First dedicated fund investing in the Circular and Bio-Based Industries in Europe.
As the first venture capital fund exclusively dedicated to the (circular-) bioeconomy, ECBF aims to catalyze the transition towards a sustainable future. Together with passionate and visionary entrepreneurs, we speed up the shift from a fossil-based to a circular bio-based economy and contribute to achieving the European Green Deal goals to make Europe climate neutral by 2050. For this purpose, we build pan-European market leaders by investing EUR 300m in growth-stage companies with high potential for innovation, favorable returns, and sustainable impact. In syndicates with private and public investors, we are offering flexible financing tools from equity to mezzanine.
What is bioeconomy about?
Bioeconomy is the transition from a fossil-based economy to a bio-based economy. This means that in the future we will have to rely on renewable biological resources to meet our needs for food, materials and energy. Therefore, it is our task to support innovative ideas that contribute to the creation of a sustainable future.
An European Initiative
The European Union (EU) intends to strengthen Europe's leading position in the circular bioeconomy. In 2017, the European Investment Bank (EIB) published a study stating that companies and projects in the European bioeconomy lack financing in the growth phase. This funding gap is affecting the transformation process in Europe from a linear to a sustainable circular economy. To address this gap, the EU has allocated EUR 100 million to establish a market-oriented European Growth Fund. At the end of 2018, the EIB launched a tender for the fund project. In a competitive process, the EIB selected the ECBF Management GmbH.
ECBF's ESG guidelines, which guide the fund's investments, ensure that Europe's transformation to a more sustainable economy is supported.