ArcTern Ventures

About

In a market economy, solving a big problem generates a big reward. We aggressively seek out the most disruptive ideas to solve the biggest problems of the 21st century: climate change and resource scarcity. We are not afraid of early-stage cleantech investing, in fact, we believe the most attractive investment opportunities are early-stage. However, to do a deep dive on hundreds of ideas to select the most promising ventures requires extensive resources. By leveraging our unique relationship with MaRS, one of the largest innovation centers in the world, we are able to comprehensively review hundreds of early-stage cleantech ventures to select game-changing ideas with lowest risk, highest reward profile. We then work closely with the most promising of these ventures to develop and fund a highly focused plan that wrings out the risks and positions the company for market success.

We are entrepreneurs, not passive investors. We’ve lived it. We like to roll up our sleeves and get involved. As active board members, we passionately support the entrepreneurs in building management teams, developing strong commercial opportunity pipelines, and forging global partnerships.

While many cleantech funds are moving away from early stage investing, we embrace it. We will lead a first investment as small as $500k and with our partners, we can fund the venture through its many growth stages. We are flexible – as an early stage investor you need to be. We will look at great technologies and help build a great team, or great teams with a specific problem that needs solving. All investments must have disruptive technology, deep intellectual property, a global market opportunity and a capital-lean business model. Our focus sectors are renewable energy, energy storage, energy efficiency, smart grid, waste & recycling, sustainable chemistry, advanced materials, and water.

Souce: ArcTern Ventures

Strategy

We are entrepreneurs. We’ve built startups from idea to exit and can relate to your challenges on every level. We want to take an active role in working with you to build value: corporate partner introductions, sales support, creative strategic planning, recruiting superstars, profile building, and sourcing follow-on funding. All of these activities are leveraged by our tight relationship with MaRS – one of the world’s most effective innovation and company acceleration centers.

Souce: ArcTern Ventures