Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures 40% Obvious Dead Ends
Analysis of their portfolio sees that only 52% of investments make sense for a climate impact VC, with 38% clearly failures before they start
Eight years ago, Bill Gates and group of his closest billionaire acquaintances launched an incredibly well funded venture capital group. Its noble mission was funding and supporting transformative technologies aimed at mitigating climate change. Many of its investments are sound and if commercialized, would assist, at least a bit.
However, a large percentage of its investments are quite far off the mark. That’s mostly because of the biases of the founding billionaires and resulting investment theses that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Investment funds regularly ask me for my input and assistance with their investment theses, so I at least have the basis for an opinion in the matter.
Recently I stepped through their entire existing portfolio and added a couple of additional firms which are legacy BEV investments or Gates-specific investments. I graded each of them with a thumbs up, thumbs down or sideways.
