Spanish multinational financial services company Banco Santander and sustainable energy-focused innovation and investment platform EIT InnoEnergy announced today a new collaboration to launch a new climate tech fund aimed at channeling capital into climate tech start-ups primarily from the EIT InnoEnergy portfolio.

Launched in 2010, and supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), EIT InnoEnergy is one of the largest climate tech and renewable energy tech investors, backing innovations across areas including energy storage, transport and mobility, renewables, and sustainable buildings and cities.

Elena Bou, Innovation Director, EIT InnoEnergy, said:

“This new fund will complement and strengthen our existing innovation ecosystem and it will facilitate the rapid allocation of capital to accelerate speed to market for game-changing climate tech innovations. It is a clear win-to-win situation not only for our 180+ innovative companies but also for the Fund. Having a direct access to InnoEnergy’s portfolio provides the fund with a pipeline which will be key for a faster deployment of vehicles´ committed capital even more considering the great appetite for this type of assets.”

According to the partners, the new fund will provide private banking and institutional investors with the ability to invest in companies making a tangible impact on the “energy trilemma” of making energy affordable, available and sustainable.

Investee companies will span sectors ranging from circular economy, renewable energies, and energy storage and efficiency, to transport and mobility, smart buildings, cities and grid, and hydrogen.

The fund, expected to be compliant with Article 8 under SFDR regulation, will be managed by Santander Asset Management, with Banco Santander as an anchor investor. EIT InnoEnergy will invest in the new rounds of the start-ups, and provide them with value-added services to de-risk and accelerate business cases.

Borja Diaz-Llanos, Head of Alternative Investments at Santander Asset Management said:

“This is a further step in our commitment to fighting climate change as part of our involvement in the global Net Zero Asset Managers group. Innovation is critical to helping achieve net zero by 2050. With this initiative we aim to provide additional capital to many of the start-ups with the greatest emissions-reducing potential.”

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