In response to a latest Dealroom report on the Spanish tech ecosystem, the mixed enterprise worth of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023. Within 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 based mostly 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 affect on society or the atmosphere.
Seaya has been round for 12 years, primarily specializing in mission-driven startups in Europe and LatAm. The brand new “Andromeda” fund will put money into development corporations focusing on vitality transition, decarbonization, sustainable meals worth chains, and the round economic system.
The agency mentioned the brand new local weather 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. Thus far, 5 investments have been constructed from the fund (see beneath).
Seaya was launched again in 2013 by former non-public fairness investor Beatriz González, who obtained into local weather and sustainable investing after backing a recycled clothes line. She beforehand labored for Morgan Stanley, Excel Companions and Darby Abroad Investments within the U.S. After that she turned a director of Telefónica’s pension fund, main its different belongings program.
Underneath González, Seaya has invested in local weather tech corporations, together with Biome Makers, Readability.ai, Crowdfarming, Descartes, RatedPower, Samara, and electrical automobile charging stations firm Wallbox (which went public on the New York Inventory Alternate in 2021).
Over a name, I requested González if she thought there’s a specific benefit in having a fund out of Spain tacking local weather tech, given the nation’s proximity to a number of the worst results of a altering local weather, equivalent to excessive warmth, drought, wildfires and storms.
“It’s an excellent query,” she mentioned. “If you consider vitality transition and decarbonization, coming from Southern Europe, significantly 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 way more social consciousness. However we additionally assume that now we have aggressive benefits within the industries that we’re focusing on.
“We’ve been pioneers in renewable vitality, so now we have the expertise and now we have the large corporations within the manufacturing of auto components. So now we have an enormous industrial base. The identical with agriculture and actual property publicity. So we do consider that now we have the trade 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 may permit them to make deep tech funding selections about local weather tech.
“We now have a few engineers so now we have that in-house experience, however in our LP community now we have huge European Union banks like Santander which do undertaking finance for vitality or factories. So getting access to that data helps us do the due diligence and transfer a lot sooner.”
To date, Seaya has used that data to put money into a number of related corporations. 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 decreasing 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 kind garbage for recycling.
In San Francisco, the agency invested in Pachama, a local weather tech firm that makes use of knowledge to confirm the standard of carbon credit and allow the launch of recent carbon credit score tasks.
The information of the brand new fund follows different indicators of the Southern European funding renaissance. Solely final week, Plus Companions 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 mentioned it had the highest variety of startup fundings final 12 months.
