The Queensland government is backing in specialist venture capital firm Pollination in a new fund for local climate and nature technology startups.
Pollination’s Climate and Nature Impact Venture Fund has kicked off with the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) as cornerstone investor through the Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF).
It’s been a busy week for QVCDF, which also invested in another four early-stage VCs to its $130 million venture program.
The Pollination fund is hoping to raise $150 million with a close in 2025. Buy in is a minimum $5 million, with family offices and institutional investors as the target.
It will kick off investments later this year, in the range of $4-12 million at Series A and Series B stage, offering investors a ten-year term and five-year investment period. Everything from the energy, carbon and nature management, to the circular economy, clean industries and transport, and food and agriculture.
Renewable energy startup MGA Thermal is an existing Pollination portco. along with the 2023 Startup Daily Best in Tech Best Sustainability Startup winner, Goterra.
Pollination is a global climate change investment and advisory firm launched in 2019, with a presence in 13 countries.
The federal government appointed founder and CEO Martijn Wilder chair of its $15bn National Reconstruction Fund.
Wilder said the Climate and Nature Impact Venture Fund comes at the right time.
“We have created the first early-stage fund in Australia to seamlessly combine climate and nature solutions, making sure that the opportunity for investors matches emerging market demand as the world mobilises to address the twin climate and nature crises,” he said.
“Pollination has built world-leading expertise on climate and nature, with a global team of investment and advisory experts, a blue-chip advisory client base and a growing investment portfolio across projects, direct investments and managed funds. All of that experience contributes to what will be a compelling opportunity for investors.”
Pollination Chief Investment Officer Diana Callebaut said the fund would target the increasing number of opportunities arising from the net zero and nature positive transition across all industries.
“The fund targets innovative solutions to these high-value challenges across industry sectors,” she said.
“Australia has an active and growing base of emerging climate tech companies and has natural advantages in areas such as energy markets, carbon measurement and land regeneration.
“We will be working hard with our investees to accelerate the development of high-value solutions and connect them early to customers in global markets that are actively seeking to adopt proven solutions.”
QIC Private Equity investment director Lottie Tant said Pollination provides a specialist value-add to Queensland startups in the clean energy and technology sectors.
“By providing scale-up capital to proven and innovative climate technologies in Queensland, a priority sector for our state, this landmark fund will help to close an identified early-stage funding gap in the important Series A and B space,” she said.
“Together, we can support local innovators addressing the global challenges of climate change and nature preservation, leveraging Pollination’s global platform.”
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