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 pattern, Madrid-based VC fund Seaya has closed Seaya Andromeda, an “Article 9” €300 million climate tech fund based mostly out of Madrid.
Article 9 refers to the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation Act, which places the onus on funding companies to guarantee their investments have a constructive impression 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 corporations specializing in power transition, decarbonization, sustainable meals worth chains, and the round financial system.
The agency stated the brand new climate fund will deploy between €7 million and €40 million as a primary verify; will retain capital for follow-ons; and plans to make 25 investments by the top of 2027. So far, 5 investments have been created from the fund (see beneath).
Seaya was launched again in 2013 by former non-public fairness investor Beatriz González, who bought into climate 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 various property program.
Under González, Seaya has invested in climate tech corporations, 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 specific benefit in having a fund out of Spain tacking climate tech, given the nation’s proximity to a few of the worst results of a altering climate, similar to excessive warmth, drought, wildfires and storms.
“It’s query,” she stated. “If you concentrate on power 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 have now aggressive benefits within the industries that we’re focusing on.
“We’ve been pioneers in renewable power, so we have now the expertise and we have now the massive corporations within the manufacturing of auto components. So we have now a giant industrial base. The similar with agriculture and actual property exposure. So we do imagine that we have now the business experience and expertise coming from Southern Europe, particularly, and Spain, that does give us a little bit of benefit.”
I additionally requested what sort of experience they’ve that can permit them to make deep tech funding choices about climate tech.
“We have a few engineers so we have now that in-house experience, however in our LP community we have now large European Union banks like Santander which do venture finance for power or factories. So having entry to that information helps us do the due diligence and transfer a lot quicker.”
Thus far, Seaya has used that information to put money into a number of related corporations. Spain-based augmented-reality ability coaching answer Seabery, for instance, developed AR software program and {hardware} for coaching welders, which means they don’t want to use actual welding to prepare, thus lowering carbon emissions by 95% per welding session.
It has additionally invested in U.Okay.-based AI-powered waste administration startup Recycleye in February 2022, which builds robots to type garbage for recycling.
In San Francisco, the agency invested in Pachama, a climate tech firm that makes use of knowledge to confirm the standard of carbon credit and allow the launch of recent carbon credit score initiatives.
The information of the brand new fund follows different indicators of the Southern European funding renaissance. Only final week, Plus Partners launched in Barcelona, aiming to drum up a $30 million to $50 million fund.
The annual “State of European Tech” report for 2023 additionally discovered Spain’s ecosystem to be in fourth place general and stated it had the highest variety of startup fundings final 12 months.
