May 2022. We’re trying to arrange a meeting with one of the partners of the firm to gain more insight into the process.
Kotch, in the meantime, told Venture Capital Journal by email: “This a great time to be on the market with a fund. In the past, when raising money is difficult, great venture vintages and iconic companies have been born. We feel this is the case with IIF II.”
Blackhorn believes that it is unique in its efforts to reduce industrial decarbonization by capital-light and asset light AI and software companies. Kotch told NPM in an interview that “most of the global GDP consists of industries with physical infrastructure that have not been digitalized yet.” This is a “low hanging” fruit for introducing efficiencies into industrial processes to reduce their carbon emission. “We think that there is a significant decarbonization prize you can unlock without ripping and replacing all of the existing hardware in an facility.”
Last week, we added a new firm to our list: Wind, a French venture capital firm, which is targeting EUR130 for its climate-focused fund, Wind Capital Fund II. According to our article on its first close, the firm’s LPs are BPI France and BNPParibas Asset Management.
Going deep
The new fund targets European deep tech start ups in the climate sector, at the seed or series A stage. It will invest in such areas as food, mobility, air quality, energy, and security. It is being promoted under Article 9 Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
In a statement regarding the first close, co-founder and partner Thierry Vandewalle said: “The final closure is expected to occur in 2025. So there is still space for new strategic investors to add their value to what promises to an exceptional journey.”
Vandewalle said that most of Wind’s investors are entrepreneurs. However, the firm is looking beyond this group. We are trying set up a phone call with Wind’s partner to get more information about the types institutional investors Wind is looking for and what the market is saying.
The efforts of VCs to find a solution for climate problems are just beginning. Stay up-to-date by keeping an eye on our new Climate page.