New Paris-based VC Satgana completes the first close of its €30M fund to back climate tech startups

While climate tech may be all the rage right now — and for good reasons — new Paris-based VC firm Satgana (which means “a good company” in Sanskrit) is hoping its take on the subject will gain traction.

It’s now completed the first closing of a target €30 million fund to back startups in areas such as food and agriculture, energy, mobility and buildings/industry; plus, more generally, carbon removal and circular economies.

The fund will invest up to €500,000 at the pre-seed and seed stages across Europe and Africa, bringing to bear its team that comprises operational and strategic experience. It also plans to apply a “diversity and inclusion” lens pre and post-investment.

So far, the fund has already invested in three climate tech startups, with two others to be announced soon, it says. These are:

• Orbio Earth, a German startup building a platform for energy providers to monitor and reduce methane emissions using satellite data.
• Mazi Mobility, a Kenyan startup building a network of electric motorbikes and a battery-swapping infrastructure in East Africa.
• Yeasty, a French startup building an alternative protein leveraging beer yeast with a circular model.

Satgana says it has counts 30+ LPs in its first closing, including Thibaud Hug de Larauze (co-founder and CEO of impact unicorn Back Market), Josef Bovet (CEO of Tiller Systems), Fabrice de Gaudemar (CEO of Qotto and ex-executive board of Eurazeo), Elsa Hermal (co-founder of Epicery) and the family office Cullom Capital.

Romain Diaz, general partner, said in a statement:

The climate and ecological crisis is the defining issue of our time. As a gigantic challenge ahead of us, it is also a massive business opportunity as we need to reinvent all the sectors of our economies to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.

Satgana’s Venture partner will be Patrícia Silva (based out of Lisbon), who is also co-founder and non-executive director of the Carbon Removal Centre. The investment director will be Anil Maguru.

Advisers include Lubomila J. (Plan A and co-founder, Greentech Alliance) and James Crowley (former co-founder and CTO of FundApps).