Kiko Ventures launches £375m environmental tech fund

Cleantech investor group Kiko Ventures has launched a £375m fund for developing environmental technologies.

As global investment into cleantech continues to reach new heights, FTSE 250 company IP Group has launched the Kiko Ventures platform and fund with the goal of creating a more flexible funding structure for tech that’s addressing climate change.

The Kiko team is planning to deploy £200m over the next five years using the IP Group’s flexible capital platform.

It will invest in new ventures at the private seed, Series A and Series B stage, as well as operating in the public capital markets.

The team consists of partners with experience investing across all these stages, making previous bets on the likes of fuel cell firm Ceres Power and autonomous mobility startup Oxbotica.

“I believe in the transformative power of climate technologies and have worked my whole career to elevate ideas from the lab into practical, usable solutions that can make our world a better place,” said founding partner Robert Trezona.

“We’ve launched Kiko to unleash the full power of human ingenuity by uniting ideas, expertise, and capital to unlock a sustainable future. To do this, we’ve created an investment model of truly flexible capital that empowers change, rather than hindering it.”

Fellow founding partner Jamie Vollbracht added: “My realisation about the urgency of the climate crisis came shortly after leaving University and I decided to devote my career to doing what I could to help.

“I found I was most useful in commercialising innovative clean technologies and have sought to develop better ways to help those technologies flourish ever since.”

The fund, which describes itself as an “evergreen cleantech venture investor” said it is able to be more flexible with its investments because it is not tied to a 10-year investment mandate.