General Atlantic raises $3.5 bln to invest in climate change fight
Private equity firm General Atlantic's BeyondNetZero said it has secured $3.5 billion to back companies that can help in the world's fight against global warming. General Atlantic raised... | December…

- Fund to target climate-focused growth companies * Has invested $826 mln since launch * Comes as U.N. warns private finance needs to scale LONDON/NEW YORK, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Private equity firm
General Atlantic's BeyondNetZero said it has secured $3.5
billion to back companies that can help in the world's fight
against global warming. General Atlantic raised $2.6 billion from institutional
investors including sovereign wealth funds and multinational
companies for an inaugural fund. An additional $900 million will
come from existing General Atlantic funds, BeyondNetZero
Chairman John Browne told Reuters. "The world is falling behind in the amount of investment
that is needed to be made to get anywhere close to two degrees
in terms of temperature rise," said Browne, a former BP
boss, referring to global efforts to cap global warming. "There is an imperative to get the scale of investments and
the speed of investments up and for us that's important. We're
in the business of scaling and adopting at the right moment." Launched in 2021, BeyondNetZero aims to invest up to $200
million in individual companies that can help cut emissions,
particularly in decarbonisation, resource conservation, energy
efficiency and emissions management, he said. At November's COP27 climate talks in Egypt, getting more
private sector money to work was a key topic, with a report
warning developing countries would need $1 trillion a year in
public and private investment by 2030. Annual clean energy investment globally, meanwhile, will
need to more than triple by 2030 to around $4 trillion to
achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the International
Energy Agency said. The new BeyondNetZero fund has so far spent $826 million to
acquire stakes in five companies including vertical farmer 80
Acres Farms, commercial recycling and waste removal firm
RoadRunner Recycling, and sustainability ratings firm EcoVadis. BeyondNetZero has developed a pipeline of about 1,000
companies and up to 10% of those businesses are larger, without
conceptual risk and have a growth rate in double-digits, Chief
Executive Lance Uggla said. "We're focused on backing entrepreneurs that are growing
their companies substantially in each of the four spaces that we
cover," Uggla said. New York-based General Atlantic has $73 billion in assets
under management spread across technology, life sciences,
healthcare, financial services, consumer and climate.
(Reporting by Simon Jessop in London and Chibuike Oguh in New
York; Editing by Alexander Smith)