Some of the biggest players in the tech world have united to create a “new economic revolution” with renewable energy, launching a multibillion dollar venture capital fund to invest in clean energy technologies.
Launched overnight to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the coalition consists of 25 high profile investors from 10 countries, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff.
It will focus on technologies that could help climate change and other environmental issues, and are “dramatically more efficient, scalable or cheaper”, as GeekWire reports.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition will invest in early-stage, “novel” technologies that could help “transition the world to a near zero emissions energy future”.
Its purpose is to fill the gaps in funding for these clean energy technologies and help commercialise research from public institutions, and well focus on seed and Series A rounds.
“Our primary goal with the Coalition is as much to accelerate progress on clean energy as it is to make a profit,” Gates says.
“Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund,” Zuckerberg adds.
“Both have a role to play.”
The fund, which doesn’t have a set figure attached to it yet, will centre on electricity generation and storage, transportation, industrial use, agriculture and energy system efficiency.
According to its website, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition will “invest early, broadly, boldly, wisely and together”.
“Together we will focus on early-stage companies that have the potential of an energy future that produces near zero carbon emissions and provides everyone with affordable, reliable energy,” it says.
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Denham Sadler is a former editor of StartupSmart. He was previously a journalist at the publication and has worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, the Saturday Paper and the ABC. In his spare time he likes puns and jaffles.
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