General Atlantic raises $3.5 bln to invest in climate change fight

• 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)