Press Release: Leading investors join international taskforce to curb climate change

AMSTERDAM, 5 JANUARY 2021

During a summit organised by Techleap.nl, leading investors agreed to join a taskforce to engage in international collaboration to curb climate change. The taskforce consists of a diverse group of investors with long-standing experience in the European venture market. Institutional investors, with a longer-term horizon, as well as public investors, will participate to build a framework to invest capital in innovations and technologies that bring long term solutions to the market. Additionally, best practices will be developed for public and private capital to be deployed where the largest impact on the climate and economy can be achieved.

Europe, and the Netherlands in particular, is home to a great number of startups and scaleups that relentlessly work towards curbing climate change. It is crucial that they are able to scale their solutions and ideas across borders. The Dutch government, and other governments across Europe, have released capital to support innovative growth companies. This will give a boost to the capital market, but more financing is needed and private investors must also be attracted to new initiatives. Techleap.nl research shows that lack of capital is the main reason preventing energy companies from growing and the recently published Atomico State Of European Tech 2020 report shows similar findings - 46 % of European tech founders cited access to capital as their main challenge in 2020.

To strengthen collaboration, co-investments, and growth in Europe, Techleap.nl will organise the taskforce around three main pillars; 1) LP/GP Co-investment framework, 2) Talent for Growth and 3) EU Tech IPO’s. A set of best practices and a framework will be developed for increased collaboration and capital deployment into start-ups and technologies that help to flatten the climate curve. 

Parties that have already committed to the taskforce and will contribute through investment, insights, and lessons learned are: Bootstrap Europe; a lender that supports thriving industries across the globe, growth accelerator and impact investor Brabant Development Agency (BOM), global early-stage venture firm DN Capital, HPE Growth; a leading pan-European private equity firm focused on expansion/growth capital investments in technology companies, Invest-NL; a private impact investor committed to businesses and projects that will make the Netherlands more sustainable and innovative, MN; on behalf of the pension funds PMT and PME, one of the largest pension administrators and asset managers in the Dutch pension market, lifecycle financier InnovationQuarter, Rabobank’s Captive Investment Fund, a global life cycle investor focussing on building better and more sustainable food value chains, support of transitions to curb climate change and a more effective and efficient healthcare system; Rabo Corporate Investments, and international venture capital firm Vickers Venture Partners. 

The taskforce is a direct result of The Flattening the Climate Curve LP/GP Investor Summit, where the world's largest investors came together to mobilise smart capital and to improve the growth climate for the Dutch and the European tech ecosystem, sparked by insights shared by Larry Fink, Chairman, and CEO of BlackRock and Rebecca Henderson, Professor, Author, and Authority on Reimagining Capitalism. 

During the summit, Larry Fink, Chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, said: “The absence of a significant tech industry in Europe has far-reaching repercussions for its long-term growth, but also for its dependence on other nations to provide key technologies. Today, more than ever, we need capital to finance sustainable innovation. Meeting these goals requires major investments to transition the European economy towards a carbon-neutral structure. European savers will need to become investors. The “sleeping money” in Europe needs to be awakened and put to work in productive investments.”

“Despite a global pandemic, we should not overlook other impending threats, such as climate change. As investors, we need to be addressing this crisis with urgency”, Maurice van Tilburg, Managing Director Techleap.nl, added: “Currently there is not enough funding available in Europe for tech startups flattening the climate curve, and we believe that the capital that is available can be allocated in a smarter way. In the taskforce, we connect national and international investors to help companies in this segment accelerate and maximise their impact."

Wouter Bos, CEO Invest-NL, said: “The current Covid-19 pandemic is only a temporary set-back with little or no effect on the fundamental transition towards a carbon neutral and circular economy. As an impact investor, we finance the technologies that enable this transition in the long run. With this taskforce we mobilise the capital and impact knowledge to further accelerate innovations on an international scale.”

Watch the video recording of the Flattening the Climate Curve LP/GP Investor Summit here. 

Join the taskforce initiative here.