Barclays Climate Ventures’ 2024 impact report reveals the portfolio’s catalytic impact on climate tech companies, helping to address a systemic growth-stage financing gap by enabling £508m of investment since 2020.
Climate tech is key to delivering the next generation energy system, addressing the climate challenge whilst supporting a successful and growing economy with affordable and resilient energy. But with high initial upfront costs and long timeframes to profitability and scale, climate tech companies often don’t fit the risk/return profiles pursued by either traditional venture capitalists or infrastructure funds, leading to a ‘missing middle’ financing gap.
Barclays Climate Ventures aims to expedite the growth of climate tech companies, in part through helping to address this financing gap, having invested £203m into early and growth stage climate tech globally since 2020. In leading or co-leading over half (61%) of these transactions, Barclays Climate Ventures has enabled a further £305m of third-party investment – equivalent to £2.18 for every £1 from Barclays in these rounds.
With data calculated by the Carbon Trust1, today’s report also quantifies the broader impact of Barclays Climate Ventures’ investments, such as the 1,309 jobs created by the portfolio companies, including 664 across the UK alone.
Steven Poulter, Head of Barclays Climate Ventures said: “The UK is home to a thriving climate tech ecosystem, but to unlock the sector’s economic potential, we must find ways to address the financing gap that holds back their growth. Today’s report shows that, through a willingness to adjust our risk appetite and take a new approach, we have been successful in catalysing investment into climate tech – capable of delivering UK economic growth, energy security and emissions reductions at scale. We now call for more investors to join us on this journey.”
Barclays Climate Ventures has a mandate to invest £500m of equity capital in climate tech start-ups between 2020 and the end of 2027.
1 Impact reporting statistics, including data on jobs and emissions, have been reviewed and calculated by the Carbon Trust, using data up to October 2024
