Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
The Bill Gates-led climate-technology fund, backed by a club of billionaires. It has 20-year fund lives and scientists on its investment committee, and it was designed to fund the hard-science "missing middle" of decarbonisation (fusion, green steel, long-duration storage, geothermal, low-carbon fertiliser) that conventional venture capital avoided after the cleantech bust.
At a glance
- Founded
- Announced December 2016 (growing out of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, launched at COP21 in Paris, November 2015)
- Founders
- Bill Gates with a coalition of investors including Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Masayoshi Son, Mukesh Ambani, Ray Dalio, Michael Bloomberg, John Doerr, Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman, John Arnold and Hasso Plattner (reported coalition membership; varies by fund)
- Headquarters
- Kirkland, Washington (Breakthrough Energy offices); investment team distributed across the US and Europe
- Ownership / structure
- Private funds within the Breakthrough Energy network (alongside policy, Fellows, Catalyst and Discovery); LPs are mainly ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices, plus later institutions and sovereign investors
- Leadership (2026)
- Bill Gates (founder and chair); investment team led by partners including Carmichael Roberts and Eric Toone (verify current roster and titles)
- AUM / capital raised
- Fund I ~$1bn (2016), Fund II ~$1.25bn (2021), Fund III ~$0.84bn+ per 2024 Form D (target ~$1bn); BEV Europe ~€100m (2019); total ~$3.5–4bn (reported)
- Stage focus
- Seed to Series B with large reserves for later rounds; hardware, chemistry, biology and materials across power, manufacturing, agriculture, transport and buildings
- Signature investments
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Fervo Energy, Form Energy, Boston Metal, Pivot Bio, Redwood Materials, Heirloom, Rondo Energy, Lilac Solutions; struggles: Malta, Turntide and several capital-intensive hardware companies (verify)
10 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2018
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Early Venture / Series A
2018
Form Energy
Series A
2018
Malta
Series A Spin-Out
2018
Pivot Bio
Series B
2019
Boston Metal
Series A
2019
Fervo Energy
Series A
2020
Lilac Solutions
Series A
2021
Turntide Technologies
Growth Round
2022
Heirloom
Series A
2022
Rondo Energy
Series A