“What we don’t understand we don’t invest in.”

While there’s still snow – the World Fund crew – © World Fund

The European Investment Fund, the German state-owned investment and development bank KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau), accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers Germany, as well as a number of pension funds have entrusted money to the European climate tech investor World Fund. This Berlin-based fund has been raising capital since 2021 and has now closed the fund at €300M, as Forbes reports from the press release. World Fund plans to invest in about twenty-five to thirty startups that help reduce carbon emissions, whatever the sector. The focus is on seed and series A funding rounds, but a portion of capital is set aside for follow-on investments, showing that managing partner Danijel Višević is aware of what he calls the “series B valley of death” lack of capital for companies at the capital-intensive scaling stage. “Climate tech dies at series B if you don’t reserve for follow-on investments and don’t have the capital,” he said. He says further that some people in Europe, “don’t understand that hardware is scalable. We focus very much on software, and what we don’t understand we don't invest in. So we need the engineers, chemists, and scientists, etc on board.” That’s why World Fund’s team includes experienced engineers and scientists who vet investments in a rigorous due diligence process centered on the ability of the startups to really reduce emissions.