Artesian Venture Partner’s Australian Clean Energy Seed Fund has successfully raised $26 million, including $10 million from the government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Other institutional investors include Australian Ethical, which has also contributed $10 million, along with industry fund Hostplus and Former GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh’s ethical fund Future Super.
The Artesian fund is registered as an early stage venture capital limited partnership (ESVCLP), which provides investors with tax-free returns under certain conditions.
The fund will invest in start-ups at the seed stage via dedicated clean energy accelerators such as Climate-KIC Australia’s EnergyLab.
The Clean Energy Seed Fund will also invest in incubators, university programs and angel groups, according to Artesian.
“The fund will invest at seed, angel and later stage follow-on rounds in 30-50 startups over its four-year investment period,” Artesian said in a statement.
“The fund will target scalable, high growth potential startups fueling innovation and creating opportunities in the development of clean technology across sectors such as the internet of things, energy storage, biofuels, alternative energy generation (solar, wave, geothermal, wind), metering and control, green building and biomaterials, transport technologies, water and waste.”
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