Most corporations at the moment acknowledge the significance of worldwide warming. As such, they’re redefining their objectives in an effort to handle the local weather change problem.
Envisioning Companions, a Seoul-based enterprise capital agency, has secured its newest affect fund, the oversubscribed $64 million (76.8 billion KRW) Envisioning Local weather Options (ECS) Fund, to again startups combating the local weather disaster.
Hyunjoo Je, managing associate of Envisioning Companions, informed TechCrunch that local weather change has been one of many main affect domains because the inception of Envisioning Companions.
“We determined to launch a 100% devoted fund for local weather options. We do not need a lot time left now to resolve the local weather downside and have to act quick [as we can] to assist our society higher put together for the large transitions forward,” Je stated.
The ECS fund is backed by South Korean companies dedicated to pursuing environmental, social and governance (ESG) and decarbonization targets and growing modern local weather options for a sustainable future, the corporate stated. The VC agency counts restricted companions like Hanwha Options, GS Holdings, IS Dongseo, Yesco Holdings, Hankuk Carbon, Insun ENT, Yellowdog Corp and Korean style platform startup Musinsa.
Je informed TechCrunch Envisioning desires to have extra collaborative work with strategic companies that see the local weather problem from a unique angle by way of investments.
“Local weather resolution is extra of an idea that encompasses the varied fields essential to reorganize current enterprise buildings from a long-term perspective,” Je informed TechCrunch. “Because the proportion of deep tech is excessive, extra time is required earlier than it’s utilized to the market. When launched, it’ll have a really massive affect on society, so complete assist is required. We’ll develop the scope of capital to assist know-how commercialization and enterprise progress and enhance the extent of cooperation between business buyers and specialists.”
“We have now seen sturdy progress in enterprise capital investments in local weather tech previously 5 years within the U.S. and China. This pattern has additional accelerated within the final 12 months. The shut relationships with company LPs in our fund will provide a transparent benefit,” Je stated in an announcement.
World enterprise capital and personal fairness companies invested $87.5 billion within the local weather know-how sector over H2 2020 and H1 2021, based on a report by PwC. The report additionally talked about the highest 5 applied sciences representing over 80% of the emissions discount: solar energy, wind energy, meals waste know-how, inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing and different meals/low greenhouse gasoline proteins.
Envisioning Companions, which now has $140 million in belongings underneath administration, is targeted on investing in Sequence A and Sequence B rounds. The ticket dimension will begin from about $1 million to five million. The enterprise capital agency expects its restricted companions to take part as co-investors for the follow-on investments.
Envisioning has been actively investing in local weather tech startups previously 5 years within the U.S., Korea and abroad.
Firms within the portfolio embody Novoloop, a California-based plastic upcycling know-how startup; Circ, a Virginia-based blended textile recycling know-how startup; Inexperienced Li-ion, a Singapore-based cleantech startup; Reco, a South Korean meals waste know-how platform; and Mission Barns, a California-based meals tech firm.
The enterprise capital agency is led by Hyunjoo Je and YongHyun Kim, managing associate of Envisioning and former CEO of Hanwha Asset Administration.
