Berlin-based Future Energy Ventures (FEV) has announced the first €110m close of its second climate tech fund, which is targeting a total size of €250m. The money came from the EU’s European Investment Fund and German energy company E.ON.
The firm began life as the internal venture arm of E.ON, but launched as an independent investment vehicle in 2022.
Traditional energy companies are coming under increasing pressure to divert more of their profits toward the transition to renewables, a trend that FEV partner Veronique Hördemann expects to accelerate in the coming years.
“Their [energy companies’] business model is dissolving,” she tells Sifted. “They need to look for other opportunities in the market.”
What will Future Energy Ventures invest in?
The FEV team aims to make 30 new investments into startups in Europe, North America and the Middle East, with ticket sizes ranging from €1-10m. 60% of the raised capital will be reserved for follow-on rounds.
The fund will focus on three main areas: “future cities,” “future energy” and “future technologies.”
Future cities includes g electric mobility and the built environment, while future energy covers technology to optimise the grid as we shift to more renewable energy. Future technologies are innovations that further accelerate the green transition.
FEV managing partner Jan Lozek says that while his fund has a specialism in climate deeptech software, it’s “not set up as a deep tech hardware investor”, and has learnt to lean on its partner network of co-investors and the team at E.ON to make sound bets on cutting-edge technologies.
He adds that the legacy expertise of traditional energy companies like E.ON is helpful when trying to make disruptive change in an infrastructure-heavy industry.
“We can only make it [the green transition] work if we work together with players like E.ON and others, which are currently running our energy system, because they have the knowledge of the system we need to work with,” he says.
FEV’s previous investments include heat pump installation company Thermondo, industrial machinery optimisation platform Jungle AI and electric vehicle charging startup Virta Ltd.
