Discover Extantia | With Yair Reem
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Why do you think now is the right moment to launch this fund?
It is the best time! There is a lot of urgency and pressure on the energy sector from consumers and regulators who are both pushing for decarbonization and therefore more budget is allocated to technologies that can help them get to net zero. Today, our startups are at the centre point to benefit from these interests. And so it is financially very attractive. On top of that, if you add the energy crisis that is going on, it’s a tailwind to what we are doing at Extantia.
What is your unfair advantage? What do you bring besides money?
We share the same passion with our founders. We really understand what they are doing and we try to help them achieve their goals, something they really appreciate. It differentiates us from generalist funds which don’t necessarily take into account the intricacies of carbon capture, carbon economy and value chain. We also favor peer sharing amongst our startups as we realized early on that they go through similar hardships and challenges (i.e. patents, grants, technologies).
What do you look for in entrepreneurs? / What will convince you to invest in a startup?
It’s always a combination of different components. I can draw a parallel with the NBA league or the World Cup. In order to be able to play ball, you need a great team, so this is the first item that we look into. Then, the product and technology developed, ie: the carbon math behind it and its ability to solve a problem. But for a team to win the game, it needs to have the right spirit and the ability to sell and market its product. We are looking for founders that can take deep complex science and translate it into something that customers can buy.
Can you give a few examples of startups you previously invested in and why?
We back daring entrepreneurs whose breakthrough ventures can significantly reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to a decarbonised society. Some portfolio companies:Reverion, Luminescent, RepAir, BeZero Carbon, H2PRO, INERATEC, GA Drilling, Bloom
What is the best way for founders to approach you and what will convince you to have a first meeting?
Easy, write to us! Ping us on Linkedin or email us. We try to be very responsive and answer everybody.
What is the most important advice you would give deep tech founders?
Engaging with an investor is like a marriage. Every family member, business angel and investor that is brought into your capitalization table is going to have an impact on the company for a while. Therefore, my advice would be to make sure to wisely choose investors, partners, co-founders and so on. It is unpopular to prepare for a divorce scenario but it is something that needs to be thought of because these things happen.
Extantia Allstars
Extantia Allstars invests in mission-aligned climate tech venture capital funds and aims to create an ecosystem of climate fund managers that share know-how, best practices and deal flow and thereby accelerating the transition to a carbon-free economy.
Fund of funds fact sheet
Focus: Climate tech sub-verticals such as
■ Food
■ Carbon removal
■ Construction
■ Energy
Geography: Worldwide
Investment stages: All
What do you look for in funds? / What will convince you to invest in a fund ?
It’s from a GP to another fellow GP. We are not conventional LPs that focus on traction and KPIs as we invest in funds that evolve in the same environment and invest in similar verticals. There are five dimensions that make up our target portfolio of funds. The first two dimensions are filters for the expected magnitude of carbon impact and the quality of the fund manager. After passing the threshold on the first two, we actively assemble a balanced basket of underlying funds across investment stages, geographies and climate tech sub-verticals (such as food, construction, and energy). The latter three dimensions ensure complementarity at the level of the underlying portfolio of companies to our Flagship investment strategy.
Can you give a few examples of funds you previously invested in and why?
Some of our portfolio funds: 2150, Astanor, Lowercarbon Capital, Fifth Wall, Energy Impact Partners, Zero Carbon Capital and Counteract, We are mission-aligned and share the same goals to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy.
With the democratization of investing in deep tech, do you get more solicitation from GPs from deep tech funds?
Not enough! Not enough funds focus on climate tech and oftentimes, climate tech funds end up investing in software or digital climate.
What do you think will be the next big thing in deep tech?
On one hand, there are technological evolutions that can be applied across several industries. For instance, we are still at the dawn of artificial intelligence and it will impact how everything is done, including climate tech. And on the other hand, many topics are complementary. If you look at Project Drawdown, you see that education in emerging economies is a crucial instrument to reduce emissions and limit climate change.
What current trend(s) are you seeing in the climate tech investment landscape? Are you seeing the same downturn as in traditional tech?
This is going to sound provocative, but solar and wind power sourcing are overrated! Their energy density is low which means we need a lot of surface to get a return. And other potential renewable energy sources that have been neglected will come back in trend, geothermal energy for example.
Who are your LPs? And was it easy to raise a climate tech fund?
Some of our LPs are Anglo American, Toyota Ventures, and top-tier family offices such as the Piëch and Oldendorff families. It’s easier than two years ago, considering institutional capital wasn’t really allocated towards climate funds back then, especially for emerging GPs. Also, there is more willingness from the corporate side to invest in that seriously. There is more interest but it doesn’t get easier.
Do you feel like there is an evolution in the mindset of GPs in their way of apprehending the risk in deep tech?
I would say there is a change in the founders’ mindset. Founders are way more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago. For instance, they know all the legal terminologies when they come to the negotiation table. There’s been a lot of education and knowledge, but there are still a lot of topics that can be better apprehended.
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Why do you think now is the right moment to launch this fund?
It is the best time! There is a lot of urgency and pressure on the energy sector from consumers and regulators who are both pushing for decarbonization and therefore more budget is allocated to technologies that can help them get to net zero. Today, our startups are at the centre point to benefit from these interests. And so it is financially very attractive. On top of that, if you add the energy crisis that is going on, it’s a tailwind to what we are doing at Extantia.
What is your unfair advantage? What do you bring besides money?
We share the same passion with our founders. We really understand what they are doing and we try to help them achieve their goals, something they really appreciate. It differentiates us from generalist funds which don’t necessarily take into account the intricacies of carbon capture, carbon economy and value chain. We also favor peer sharing amongst our startups as we realized early on that they go through similar hardships and challenges (i.e. patents, grants, technologies).
What do you look for in entrepreneurs? / What will convince you to invest in a startup?
It’s always a combination of different components. I can draw a parallel with the NBA league or the World Cup. In order to be able to play ball, you need a great team, so this is the first item that we look into. Then, the product and technology developed, ie: the carbon math behind it and its ability to solve a problem. But for a team to win the game, it needs to have the right spirit and the ability to sell and market its product. We are looking for founders that can take deep complex science and translate it into something that customers can buy.
Can you give a few examples of startups you previously invested in and why?
We back daring entrepreneurs whose breakthrough ventures can significantly reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to a decarbonised society. Some portfolio companies:Reverion, Luminescent, RepAir, BeZero Carbon, H2PRO, INERATEC, GA Drilling, Bloom
What is the best way for founders to approach you and what will convince you to have a first meeting?
Easy, write to us! Ping us on Linkedin or email us. We try to be very responsive and answer everybody.
What is the most important advice you would give deep tech founders?
Engaging with an investor is like a marriage. Every family member, business angel and investor that is brought into your capitalization table is going to have an impact on the company for a while. Therefore, my advice would be to make sure to wisely choose investors, partners, co-founders and so on. It is unpopular to prepare for a divorce scenario but it is something that needs to be thought of because these things happen.
Extantia Allstars
Extantia Allstars invests in mission-aligned climate tech venture capital funds and aims to create an ecosystem of climate fund managers that share know-how, best practices and deal flow and thereby accelerating the transition to a carbon-free economy.
Fund of funds fact sheet
Focus: Climate tech sub-verticals such as
■ Food
■ Carbon removal
■ Construction
■ Energy
Geography: Worldwide
Investment stages: All
What do you look for in funds? / What will convince you to invest in a fund ?
It’s from a GP to another fellow GP. We are not conventional LPs that focus on traction and KPIs as we invest in funds that evolve in the same environment and invest in similar verticals. There are five dimensions that make up our target portfolio of funds. The first two dimensions are filters for the expected magnitude of carbon impact and the quality of the fund manager. After passing the threshold on the first two, we actively assemble a balanced basket of underlying funds across investment stages, geographies and climate tech sub-verticals (such as food, construction, and energy). The latter three dimensions ensure complementarity at the level of the underlying portfolio of companies to our Flagship investment strategy.
Can you give a few examples of funds you previously invested in and why?
Some of our portfolio funds: 2150, Astanor, Lowercarbon Capital, Fifth Wall, Energy Impact Partners, Zero Carbon Capital and Counteract, We are mission-aligned and share the same goals to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy.
With the democratization of investing in deep tech, do you get more solicitation from GPs from deep tech funds?
Not enough! Not enough funds focus on climate tech and oftentimes, climate tech funds end up investing in software or digital climate.
What do you think will be the next big thing in deep tech?
On one hand, there are technological evolutions that can be applied across several industries. For instance, we are still at the dawn of artificial intelligence and it will impact how everything is done, including climate tech. And on the other hand, many topics are complementary. If you look at Project Drawdown, you see that education in emerging economies is a crucial instrument to reduce emissions and limit climate change.
What current trend(s) are you seeing in the climate tech investment landscape? Are you seeing the same downturn as in traditional tech?
This is going to sound provocative, but solar and wind power sourcing are overrated! Their energy density is low which means we need a lot of surface to get a return. And other potential renewable energy sources that have been neglected will come back in trend, geothermal energy for example.
Who are your LPs? And was it easy to raise a climate tech fund?
Some of our LPs are Anglo American, Toyota Ventures, and top-tier family offices such as the Piëch and Oldendorff families. It’s easier than two years ago, considering institutional capital wasn’t really allocated towards climate funds back then, especially for emerging GPs. Also, there is more willingness from the corporate side to invest in that seriously. There is more interest but it doesn’t get easier.
Do you feel like there is an evolution in the mindset of GPs in their way of apprehending the risk in deep tech?
I would say there is a change in the founders’ mindset. Founders are way more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago. For instance, they know all the legal terminologies when they come to the negotiation table. There’s been a lot of education and knowledge, but there are still a lot of topics that can be better apprehended.
How would you describe your VC and your investment thesis/guiding principles in one sentence?
We believe that fixing the planet is a damn good business. In other words: where some see a 50B tons problem, Extantia sees a multi-trillion dollar opportunity.
Extantia counts today two funds, Extantia Flagship for direct investments and Extantia Allstars that is a fund of funds. Why did you decide to go for a mixed approach (investing in funds and startups)?
Throughout the last decade, we noticed that only 20% of investments are related to climate and most of those investments are around the mobility sector which is responsible for 20% of emissions. So basically, we have an allocation paradox and most of what we need to get to net zero carbon is being neglected.
At Extantia Flagship, the first thing we do is look at the carbon math and whether a company can actually scale and move the needle in climate. Carbon has a price, therefore, we believe a company’s success is directly linked to its emissions reduction potential.This mainly leads us to hardware solutions rather than software, considering CO2 is a molecule and we simply can’t blockchain it away. Then, we review the startup from a VC perspective of investments and returns.
Extantia Allstars is a catalyser that helps other funds scale, promotes knowledge exchange and best practice, and fosters relationships amongst GPs. In the end, all of us are getting better at making great climate investments. If we manage to do that, then we’re all winning. Investing in other funds also brings us more deal flow, the opportunity to exchange on deals and ultimately we get more qualified deals.
But there is more to it : no matter the amount of funds that we raise, it is still a drop in the ocean as we can never make a change alone and we need to do it collectively in order to actually have an impact.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and the key partners/experts in the team?
There is a lot of know-how around entrepreneurship, science, and engineering as well as managing funds. At Extantia, our team is very diverse and stems from multiple backgrounds as each person brings a different skill set to the table.
I am an electrical engineer by education but I discovered early on that I preferred to do investments in technology and I switched to the investment side. I’ve invested in software and hardware companies and have witnessed the cleantech 1.0 era which is now in its primetime.
My partner Torben is a software engineer who built a company called Signavio and sold it to SAP for a unicorn valuation. He’s very much hands-on.
Joern-Carlos is an energy entrepreneur and built one of the biggest consulting agencies in the MENA region. He has also been a prolific business angel.
My partner Sebastian is an entrepreneur and CEO backed by Tier-1 PE investors. He brings his expertise as a community builder, public affairs and climate tech advocacy to Extantia.
Iris is our head of science. She has a PhD in Chemistry and she’s vetting a lot of technologies that we see in the different startups.
Extantia Flagship
Fund fact sheet
Size and horizon: €150M
Focus:
■ Climate tech
■ Decarbonization tech
■ Carbon capture
■ Net zero
Geography: Europe (including UK, Switzerland and Israel) and occasionally global deals
Maturity / stage: Seed and Series A
Ticket size: Checks between €1M–4M depending on the stage of the company and whether we are leading the round or not.
Potential lead: both lead and follow-on investor
Why do you think now is the right moment to launch this fund?
It is the best time! There is a lot of urgency and pressure on the energy sector from consumers and regulators who are both pushing for decarbonization and therefore more budget is allocated to technologies that can help them get to net zero. Today, our startups are at the centre point to benefit from these interests. And so it is financially very attractive. On top of that, if you add the energy crisis that is going on, it’s a tailwind to what we are doing at Extantia.
What is your unfair advantage? What do you bring besides money?
We share the same passion with our founders. We really understand what they are doing and we try to help them achieve their goals, something they really appreciate. It differentiates us from generalist funds which don’t necessarily take into account the intricacies of carbon capture, carbon economy and value chain. We also favor peer sharing amongst our startups as we realized early on that they go through similar hardships and challenges (i.e. patents, grants, technologies).
What do you look for in entrepreneurs? / What will convince you to invest in a startup?
It’s always a combination of different components. I can draw a parallel with the NBA league or the World Cup. In order to be able to play ball, you need a great team, so this is the first item that we look into. Then, the product and technology developed, ie: the carbon math behind it and its ability to solve a problem. But for a team to win the game, it needs to have the right spirit and the ability to sell and market its product. We are looking for founders that can take deep complex science and translate it into something that customers can buy.
Can you give a few examples of startups you previously invested in and why?
We back daring entrepreneurs whose breakthrough ventures can significantly reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to a decarbonised society. Some portfolio companies:Reverion, Luminescent, RepAir, BeZero Carbon, H2PRO, INERATEC, GA Drilling, Bloom
What is the best way for founders to approach you and what will convince you to have a first meeting?
Easy, write to us! Ping us on Linkedin or email us. We try to be very responsive and answer everybody.
What is the most important advice you would give deep tech founders?
Engaging with an investor is like a marriage. Every family member, business angel and investor that is brought into your capitalization table is going to have an impact on the company for a while. Therefore, my advice would be to make sure to wisely choose investors, partners, co-founders and so on. It is unpopular to prepare for a divorce scenario but it is something that needs to be thought of because these things happen.
Extantia Allstars
Extantia Allstars invests in mission-aligned climate tech venture capital funds and aims to create an ecosystem of climate fund managers that share know-how, best practices and deal flow and thereby accelerating the transition to a carbon-free economy.
Fund of funds fact sheet
Focus: Climate tech sub-verticals such as
■ Food
■ Carbon removal
■ Construction
■ Energy
Geography: Worldwide
Investment stages: All
What do you look for in funds? / What will convince you to invest in a fund ?
It’s from a GP to another fellow GP. We are not conventional LPs that focus on traction and KPIs as we invest in funds that evolve in the same environment and invest in similar verticals. There are five dimensions that make up our target portfolio of funds. The first two dimensions are filters for the expected magnitude of carbon impact and the quality of the fund manager. After passing the threshold on the first two, we actively assemble a balanced basket of underlying funds across investment stages, geographies and climate tech sub-verticals (such as food, construction, and energy). The latter three dimensions ensure complementarity at the level of the underlying portfolio of companies to our Flagship investment strategy.
Can you give a few examples of funds you previously invested in and why?
Some of our portfolio funds: 2150, Astanor, Lowercarbon Capital, Fifth Wall, Energy Impact Partners, Zero Carbon Capital and Counteract, We are mission-aligned and share the same goals to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy.
With the democratization of investing in deep tech, do you get more solicitation from GPs from deep tech funds?
Not enough! Not enough funds focus on climate tech and oftentimes, climate tech funds end up investing in software or digital climate.
What do you think will be the next big thing in deep tech?
On one hand, there are technological evolutions that can be applied across several industries. For instance, we are still at the dawn of artificial intelligence and it will impact how everything is done, including climate tech. And on the other hand, many topics are complementary. If you look at Project Drawdown, you see that education in emerging economies is a crucial instrument to reduce emissions and limit climate change.
What current trend(s) are you seeing in the climate tech investment landscape? Are you seeing the same downturn as in traditional tech?
This is going to sound provocative, but solar and wind power sourcing are overrated! Their energy density is low which means we need a lot of surface to get a return. And other potential renewable energy sources that have been neglected will come back in trend, geothermal energy for example.
Who are your LPs? And was it easy to raise a climate tech fund?
Some of our LPs are Anglo American, Toyota Ventures, and top-tier family offices such as the Piëch and Oldendorff families. It’s easier than two years ago, considering institutional capital wasn’t really allocated towards climate funds back then, especially for emerging GPs. Also, there is more willingness from the corporate side to invest in that seriously. There is more interest but it doesn’t get easier.
Do you feel like there is an evolution in the mindset of GPs in their way of apprehending the risk in deep tech?
I would say there is a change in the founders’ mindset. Founders are way more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago. For instance, they know all the legal terminologies when they come to the negotiation table. There’s been a lot of education and knowledge, but there are still a lot of topics that can be better apprehended.
