Bill Gates launches Clean Energy Venture Fund

Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates has launched a $1bn fund to finance emerging clean energy technology to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The new initiative – the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund – will involve more than twenty of the most influential leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists including John Doerr, Chairman of venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Alibaba Founder Jack Ma, Khosla Ventures Founder Vinod Khosla, Laura and John Arnold Foundation Co-Chair and former Energy Hedge Fund Manager John Arnold, Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and SAP Co-Founder Hasso Plattner.

Bill Gates said in a statement on Sunday night: “I am honoured to work along with these investors to build on the powerful foundation of public investment in basic research... Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissions-free energy to the world.”

Last December, Bill Gates created the Breakthrough Energy Coalition – of which the new fund is part – to gather investors eager to develop new energy technologies.

The coalition was launched during the opening day of UN summit COP21 in Paris last year, at the same time as the Mission Innovation - a clean energy research and development initiative.

The increased research in energy technologies that will result from Mission Innovation will allow new companies to appear, and the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund will help the companies develop.

The investment approach of the new venture is meant to be both broad and scientific and it will last for 20 years, helping start-ups in the earliest stages of development as well as companies already at the commercialisation stage, across energy sectors including electricity generation and storage, transportation, industrial system use, agriculture, and energy system efficiency.

Bill Gates’ new fund will also work together with other investors, governments, corporate partners and research institutions in order to help create a fund with international expertise.

A new guide has been released by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition for public and private investors who want to invest in clean technology called the “Landscape of Innovation”.