According to a current Dealroom report on the Spanish tech ecosystem, the mixed enterprise worth of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023. In the newest affirmation of this upward development, Madrid-based VC fund Seaya has closed Seaya Andromeda, an “Article 9” €300 million local weather tech fund primarily based out of Madrid.
Article 9 refers back to the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation Act, which places the onus on funding corporations to make sure their investments have a constructive influence on society or the setting.
Seaya has been round for 12 years, primarily specializing in mission-driven startups in Europe and LatAm. The new “Andromeda” fund will put money into progress firms focusing on vitality transition, decarbonization, sustainable meals worth chains, and the round economic system.
The agency stated the brand new local weather fund will deploy between €7 million and €40 million as a primary test; will retain capital for follow-ons; and plans to make 25 investments by the tip of 2027. So far, 5 investments have been produced from the fund (see under).
Seaya was launched again in 2013 by former non-public fairness investor Beatriz González, who bought into local weather and sustainable investing after backing a recycled clothes line. She beforehand labored for Morgan Stanley, Excel Partners and Darby Overseas Investments within the U.S. After that she grew to become a director of Telefónica’s pension fund, main its different belongings program.
Under González, Seaya has invested in local weather tech firms, together with Biome Makers, Clarity.ai, Crowdfarming, Descartes, RatedPower, Samara, and electrical automobile charging stations firm Wallbox (which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021).
Over a name, I requested González if she thought there’s a explicit benefit in having a fund out of Spain tacking local weather tech, given the nation’s proximity to among the worst results of a altering local weather, reminiscent of excessive warmth, drought, wildfires and storms.
“It’s a good question,” she stated. “If you concentrate on vitality transition and decarbonization, coming from Southern Europe, notably Spain, we do see that we’re higher fitted to two causes. One is as a result of Southern Europe is having extra excessive warmth waves. So clearly, there’s far more social consciousness. But we additionally suppose that we’ve aggressive benefits within the industries that we’re focusing on.
“We’ve been pioneers in renewable energy, so we have the talent and we have the big companies in the manufacturing of auto parts. So we have a big industrial base. The same with agriculture and real estate exposure. So we do believe that we have the industry expertise and talent coming from Southern Europe, especially, and Spain, that does give us a bit of advantage.”
I additionally requested what sort of experience they’ve that may permit them to make deep tech funding choices about local weather tech.
“We have a couple of engineers so we have that in-house expertise, but in our LP network we have big European Union banks like Santander which do project finance for energy or factories. So having access to that knowledge helps us do the due diligence and move much faster.”
Thus far, Seaya has used that data to put money into a number of related firms. Spain-based augmented-reality talent coaching resolution Seabery, for instance, developed AR software program and {hardware} for coaching welders, which means they don’t want to make use of actual welding to coach, thus lowering carbon emissions by 95% per welding session.
It has additionally invested in U.Ok.-based AI-powered waste administration startup Recycleye in February 2022, which builds robots to kind garbage for recycling.
In San Francisco, the agency invested in Pachama, a local weather tech firm that makes use of information to confirm the standard of carbon credit and allow the launch of latest carbon credit score initiatives.
The information of the brand new fund follows different indicators of the Southern European funding renaissance. Only final week, Plus…
