Italy-based energy producer Eni made a push into the energy transition yesterday with the launch of a corporate venture builder subsidiary called Eniverse Ventures.
Eniverse will be run by Eni chairman Giacomo Silvestri and will look to identify and develop new technologies internally that can be leveraged into new businesses as Eni seeks to fulfil an aim of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
Silvestri said: “With Eniverse, Eni is among the first companies in the energy sector to build a vehicle to enhance its asset of technologies and talents. Those are the pillars of innovation in which the company has always invested and on which it leverages to successfully tackle the energy transition.”
Although Eni’s core area is in oil and gas exploration and supply, it has pledged to change its business model by 2050, by which time it aims to have increased its renewable energy capacity from 1.1 GW to 60 GW.
The company revealed a $7.2bn net profit for the first half of 2022 last week, one of several oil and gas providers to recently announce hefty profits as prices rise due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine while the climate crisis continues to fuel heatwaves and wildfires across Europe.
Peers such as Shell, BP and Chevron are among those companies but all three have long-standing venture arms, each with portfolios that include technologies such as energy management, renewables and carbon capture. Shell Ventures and BP Ventures have the energy transition and net-zero ambitions at the forefront of their branding.
Eni is looking to build startups that could accelerate its progress towards net-zero carbon emissions and said in a release they will be expected to independently access capital markets to grow. It also said technologies belonging to third parties would be considered, indicating Eniverse could make external investments in addition to financing internal businesses.
Eniverse will complement the company’s external investment arm, Eni Next, which was formed in 2019 and which has since backed the likes of fusion energy technology developer Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Form Energy, which produces grid-scale energy storage systems.
The newly formed unit will be able to access internal Eni expertise to support the businesses’ growth, helping them validate their technology, enter the market and ultimately scale. It is yet to reveal the size of its team or whether it has begun working on any ventures.
Photos courtesy of Eni S.p.A.
