Australia Seeds Largest Renewable Energy Fund, Flagship Raises VC Fund

In a difficult environment for fundraising, especially for funds that invest in early stage companies, venture capital firm Flagship Ventures closed its fourth fund, a $270 million fund.

Flagship says they exceeded their target of $250 million for the fund, which will invest in healthcare and cleantech/ sustainability.

Investors in Flagship Ventures Fund IV include pension funds, foundations, fund-of-funds, corporations and individuals.
Its previous fund, launched in 2007, was $235 million, which invested n 24 companies.

With the closing of the new fund, Flagship has about $900 million of early-stage capital under management in a portfolio of 65 companies. 25 of those companies emanated from its in-house venture creation group, VentureLabs.

Most of the portfolio companies are in healthcare. Some of the cleantech companies we spotted are: Joule (pioneering the production of liquid fuel from the sun); Novomer (bioplastics); zegen (gasification technology that converts ordinary waste streams into energy); Mascoma (biomass to biofuels); LS9 (clean
fuels, green chemicals using synthetic biology) and Oasys Water (energy and resource recovery products to address the growing, global water crisis). 

Australia’s government selected
Southern Cross Venture Partners to run its biggest renewable energy venture
capital fund. 

$200 million in seed money will kick-start the fund, half coming from the Australian government and half coming from
Softbank China Venture Capital. 

The money comes from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which is funded at $3.2 billion a year.

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