PATRIZIA AG, a leading partner for global real assets, has completed the first close of a new €100 million venture capital fund “Sustainable Future Ventures” (SFV). The initial close includes funds from a range of investors including pension funds and family offices, as well as strategic real estate operators and investors.
Wolfgang Egger, CEO and Founder of PATRIZIA, said: “We are delighted to see the successful first close of our new VC fund product which will play an important role in real asset’s journey to net-zero. Reducing our carbon footprint in construction and real estate is the biggest challenge of our time, so funding the companies that are at the cutting edge of sustainable innovation is absolutely essential. Besides real estate and infrastructure, venture capital as a product offers our clients the potential for attractive investment returns and strategic advantages, particularly for investors with real estate portfolios.”
The newly launched fund, which is the first in a new fund series, is led by partners Conan Lauterpacht and Matthew Chagan. It will target investments in technology companies that enable a more sustainable built environment and will focus on late Seed to Series B technology companies globally, with a strong focus on Europe. The fund has already been active, investing in two companies that are leaders in their respective markets: GBuilder and Liftango.
Headquartered in Finland, GBuilder is a Building Information Modeling (BIM) compatible customer journey management platform which maximises the value in residential sales, empowers builders and developers to deliver exceptional customer service and helps to minimise costs. The solution reduces material wastage and allows customers to understand the sustainability impact of the materials that they choose.
The second investment is in Liftango, a global company that provides market-leading software to power convenient, efficient and sustainable shared transport, to ultimately reduce carbon emissions from the built environment.
Conan Lauterpacht, Partner at SFV, commented: “Our team brings a combination of investment and operations experience as well as backgrounds both in real estate and the broader technology sector. This team combined with PATRIZIA’s global platform is a unique proposition. We are already seeing investment opportunities sourced from PATRIZIA’s global team as well as opportunities to drive value for our portfolio in multiple geographies.”
Matthew Chagan, Partner at SFV, added, “The movement towards carbon neutrality in our sector will demand a significant deployment of investment that we believe will fundamentally change the economics of the built environment and accelerate the adoption of technology solutions. It’s a very exciting time to be in this space and I hope we can make a significant contribution towards reaching sustainability targets through technology.”
SFV builds on PATRIZIA’s track record of technology and innovation investments to offer LPs the value of its network and experience. It also leverages its unique market position at the intersection of real assets and technology to deliver strategic value add for its portfolio companies. SFV brings together an experienced team of technology investors, operators and real estate professionals. The SFV investment team is supported by PATRIZIA’s global platform and its internal Technology & Innovation team.
