Speedinvest Launches €80M Fund To Back European Climate Tech Startups

Speedinvest

Speedinvest, a Vienna, Austria-based early-stage investor, has launched a new €80m Climate & Industry Opportunity fund.

With a final close scheduled in Q2 2022, cornerstone investors in the fund include US-based New Enterprise Associates (NEA), technology company KNAPP, plastics and foam supplier Greiner AG and HEINZEL GROUP, Central Europe’s leading producer of pulp and paper. 

The fund will primarily provide long-term support for Speedinvest’s existing sustainability-oriented startups, while also targeting selected non-portfolio startups that are accelerating European industry’s efforts to digitize and decarbonize.

The fund will conduct follow-on funding for Speedinvest’s existing and growing portfolio of sustainability-focused investments, including TWAICE, Planetly, Sylvera, Greyparrot, and One.Five.

The new vehicle will back these innovative companies through co-investments in new rounds via Speedinvest’s existing pro-rata rights, allowing them to scale further and help Europe achieve its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Speedinvest’s Climate & Industry Opportunity fund has already invested in two of Speedinvest’s existing portfolio companies, including:

  • a €40m Series B round in mid-November in Packhelp, a Warsaw, Poland-based packaging platform  that produces two-thirds of its products from recycled materials and supports customers in minimizing the amount of packaging used for shipments and
  • a Series D round in TIER Mobility, furthering their efforts to reduce pollution in cities by providing clean alternatives to traditional transportation.

In addition to joining growth rounds of Speedinvest’s existing portfolio the Climate & Industry Opportunity fund will selectively co-invest with top tier funds in later stage rounds of new startups that are creating the technologies to help the industrial sector digitize, decarbonize and improve its sustainability performance.

All of the fund’s cornerstone strategic limited partners (LPs) will get exclusive access to Speedinvest’s corporate investor program. This grants access to the deal flow of relevant startups, introductions to Speedinvest’s startups and to their technologies and insights into developing technology trends. In addition, cornerstone investors will have access to a comprehensive events program that includes exclusive networking opportunities and startup demo days.

Led by Marie-Helene Ametsreiter, General Partner, Speedinvest is an early-stage venture capital firm with more than €600M AuM and 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Vienna and San Francisco. Its sector-focused teams are the first to fund Europe’s most innovative technology startups and our in-house operational experts are on-hand to offer founders ongoing support with growth, HR, US market expansion, and more. The firm has invested in Wefox, Bitpanda, TIER Mobility, GoStudent, Curve, CoachHub, Schüttflix, TourRadar, Adverity, and Twaice, which are among its portfolio of 250+ companies. 

FinSMEs

30/11/2021