Spain-based oil and gas producer Repsol has launched a fund to back clean technology developers alongside impact investment firm Suma Capital, adding to a growing list of green investment vehicles from energy majors.
The fund, called SC Net Zero Tech Ventures, will receive a commitment to the tune of €50m ($50.9m) from Repsol with a view to bringing in more limited partners to reach its €150m ($152m) target.
Repsol said the new fund will invest in the “double transition” – the green transition and the digital transition, with a focus on industrial decarbonisation, advanced mobility and the circular economy – primarily across Europe and North America, though it will have a more international scope.
The management team will include elements from both companies and will be backed by a technology committee comprising scientists from Repsol as well as independent experts.
In addition to the SC Net Zero Tech Ventures fund, Repsol’s existing corporate venturing vehicle, Repsol Corporate Venturing, will be rebranded as Repsol Deep Tech, in what the company calls a “next stage”, with €50m in capital.
Repsol Deep Tech will be a single-LP vehicle, wholly owned by Repsol, and back companies in the decarbonisation space. The fund already has two portfolio companies, namely Sunrgyze – a spin-off between Repsol and gas transmission company Enagás, focused on a new green hydrogen production technology called photoelectrocatalysis – and Perseo Biotechnology, an urban waste-to-bioethanol technology developer in which Repsol has a 25% stake.
Like many of its peers, the corporate has a company-wide net-zero goal in place, in its case to achieve the milestone by 2050.
The news came in the wake of US-based oil and gas producer Devon Energy forming its corporate venturing vehicle, Devon Energy Ventures, which will look to identify technologies that improve its core business and bring in low-carbon technologies.
