Eurazeo launches a €400 million Smart City fund
The asset management company Eurazeo has just announced the closing of its second Smart City-related investment fund. The €400-million fund will be earmarked to invest in startups in mobility, logistics, construction, urban infrastructure and renewable energy.
Eurazeo’s first iteration of this fund back in 2016 has already supported companies such as Volta Charging, Bird,Forsee Power, Glovo and Grab. With this new fund, Eurazeo has already invested in the German unicorn 1Komma5°, the electric vehicle fast-charging network Electra, the construction tech startup Swapp and the peer-to-peer renewable energy exchange platform Urban Chain in the UK.
This second fund, which aims to invest on a global scope, is backed by five sovereign wealth funds and development institutions (EIF, Bpifrance, PFR, F.R.C and KVIC) and 18 European and Asian companies, including EDF, TotalEnergies, Stellantis, Hager Group, ZF, RATP, Mainova and SWK AG.
Aeroseal raises $62 million for its building sealing solution
The American startup Aeroseal has just secured $62 million in Series B funding. The company specialising in duct and building envelope sealing has raised more than $100 million in total since its creation in 2010. Amongst its investors, the Ohio-based startup counts Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund and the Climate Investment fund created in 2017 by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, as well as the American property developer Beazer Home and Aramco, the Saudi Arabian public oil company.
These investors were convinced by Aeroseal’s approach, which includes HomeSeal Connect for sealing ducts and AeroBarrier Connect for sealing building envelopes, along with software that monitors the whole process. These solutions can reduce a building’s energy consumption by an average of 30%, with a return on investment touted as better than other home improvement options, such as solar panels or window replacement.
Since 2010, Aeroseal has sealed more than 260,000 buildings around the world, from homes to hospitals, schools, government facilities, hotels and offices. The company is now looking to deploy its tech internationally and in new market segments, such as for gas pipelines. It currently operates mainly in North America, but it already has a presence in more than 30 countries across the world.
Proptech venture capital firm A/O launches new £214.5 million green fund
London-based venture capital firm A/O has announced the first close of its €250 million (£214.5 million) green proptech fund. The fund is designed to invest in seed-stage through to Series B-stage startups in the UK, Europe and North America. It replaces its previous fund of the same size, which was launched in February 2020.
Created in 2019, A/O has angled itself as the largest VC fund in Europe in the field of proptech and tech construction, with a portfolio of startups including Plentific, Fornova, Qarnot, Urban Footprint, Saqara, Bricklane.com, ClimateX and Vizcab. With its new fund, it’s looking to target more specifically companies in the sector that are helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, build climate resilience and accelerate the transition to clean energy.
The first investment of fund II has already been announced as the German home energy assessment startup Enter, which raised £16.6 million during a Series A round in April 2023.
There’s more…
- Four years after its launch and with 30 investments, Suffolk Construction closes its corporate ventures fund – Read on Construction Dive
- British startup Delta g raises £1.5 million in seed to map underground- Read on Business Cloud
- In Canada, Part3 raises $2.8 million to digitize construction site admin – Read on Betakit
- German startup Ecoworks raises €22 million for its building retrofitting solution – Read on Tech.eu
- Nuada, specialists in carbon capture in cement manufacture, raises £3.4 million – Read on UKTN
