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GLOBAL BUSINESS INNOVATORS LAUNCH $ 1 BILLION INVESTMENT FUND FOR NEXT GENERATION ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES
Recently, members of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition( BEC) have committed to invest more than $ 1 billion in Breakthrough Energy Ventures( BEV), an investor-led fund that will finance emerging energy breakthroughs to deliver affordable and reliable energy with the goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero.
About Breakthrough Energy Ventures
T he world is demanding more energy and goods than ever before, bringing about new opportunities for economic growth, but also increasing pressure on our climate. Successfully navigating this dynamic requires a combination of new tools and solutions to help scale the most promising technologies we have recently. Breakthrough Energy Ventures will collaborate with other investors, governments, research institutions and corporate partners, bringing to the table an investor-led fund with internal scientific expertise, a long-term horizon, and a tolerance and understanding of the investment risks required to transform energy markets. The mission, experience and global networks of BEV investors will allow it to attract the best scientists, entrepreneurs, and private sector experts to guide the fund’ s trajectory. BEV is not confined to any segment of the investment pipeline— it will build companies, engage in traditional venture investment,
“ It is extremely exciting for us to launch this fund as the next step in the commitment made by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition last year. I am honored to work along with these investors to build on the powerful foundation of public investment in basic research. Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissionsfree energy to the world.”
-Bill Gates, BEV Chairman
and have the ability to invest for growth as innovations mature. Today’ s announcement continues the commitments made by these investors when the BEC was launched last year alongside Mission Innovation, an international collaboration to accelerate the pace of clean energy innovations through smart government investment. BEV will help build companies based on the promising technologies that come out of these countries’ scaled-up public research pipelines. In addition to the formation of the BEV, the BEC today shared its“ Landscape of Innovation,” which illustrates the universe of technologies that public and private investors might support in order to lead us to a world of zero carbon emissions. The Landscape will serve not only as a tool for the BEV to guide investment focus, but also as a guide for other public and private investors committed to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The scale of the challenge and the size of the opportunity presented by the global energy market will require investments far beyond the resources of the BEV. It will take the efforts of governments and investors from around the world.
Because of the size of the challenges and opportunities, the launch of the BEV and sharing of the landscape is just the initial step for Breakthrough Energy. In the future it will explore how the coalition can help organize an ecosystem of investment by engaging strategic corporate partners to coordinate expertise and capital to move these technologies forward. Led by our partners at the University of California, we will engage a similar network of international research institutions to develop an investment pipeline of projects as well as identify other investment partnership opportunities.
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EQ December 2016 www. EQMagPro. com