100 impact investors and founders join forces: EU needs 'bold action'
In an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European VC firms and impact companies warn that Europe faces a “perfect storm” of challenges and that the EU needs to de-risk private investments in the climate sector by expanding public funding.
With the EU Commission set to unveil its Clean Industrial Deal next month, 102 climate tech startups and investors have teamed up to present President Ursula von der Leyen with a wish list of what they want to see.
In open letter to Von der Leyen, they are calling for unprecedented measures to create a surge in demand for industrial cleantech and more public funding to make it less risky for startups to scale up.
"2025 needs to be the year of bold and decisive action to do whatever it takes for the EU’s competitive decarbonisation. The full arsenal of policy tools must be geared towards this shared common objective: creating a compelling business case for competitive decarbonisation", the letter states.
World Fund and Climeworks among the signatures
The signatories include major VC firms like World Fund and Speedinvest along with notable climate tech startups like Swiss company Climeworks – one of the leaders within carbon capture and storage – and German battery recycling company Cylib.
The letter, which can be read in full here, says the Clean Industrial Deal has to “send two decisive market signals” to both emerging clean tech industries that are in the process of scaling up as well as traditional industries that need to integrate greener solutions in order to decarbonise.
It also calls for the use of mandates to create higher demand for specific cleantech technologies, bigger investments in the energy grid to ensure that companies have access to affordable clean electricity, along with public financing mechanism to make it less risky for investors to back climate startups.
“To conclude, we call for an unprecedented demand surge, combined with targeted public funding that will dramatically improve the business case for cleantech scale-ups and transitioning industries, unlocking some of the trillions of private wealth in Europe, reducing the overall public funding needed in a time of fiscal constraints for many governments,” the letter says.
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