Carbon Equity Decarbonization Fund I

A diversified portfolio providing access to a curated offering of top-tier climate growth equity and venture capital funds.

The Carbon Equity Decarbonization Fund allows you to invest alongside the world’s best climate funds

Getting our global emissions down to Net Zero requires innovation and scale. Many technologies to get to Net Zero exist and are cost competitive. Other technologies exist but need to come down in cost. Yet others do not exist yet. We need to:

Rapidly scale cost-competitive technologies by innovating business models to reduce near-term emissions.
Accelerate next-generation technologies and invest in enabling infrastructure to reduce emissions after 2030.
Invest in R&D and negative emissions to close the gaps to net-zero by 2050.

The Carbon Equity Decarbonization fund does this by focusing on three key objectives:

Diversification
Impact
Returns
Access

Carbon Equity's Decarbonization Fund I targets 5 to 7 VC and PE funds in one basket. That means that with one ticket, you invest in 5-7x more start-ups (and scale-ups), creating 5-7x as much diversification and 5-15x lower risk versus investing in a single fund.

Research by Cambridge Associates shows that the chance of one private equity fund returning less than the invested capital is about 24%. With a portfolio of three funds this risk is already reduced to 9%. With seven funds this risk goes down to 1.5%.

The fund offers exposure to a broad range of technologies required to decarbonize our economy. We will invest in both early-stage innovations at the cutting edge of climate tech (think long-duration electricity storage, carbon-neutral aviation, direct air capture and storage) and later-stage investments that focus on full-blown commercialisation and growth (think geothermal energy, plant-based proteins, green hydrogen).

Carbon Equity believes that companies who build and scale essential climate technologies today are bound to become immensely valuable companies tomorrow. The decarbonization fund aims to realise a net money multiple of 2.0x, e.g. to double your invested capital. On an annual basis, this is equivalent to a 15% internal rate of return (Realised IRR might be lower due to capital call requirements.)

The funds in our pipeline can normally only be accessed with tickets ranging from 1 to 5 million Euro. By aggregating individual tickets, we are able to reach these high investment thresholds and provide you with low minimum entry to top-tier climate funds.

Pipeline overview

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Funds sourced

Funds screened

Funds in diligence

Fund size: 200m USD
Stage: Seed-Series B

Fund size: 400m EUR
Stage: Seed-Series B

Fund size: 3bn USD
Stage: Growth

Fund size: 350m EUR
Stage: Early - Growth

Fund size: 300m EUR
Stage: Growth

Fund size: 100m USD
Stage: Seed - Series A

Fund size: 200m USD
Stage: Seed-Series B

Fund size: 400m USD
Stage: Seed-Series B

Fund size: 350m USD
Stage: Early - Growth

Fund size: 100m USD
Stage: Seed - Series A

Fund size: 3bn USD
Stage: Growth

Fund size: 300m USD
Stage: Growth

How does it work

Step 1: You commit

You request access to our data room, review our documentation and decide to commit (via the invest button on this page).

Step 2: We close

We have a first close in January 2022, and commit the capital raised to different funds within 18 months.

Step 3: We invest

During the first 5-7 years, we will ask you to wire parts of your committed capital to us whenever a fund makes investments (capital calls).

Step 4: We report on impact

We will keep you updated on which climate technologies you’ve invested in and how they are changing the world, as well as on each fund’s impact.

Step 5: We return capital

We start returning your money as soon as the funds sell companies, usually around year 5. We aim for break-even by year 8 (e.g. to have returned your invested capital) and to distribute the remaining upside in the next 5-7 years. We will report biannually on the financial performance of the fund.

Selection process

The process
Impact diligence
Financial diligence
Investment Committee

To select the funds that we believe will have the highest chance of delivering a solid financial and impact return, we assess funds in a six-step process:

Lead generation: our research team has compiled a proprietary database of 500+ climate tech funds.
Shortlist: we boil down the longlist to a shortlist based on the timing of fundraising, thesis, impact goals and quality of the team.
Quick Scan: we do an initial analysis of all aspects of the fund, including strategy, impact approach, organisation and track record on the funds that excite us most.
Impact threshold: before diving into the full financial diligence, we ensure that the fund meets Carbon Equity's impact threshold. For this, we assess the fund's impact approach with our proprietary impact scorecard.
Full diligence: finally, we dive deep into the fund's strategy, organisation, team and track record to ensure a satisfactory risk/return profile.
Decision-making: the fund is brought to a vote at the IC (Investment Committee), which must be unanimous.

With our proprietary impact scorecard, we assess whether we believe that a fund's investments are going to be truly impactful. The scorecard focuses on the fund's ambition, approach and policies across 10 dimensions:

Impact scorecard

Team: The number one question we ask is: do we trust this team to invest on our behalf? To get to a yes, we look for teams that have excellent professional experience, a stellar investment track record (absolute and relative returns), are well-composed, and truly function as a team.
Investment strategy: We believe that a well-thought-through and structured market approach is essential to finding, winning, and supporting the best deals. So we assess whether the fund targets attractive markets has a strong approach to source deals and a solid process for conducting diligence and winning deals. Furthermore, it is essential that the fund has the ability to add value to a portfolio company.
Organisation: Does the fund have a solid backbone to help the team deliver on its promises? We assess whether the fund has a high-quality mid- and back-office, as well as an excellent network of advisors to support across the spectrum (from industry knowledge to strategic decisions at the fund level).
Fund terms: finally, we make sure the fund's structure is aligned with its goals and strategy. Is the fund the right size for the market opportunity? Is the team big enough and economically aligned with its investors? And are the fund fees and costs reasonable?

Lara Koole Chief Investment Officer

Liza Rubinstein Chief Impact

Wiebe Visser Investment Advisor

Jacqueline van den Ende CEO & CCO

Dirk Meuleman External IC member

The process
Impact diligence
Financial diligence
Investment committee