Shell launched a new $ 1.4 billion fund in 2021 to support startups and scale-ups operating with energy transition applications. Startups and scale-ups often develop smart innovations that help accelerate the energy transition. But they often need the necessary investments to grow into commercially successful companies, according to Shell Ventures. The Dutch IT Channel & Executive People team spoke with Geert van de Wouw, Vice President of Shell Ventures.
Shell Ventures invests mainly in three areas: renewable energy, new forms of mobility & transport and digital technology. These include applications for, for example, solar and wind energy, storage & use of green electricity, mobility, transport and logistics, hydrogen, circular economy and nature-based solutions. “With this proposal, we want to accelerate the energy transition, whereby Shell itself wants to be climate-neutral or CO2-neutral by 2050. This is what Shell does with its Renewables & Energy Solutions activities,” says Van de Wouw. “This strategy will give Shell faster access to innovative and ‘transformative’ technologies that reduce costs and CO2 emissions, while helping startups and scale-ups to scale faster. This is done in part by the implementation managers of Shell Ventures.’
Eyes & Ears
In 2022, Shell Ventures is active with fifty employees working at seven locations worldwide. Van de Wouw: “these employees are the eyes & ears of Shell Ventures. They establish contact with startups and scale-ups that have an innovative technology or business model. These startups can help Shell and other organisations accelerate the energy transition. Sometimes these are start-ups that will only make a big impact in 15 years, but sometimes the impact is already quite direct, by connecting the start-up to one of Shell’s existing activities
This year, Shell Ventures again invested in more than twenty startups, including Static, which developed an electric vehicle charging network in India. The company received Series A funding of over $ 25 million to invest in product engineering and network infrastructure. Another example is the Groningen-based company ENIE, which installs solar panels on the roofs of homeowners in the Netherlands and South Africa. Or Lithium Industries from America, which has developed a unique technology for recycling lithium batteries.
The New Energy Challenge
Shell Ventures also supports startups and scale-ups that participate in the annual New Energy Challenge. “Previously, several start-up companies won prizes that allow them to grow further. Asperitas from Haarlem won the New Energy Challenge of 2018. The startup developed a sustainable cooling system for data centers. The jury praised the solution for energy saving and the reuse of energy in the fast-growing data center market,” says Van de Wouw.
In 2022, ten startups and scale-ups from all over Europe and Israel participated in the New Energy Challenge 2022. At the Web Summit 2022 event in Lisbon, they presented to the jury their innovative ideas with which they want to radically change the current energy system, including data and machine learning. The theme of the 2022 New Energy Challenge was Capture, Storage and use of CO2, also known as Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). Two winning innovations and companies received further support from Shell. First, CyanoCapture( UK), a startup that demonstrates the power of genetically modified cyanobacteria to enable affordable, scalable and clean CO2 capture on an industrial scale. The second winner was RepAir (Israel) which develops an affordable, sustainable and scalable DAC system that consumes only a third of the energy required by alternative DAC technologies. RepAir’s solution is based on an electrochemical device that uses electricity to separate CO2 molecules from the air. In the meantime, RepAir has also had an investment from Shell ventures. The public award was won by Barton Blakeley Technologies, which developed reliable emission-reducing technology and systems.
In addition, a membership for the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam (ETCA) was made available to CarbonSpace. The ETCA is a new location where Shell opened its research and development facilities on the northern banks of the IJ in Amsterdam in 2022 for promising startups, scale – ups, academics and companies working on the energy transition. A dozen companies have already taken their seats here.
Van de Wouw expects the number of start-ups that deal with renewable energy and climate technology to increase significantly in the near future, including in the Netherlands. “That’s because the price of oil and gas has gone up. Renewable energy applications now offer an attractive alternative and are therefore interesting. Secondly, governments are playing a stronger role in clean energy. For example, the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) with a $ 430 billion fund stimulates the development of clean energy, greatly promoting innovation. . Of course, startups like to take advantage of that. Politicians in Europe realize that too. For example, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is making capital available to identify innovative start-ups developing sustainable applications, and last week Ursula von der Leyen encouraged her European colleagues to come up with their own plan to stimulate European investment in clean energy and Climate Technology.”
