Pale Blue Dot’s backers include Saminvest, the Swedish government-backed VC investor, the H&M family office Ramsbury Invest and VC firm Atomico. “The second close feels a lot easier FOMO starts happening after the first close.” Landing the final €34m of the fund was a whole lot easier than the first €53m, says Jakobsson - and the ‘can climate tech make a profit’ question all but disappeared. That meant that many limited partners (LPs) said they wanted to invest - but only a small amount, because they didn’t expect the kind of returns they usually aim for with investments. “In Europe, the conversation until summer 2020 was: ‘But can you combine climate with profit?’” Heading out to fundraise for the first time in 2019, “it was a battle to explain to people that climate change was real”, says Jakobsson - to some American investors in particular. For us, if it’s indirect then it’s not really interesting enough.” “There are a lot of companies where climate impact isn’t core,” adds Lindvall. “It’s detrimental to have yet another mobile app that says how much do you fly, how much garbage do you throw away, hey that’s a lot lower than China and Canada, click on this button to do a shitty offsetting scheme - and now you’re good! You can eat meat and travel to the Maldives.”

It also rules out a whole lot of companies, like consumer carbon accounting startups, says Jakobsson.

“Climate tech is so much wider than renewable energy,” says Lindvall. That means they can come from anywhere - from fintech to food through to fashion and mobility - and range far beyond the realm of solar panels and wind farms. Defining climate techīy Pale Blue Dot’s definition, climate tech startups are “highly scalable tech companies with a positive climate impact”.

Over the next few years, the Malmö-based team will be investing that into 35 pre-seed and seed-stage startups doing everything from plastic upcycling to sustainable agriculture. Today, Pale Blue Dot is announcing the final close of its first fund at €87m.

Pale blue dot