Banco Santander has raised 10 million euros in four months for its Santander Innoenergy Climate VC II fund, its venture capital company (SCR) focused on the energy transition and aimed at its private banking clients.
According to the Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry (Borme), Santander Asset Management, sole shareholder of the fund, has redeemed 100% of the shares (1.2 million euros) and then increased the capital by creating a maximum number of 100,000 new titles, each with a face value of 100 euros. “Simultaneously with the capital reduction agreement described above, the sole shareholder of the company decided to increase the share capital in order to give entry to future investors up to a maximum amount of 10 million euros,” says the Borme.
As La Información published, Banco Santander launched the fund together with EIT InnoEnergy, the engine of innovation in the field of sustainable energy backed by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT, for its acronym in English). At the helm he placed Santiago Gil y Gil, senior investment director at Santander Asset Management, specializing in venture capital and clean technologies. Until last summer he was responsible for the investment arm in startups of Enagás, operator of the Spanish gas system.
For his part, it was in November when he put the figures on the table and presented the brochure. In total, it intends to raise 125 million euros from its private banking clients. It will be centralized directly in the European continent and in companies in very early stages. This initiative was added to the one led by the Spanish manager Seaya Ventures of 300 million (Andromeda) together with the new ICO fund of funds.
Year and a half of collection
The fund was born with a year and a half of capital raising period. Initially, the plan involved Banco Santander itself playing a relevant role as an investor, as this medium has already published. It focuses on companies with rounds of a maximum of tens of millions of euros. They should be focused on areas of energy transition, renewable energy, storage, smart electricity grid, technology applied to sustainable cities and buildings, efficiency, energy for transport and mobility, and circular economy. You cannot exceed 10% of the size of the fund in a single company.
For Banco Santander, contributing to the transition towards a greener economy is one of its strategic priorities. The new SCR is part of the long-term strategic contract that the entity carried out with EIT InnoEnergy at the end of April last year. The aim of this collaboration was to help accelerate the development of EIT InnoEnergy’s startup portfolio by fostering investment, meeting training needs and developing creative solutions to support sustainable innovations.
The bank has identified six technologies in which it intends to become a front-line advisor and lender to drive the energy transition: green hydrogen, energy storage, green fuels, and renewable energy, among others. He also has experience in corporate and retail banking in the industrial and energy sectors. Its commitment is to mobilize 120,000 million euros of green financing until 2025 and 220,000 million euros until 2030. Since 2019, it has channeled 74,400 million.
EIT InnoEnergy portfolio
The EIT InnoEnergy portfolio, which already has three unicorns, needs €160 billion of additional financing over the next five years. Four of the 300 companies that make up the EIT InnoEnergy portfolio have already worked with Santander with good results when it comes to accelerating their activity to attract strategic investors and obtain financial resources to accelerate their growth.
The volume of assets under management in socially responsible investment of the entity chaired by Ana Botín stands at more than 30,000 million euros. The group highlights its activity in wholesale banking and recalls the green export loan for 1,000 million euros granted to Iberdrola, funds whose funds will be used for the acquisition of turbines for wind farms in Europe or its participation in the issuance of very low ico bonds for the Junta de Andalucía, worth 500 million euros each.
