Investing in Climate: What We Can Learn from Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (1/4)

7 min readJun 25, 2025

Written by Liselotte Forgeot & Paul-Adrien Marie.

At Breega, we are increasingly exploring impact-driven investment strategies. To sharpen our understanding of how leading players structure their climate portfolios, we conducted a detailed analysis of two standout US-based climate tech funds: Lowercarbon Capital (LCC) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV).

These two funds — founded by Chris Sacca and Bill Gates, respectively — are among the most active and ambitious investors in the impact/climate space worldwide. Together, they manage over $5.5 billion and back hundreds of startups tackling decarbonisation at scale.

Our analysis focused on:

What types of companies they back,
The verticals they prioritise,
And their long-term investment logic.

We decided to deep dive on the Energy vertical, which dominates both funds’ portfolios and has seen increasing investment volumes in recent years. We further broke it down into four sub-sectors:

Energy Management — Mostly software-first tools for efficiency, optimisation and smart control
Renewables — Next-generation solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen
Energy Storage — Long-duration, thermal, and electrochemical storage
Fusion — Long-shot but high-potential bets on future clean power

This article gives an overview of LCC and BEV’s approaches, details trends in each sub-sector, and shares how Breega is building on these insights to shape our own climate strategy.

1. Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures: A Brief Introduction

Lowercarbon Capital (LCC)

Founded in 2018 by tech investor Chris Sacca and his partner Crystal Sacca, Lowercarbon Capital has grown into a prominent climate-focused VC with over $2B AUM. Known for its bold messaging (“unf***ing the planet”) and fast-paced investing, LCC backs startups that reduce or remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. It has invested in 100+ companies across energy, food, industry, and carbon removal.

LCC is opportunistic and global, investing at early stages and across both software (e.g., Enode, Pledge) and hardtech (e.g., Antora, Zap Energy).

Notable investments include:

Solugen (green chemistry unicorn),
Woodoo (French deeptech in sustainable materials),
Dioxycle (French, CO₂-to-chemicals conversion),
Storio (French energy storage startup),
Enode (energy optimization software),
Renaissance Fusion (fusion power).

Website: https://lowercarbon.com

Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV)

Founded in 2015 by Bill Gates after COP21, BEV is backed by a coalition of global billionaires (Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Masayoshi Son). It operates with an evergreen structure and a 20-year investment horizon, focused on technologies that can remove >0.5 Gt CO₂/year.

With $3.5B AUM across two funds and a third on the way, BEV is structured more like a long-term industrial investor than a typical VC.

It targets energy, manufacturing, agriculture, buildings, and transport.

Notable investments include:

KoBold Metals (ethical materials extraction),
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (fusion energy),
Energy Dome / Ottana Project (energy storage),
Heirloom (DAC).

Website: https://www.breakthroughenergy.org

2. Why Focus on Energy? The Four Sub-Sectors in Energy

This focus on energy is especially relevant for us as a European fund. Investment in European energy startups is growing strongly, driven by a specialised VC ecosystem, ambitious public policies, and rising demand for innovative solutions across fusion, renewables, storage, and energy management. Although challenges remain — such as investment deficits and international competition — Europe is progressively building a dynamic market with emerging champions and increasing emphasis on impact and industrialisation.

Within Energy, we identified four key sub-sectors where LCC and BEV focus their capital and efforts:

📊 Energy Management: Smarter, Faster, Lighter

Energy management solutions leverage software to optimise and automate energy consumption in real time, increasing efficiency with minimal capital expenditure. These are typically deployed in B2B settings like utilities, real estate, or industrial facilities.

Examples include:

Enode (Norway): API connecting EVs and home devices to energy apps
Flair and Quilt: smart HVAC optimisation for homes
VEIR: superconducting power lines for high-efficiency transmission

This vertical emphasises fast-to-market, software-led solutions — often deployed in B2B settings like utilities or real estate.

☀️ Renewables: Still Core, Less “Hot”?

Renewables harness natural energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen to generate clean power. Hardware-heavy and capital-intensive, this sector continues to evolve through innovation and cost reduction.

Once at the center of climate VC, renewables remain a major focus but are now considered more mature:

Airloom Energy: radically redesigned low-cost wind turbines
Fervo Energy: horizontal drilling for geothermal
CubicPV: tandem solar cells
Electric Hydrogen: green hydrogen tech

Most of these startups are based in the US, though several are in Europe.

🔋 Energy Storage: The Next Frontier

Energy storage solutions store electricity or heat to balance supply and demand, ensuring grid stability and continuous power delivery. Technologies include advanced batteries, thermal systems, and other alternatives to lithium-ion.

Storage is the linchpin between intermittent generation and reliability:

Form Energy (BEV): iron-air batteries for 100h duration
Antora Energy (LCC): thermal storage using carbon blocks
Rondo Energy: high-temp brick-based thermal storage
Ess Inc, Quidnet Energy: alternatives to lithium-ion

Storage is quietly attracting massive capital and gaining maturity. It’s also a frequent point of overlap between LCC and BEV.

🔬 Fusion: Betting on the Long Game

Fusion is the process of fusing atomic nuclei to release energy — replicating the sun’s power generation — distinct from nuclear fission which splits atoms. Although still in early stages and high risk, fusion promises vast, clean, and sustainable power.

Estimated $30–40B globally has been poured into fusion (source Strategy&).

LCC and BEV are among the boldest private backers:

Zap Energy: compact fusion via Z-pinch
Commonwealth Fusion Systems: tokamak with HTS magnets (MIT spin-out)
Type One Energy: BEV bet on stellarators

Almost all are US-based, with massive public support (esp. from the US Department of Energy). Europe lags behind due to policy inertia and slower capital markets, except from one French example, Renaissance-Fusion, Europe-based high-temperature superconductor and stellarator company.

Now that we have outlined the four key energy sub-sectors, let’s explore the main investment trends and strategic focuses within Lowercarbon Capital’s and Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ portfolios across these areas.

3. Key Investment Trends in Energy

A. LCC’s Energy Thesis: A Three-Phase Evolution

1. Early bets (2018–2020): software and energy management

Tools like Enode focused on orchestration and demand-side optimisation.
Lower risk, fast deployment, often B2B SaaS models.

2. Expansion (2021–2022): renewables and industrial decarbonisation

Investments in startups like Airloom and Antora with stronger hardware components.
Capable of attacking larger CO₂ sources, but requiring more capital.

3. Present (2023+): long-term moonshots — fusion and energy storage

LCC launched dedicated funds (e.g., $250M for fusion) and went deep into high-CAPEX, long-horizon tech.
e.g., Zap Energy, Renaissance Fusion (France), Storio Energy (France)

B. BEV’s Strategy: Industrial-Scale, Long-Term

BEV has always backed high-CAPEX, R&D-intensive infrastructure tech, targeting:

Storage: e.g., Form Energy raised $800M+
Grids: e.g., VEIR (5–10x grid capacity)
Geothermal: Fervo applying oil & gas drilling to clean energy
Fusion: CFS, Zap Energy

Hardware-first logic: Deep due diligence, patient capital, large rounds

While US-focused (~90% of portfolio), BEV is expanding in Europe through Breakthrough Energy Europe and its Catalyst program.

4. Key Learnings for Breega

Our analysis of Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures reveals two distinct yet complementary investment models.

4.1. Two Blueprints, Two Investment Philosophies

Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) operates with an exceptionally long-term and capital-intensive model, backed by patient, almost unrestricted capital from billionaire LPs. This enables them to support moonshot technologies like fusion or deep industrial decarbonisation — opportunities that are typically out of scope for most European VC funds due to fund lifecycle and return constraints.

Lowercarbon Capital (LCC), in contrast, pursues a more agile and diversified strategy. It balances short- and mid-term plays (e.g., energy management software) with long-term bets (e.g., storage, fusion), often blending hardtech and software to unlock scalable climate solutions. This hybrid model is more aligned with how a European VC like Breega can operate.

4.2. What this means for Breega

At Breega, we see value in adopting a hybrid approach inspired by LCC: investing in capital-light, scalable software solutions that improve energy efficiency and grid intelligence (e.g., Ensol, Enode), while also exploring select high-potential long-term opportunities, such as next-gen storage (e.g., Storio) or emerging fusion projects (e.g., Renaissance Fusion), where we can partner with deeptech founders from the early days.

We are actively building a diversified climate portfolio that blends software-led energy optimisation with select high-potential hardtech. This approach is already reflected in our portfolio:

With Ensol, we’ve backed a company that sits at the intersection of software orchestration and physical energy assets.
With Station E, we supported a national-scale rollout of EV charging hubs — proving that scalable impact infrastructure can be financed and deployed efficiently with the right partners.

We believe the hardtech vs. software dichotomy is fading — the most compelling climate solutions often sit at the intersection of both. That’s why we are super interested in backing founders who combine technical ambition with a clear go-to-market path, and who are ready to build for the future with us.

If you’re working in or building for this space, we’d love to connect :)

What’s Next

This article is the first in a series from Breega exploring major verticals in climate investing. Over the coming weeks, we’ll publish dedicated deep dives into each of the four sub-sectors — Energy Management, Renewables, Storage, and Fusion — to surface trends, challenges, and innovation opportunities we believe matter.

By sharing our insights, we hope to contribute to a more informed and action-oriented climate investment community.

Let’s build the future together.