Shell Ventures works with startups and companies from their early stages to their scale and growth phases. We make minority investments that help to develop new technologies and disruptive business models that work to accelerate the energy and mobility transformation.
Investing in venture funds and incubators is also critical to expanding our scanning capabilities, making introductions to great companies and potential investment opportunities.
Investment domains
Our investment focus is a mix of power, mobility, emission management, resources and digital:
- Power: We look for models that support commercial and industrial customers, help residential customers better manage their personal energy use, and commercial opportunities to bring power to remote communities. We invest in renewable power generation, which includes wind and solar, innovations in distributed energy solutions and novel storage solutions for renewable energy.
- Mobility: We invest across the transport industry in technologies and business models that are revolutionising the way we move the world’s growing number of people and goods, while balancing efforts to reduce CO2 and local emissions.
- Emission management: We invest in startups that help companies decarbonize across sectors. We look for emissions management solutions, negative emission -- both engineered carbon capture and nature-based solutions -- and innovations that empower the carbon market.
- Resources: We look for technologies or companies that create value to Shell’s core business. We invest in solutions that can help improve efficiency, make our operations safer and bring value to our customers.
- Digital: We are looking at new ways to analyse and interpret data, connect customers with new business models for mobility and energy services, and optimise technologies in the decentralisation of energy systems.
How we support our portfolio companies
Shell Ventures is more than a route for capital: we specialise in deployment and scaling-up, and have a team dedicated to implementation and deployment. We can offer companies access to technical and scientific expertise, research and development facilities, and can assist with field trial pilots to further develop and demonstrate concepts. We also provide unique access to a global customer base and to an extensive supplier and contractor network.
Our investment strategy is to be a significant minority investor – a typical initial investment is $2-5m, with a total of $15-22m over the lifecycle of an investment. We will lead or follow funding rounds, which means we actively form syndicates with other venture capital funds and corporate venturing teams. Maintaining excellent relationships with leading venture capital firms is paramount to our success, as they are an important source of high-quality deals. We continually build and activate our network to create the best opportunities for our portfolio companies.