Market situation

2024 has been a challenging market for venture investments. A continued lack of exits from funds’ portfolios has reduced cash returns to fund LPs, which in turn limits and delays new fund commitments from the same LPs. This leads to a lower investment pace from funds – reflected by a 14 percent drop compared to 2023 in venture and growth investments in climate technologies. This decline is less than the previous 24 percent drop from 2022 to 2023, indicating that the sector is settling into a new normal. However, there is still an accumulated USD 86 billion in investable dry powder available for climate tech, which is close to last year’s all-time high. Despite the market normalisation, Impact Investing continue to see a steady inflow of capital into climate tech, which is essential for this massive and, hopefully, rapid movement towards a net-zero world.  

We are facing a climate and nature crisis that requires swift and decisive action. Fortunately, most of the world’s largest economies have committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the transition to a low-emission society demands a massive restructuring of all economic sectors. Regrettably, we are not currently well-positioned to meet this challenge. According to the UN Climate Panel (IPCC), annual climate investments need to increase sixfold from their current levels to meet the 1.5-degree target. Venture capital, providing risk capital to early-stage companies, plays a crucial role in this effort by investing in new technologies specifically designed to accelerate emissions reductions. 

In 2024, we committed capital to two new fund managers: Collab Fund VI and Voyager Ventures II, both based in the US. We also committed capital to StartUpLab’s Founders Fund V here in Norway. On the company side, we co-invested in Propely with Arkwright X and made several follow-on investments in other portfolio companies. Detailed information on all our investments is outlined below. 

Moreover, we published an updated and enhanced edition of our impact report in 2024, which can be accessed here.  

Portfolio

Funds and co-investments

2150
2150 invests in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment. By the third quarter of 2024, the fund has 19 portfolio companies. 2150 is at the forefront in the field of impact measurement, and its most recent impact report can be accessed here.

Antler
Antler is a global venture investment company that invests in skilled and visionary individuals across the world. Antler is now present in approximately 30 cities across the globe, holding a total portfolio of more than 1,400 companies. In addition to our investment in Antler’s mother company in 2019, we also invested in Antler Nordic Fund II in 2023.

ArcTern Ventures
ArcTern Ventures Fund III is a Canadian venture fund with offices in Toronto, San Francisco, and Oslo. The fund broadly invests in areas addressing major climate and sustainability challenges. As of the third quarter in 2024, the fund has made 10 investments.

Arkwright X
Arkwright X Investment Family (AXIF) is a club deal structure that gives Ferd, as a program investor, the opportunity to invest alongside Arkwright X and other program investors. Through AXIF, we have invested in Ignite, a company that offers a software-based procurement system which translates procurement data into actionable insights. This system notably uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to trace and quantify CO2 emissions. Additionally, we partnered with Arkwright X to invest in Kvist Solutions. This company aids real estate companies, contractors, and consulting companies with environmental certification of buildings. In 2024 we co-invested with Arkwright X in the proptech-company Propely, providing property managers with an easy-to-use, data-driven platform to manage and optimise buildings and properties.

Collab Fund
The Collaborative Fund, headquartered in New York, backs entrepreneurs pushing the world forward. Having successfully invested in impactful companies for over 10 years, the team at Collab Fund poses the following question when evaluating a new company: If this startup becomes massively successful, will it make the world a better or more interesting place? We invested in Collab Fund VI in 2024, and the fund will start deploying capital in 2025. 

Dovetail
Since 2022, we have collaborated with Dovetail, which focuses on products and services that integrate technology at the core of their business model. Through our partnership with Dovetail, we have invested in 360 Logistics, a full-range supplier of third-party logistics (3PL) that contributes to making cities more sustainable. In 2023, we expanded our investments with Dovetail to include Metizoft, a company that provides software and services aimed at promoting sustainable and responsible shipping. Additionally, we invested in Ditio, a company that develops software to enhance the sustainability and profitability of construction sites. 

Ecosystem Integrity Fund
Ecosystem Integrity Fund, headquartered in San Francisco, focuses on sustainability and invests in companies at the early growth stage. Since 2022, we have been invested in Ecosystem Integrity Fund IV, and we also committed capital to Fund V in 2023. As of the third quarter of 2024, Fund IV has 12 portfolio companies and one successful exit. Fund V has so far made four investments. We are co-invested with EIF fund IV in Shoreline, a company providing simulation and optimisation solutions for the design, construction, and operation of wind energy projects. 

Momentum
Momentum II is a venture fund located in Bergen that invests in sustainable and innovative companies in their early growth phase. The fund focuses on the green transition, decarbonisation and challenges associated with biodiversity and scarce natural resources. To date, the fund has invested in 12 companies. We have co-invested with Momentum in Nofence, which provides the world’s first virtual fence system for grazing animals.

Pale Blue Dot
Pale Blue Dot is an early-stage fund based in Malmö, Sweden, which invests in the most exciting climate tech start-ups across Europe and the US. In 2023, we made our first secondary transaction and invested in Pale Blue Dot’s Fund I. By the close of the fourth quarter of 2024, the fund had invested in 37 companies. Additionally, in 2023, we committed capital to Fund II, which so far has invested in four companies.

Startuplab
Startuplab is an incubator and seed investor that offers office space, capital, network and industry expertise to Norwegian startups. With a presence in both Oslo and Bergen, Startuplab manages a vibrant hub for hundreds of companies, many of which have grown to become some of Norway’s most renowned tech companies. Impact Investing has invested in Founders Fund II, III, IV, and – as of 2024 – Fund V.

SWEN Blue Ocean
SWEN Capital Partners is a leading European asset manager. We are invested in their Blue Ocean fund, which is SWEN’s venture capital fund dedicated to investing in innovations that strengthen and preserve marine life. By the end of the third quarter of 2024, the Blue Ocean fund had invested in twelve companies, with three of those investments made in 2023.  

Voyager Ventures
Based in New York, San Francisco and London, Voyager invests in technology companies creating the future of mobility, energy, materials, the built environment, analytics, and carbon management. We invested in Voyager Fund II in 2024, and the fund will start deploying in 2025. 

Other company investments

Antler
Antler has continued to escalate its growth, opening new locations throughout 2024. Over the course of the year, Antler played a key role in launching approximately 400 new companies across 30 locations and six continents. By the end of 2024, Antler’s diverse portfolio comprised over 1,400 companies, with a history of delivering strong returns. Additionally, Antler has strengthened its focus on impact – for more detail on sustainability and social responsibility efforts, Antler’s 2024 ESG and Impact Report is available here. 

Brim Explorer
Brim Explorer is a maritime company with a focus on sustainability that operates in northern Norway and Oslo with a fleet of five ships, the newest member of the fleet baptized in 2024. The company is committed to preserving natural habitats, and its ships use hybrid-electric engines that create minimal noise and vibration, thus preserving the tranquillity of the surroundings. 

Disruptive Technologies
Disruptive Technologies (DT) is a Norwegian tech company developing some of the world’s smallest wireless sensors and IoT infrastructure. These robust, low-cost, and flexible sensors make buildings intelligent and sustainable, and are essential in securing an efficient cold-storage value chain. DT has a global customer base and is particularly growing in the US.

Wind Catching Systems
Wind Catching Systems (WCS) is developing a disruptive concept for floating offshore wind, with the potential to produce electricity at a significantly lower LCOE and on a significantly smaller area of the sea than other technologies known today. Ferd Capital’s portfolio company Aibel AS has been an important collaboration partner for WCS. In addition to Ferd and North Energy ASA, General Motors (GM) Ventures and Havfonn have also invested in WCS. 

Future prospects

Our focus going forward is to steadily increase our investments in high-quality fund managers and companies, gaining exposure to the best and most scalable climate tech solutions. Our goal is to build a concentrated portfolio of the top climate tech fund managers. We believe we will be able to identify the winners in the space as the climate tech fund ecosystem matures and more data becomes available, continuously improving our own investment methodology.  

In 2025, we are expanding our scope to include growth funds. We expect to make our first growth fund investment during the year, enabling valuable insights from some of the best climate investors, and hopefully also giving us exposure to some of the most impactful climate tech companies of the near future.