EDP will invest 100 million euros in startups until 2025 to accelerate the energy transition
EDP wants to increase the investments in companies in growth phase at a global level
EDP wants to duplicate by 2025 its investment in startups and companies which viability has already been proven and that develop solutions that contribute to giving an answer to the climate change’s challenges and to the defiance of energy transition. Through EDP Ventures, the venture capital division of the EDP Group, the company counts with 100 million euros to invest globally in solutions that may have an impact in the business. This amount entails an increase of more than double, as in the last decade the invested amount was 45 million euros.
The company searches for startups in the scale-up stage – with a proven business model – and that are now in the industrialization phase of their offer. Therefore, EDP Ventures will begin to take part in investment rounds in the B series – when the startup already has its business model implemented with success and a significant income. EDP may also invest in the C series and will maintain its traditional focus of investing in startups in early-stage and A series. EDP expects to invest up to 10 million euros per company.
“In EDP we work with the goal of finding solutions and technologies that will make a difference in a decarbonized and more sustainable future. In a moment in which the electricity sector changes at an unprecedented speed, we want to add to our team the knowledge of the most promising startups, with a clear focus in projects that may represent growth opportunities. The following years will entail a challenge for the energy transition, and we want to face them with the best ideas at a global level”, affirms Ana Paula Marques, Managing Director of EDP Spain.
This engagement belongs to the company’s Strategic Plan until 2025, that considers the duplication of EDP’s capacity in wind and solar energy, but also a development of increasingly efficient networks and the creation of more sustainable solutions for households and companies. To achieve these goals, the investment in accelerated innovation of the energy transition has also been reinforced.
In the coming years, EDP wants to invest in enterprises with innovative solutions, likely to have a significant impact in the different areas of the group business. This reinforcement in EDP Venture’s ambition is kept all over the world, reflecting the current global nature of EDP, present in 28 markets.
With an active investment team based in Sao Paulo, Madrid, and Lisbon, EDP Ventures has carried out investments at a global scale, being one of the goals of this new stage to boost the investment activity in the main global innovation centers, like the United States, Europe, Israel or Far East, in this last case supported by the recent investment of the EDP Group in Singapore.
In the following years, the investment in innovation will be crucial to find the technologies and solutions that the sector needs to face the challenges of the coming decades. EDP’s focus is on new renewable energy technologies, storage and flexibility solutions, modernization and optimization of the production and distribution assets, as well as distributed generation, electric mobility, green hydrogen and decarbonization.
