£10m investment into Climate tech with World Fund

Wiltshire Pension Fund Invests £10m in Top Climate VC World Fund, Marking First European Climate Tech Venture Capital Investment. 

As a Fund we are committed to investing into replacement technologies for the top 10 emitting industries, aligning with our net zero by 2050 goal. This will be the first time we have invested in climate tech, as World Fund strongly resonates with our dual mandate of linking competitive financial returns with environmental impact. Their commitment to backing disruptive startups focused on developing technologies capable of decarbonising entire industries is in perfect alignment with our objectives

World Fund's impact and investment teams ensure a startup's technology has the potential to fit into its vision of a regenerative world - which centres around full material circularity, regenerative systems, as well as climate & social equity. This CPP metric - and application in its investment thesis - ia a core motivation behind the investment. They invest from seed stage through to the growth stage, with portfolio firms including: cylib, CustomCells, ecoworks, Juicy Marbles, Planet A Foods, Freshflow, Farmless, SunRoof, IQM and ecoworks

World Fund also counts a number of UK-startups within its portfolio:

• Space Forge - the Cardiff, UK-based startup is developing a fully returnable satellite platform designed for manufacturing superior materials in orbit to enable large-scale emissions reduction on Earth.
• ENOUGH - the Glasgow, UK-based scale-up developing the ABUNDA protein - which helps to improve the taste and protein make-up of plant-based foods.
• TreeCard - the London, UK-based climate fintech - known for its sustainably-sourced wooden bank card, uses revenue from transaction interchange, subscriptions and affiliate fees to plant trees in biodiversity hotspots and areas affected by deforestation.

Craig Douglas, Partner at World Fund, commented: "It is critical that as the climate crisis worsens, we find new ways to unlock public capital to invest in tech solutions. We're grateful for Wiltshire's bold and positive approach - and we're excited to partner with them. Both organizations believe that there is clear alignment between climate and financial performance and a need to focus investment on the industrial and economic sectors responsible for the greatest volume of emissions."

Jennifer Devine, Head of Wiltshire Pension Fund, commented: "As part of our climate opportunities (clops) portfolio, we are delighted to be partnering with World Fund and setting ourselves up to deliver an ambitious positive climate impact by investing for the future of the planet, in line with our value of "long-term thinking". Our clops goal is to earn superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in a diversified mix of assets which have the intention to deliver real World change by actively supporting the transition to a low carbon economy.  World Fund provides us with a forward-looking opportunity to support innovative new businesses which have the potential to deliver genuinely material decarbonisation benefits."