We are excited to see Breakthrough Energy Venture’s (BEV) progress! Especially their June 2018 investment in Quidnet Energy (a pre-CEV legacy portfolio company) to be followed by further co-investments. Quidnet Energy, a pioneer of a novel form of pumped hydro electricity storage, was one of BEV’s first two investments.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures is a $1 billion energy fund led by Bill Gates, with a goal to “invest into radical energy startups capable of drastically cutting global emissions.”
Excerpt from Quartz Article
It’s not often that the world’s richest people get together, agree on a goal that’s for the public good, and then set about finding ways to achieve it. But that’s what Bill Gates has achieved with Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), which aims to invest $1 billion into radical energy startups capable of drastically cutting global emissions. The fund draws on the resources of billionaires like India’s Mukesh Ambani, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Virgin’s Richard Branson, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son.
In June, Quartz broke the story of BEV’s first two investments: Form Energy, which is developing two new types of battery chemistries capable of storing weeks and months worth of energy, respectively, and Quidnet Energy, which is developing a technology to replicate the benefits of hydropower by pumping water into subsurface shale formations.
