Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and a consortium of high-profile
investors are backing a new $1 billion venture fund that will invest in clean energy technology.
It's called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), and it has a
broad focus. "Anything that leads to cheap, clean, reliable energy we're
open-minded to," Gates told Quartz
Alongside the Microsoft-cofounder-turned-philanthropist and the
Amazon CEO, there is an array of top investors
and industry leaders backing it -; including Virgin's Richard
Branson, Bridgewater Associate's Ray Dalio, John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins,
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, Alibaba exec
chairman Jack Ma, Facebook cofounder-turned-investor Dustin Moskovitz, and
Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.
In short: There are
some seriously big names behind it. Quartz suggests that, with the group's
combined total wealth of $170 billion, it could be the "richest group of
investors ever assembled."
It's dedicated to
investing in green and clean energy technologies, to try and tackle the threat
of climate change and move humanity onto renewable energy sources.
"The Breakthrough
Energy Coalition is a partnership committed to broad investment in new energy
technologies," BEV says on its website. "We are investing our own
capital and are working with over 20 countries around the world who have
committed to significantly increase their investments in the basic research
that leads to breakthrough innovations."
It adds: "To
provide reliable and affordable power without contributing to climate change we
need to address emissions in five key areas: electricity, transportation,
agriculture, manufacturing, and buildings."
Gates, since stepping
down as Microsoft's CEO in 2000, has devoted ever more of his time to philanthropic
efforts. With tens of billions of dollars at his disposal, the work of the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation varies from working on sanitation solutions to
trying to stamp out malaria.
Back in November 2015, Gates and other tech leaders including Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which brought
together more than 25 investors, The Guardian reported at the time.
The launch of BEV is the next step in taking action to try and tackle climate
change.
"To provide
everyone in the world with access to reliable, affordable power, food, goods,
transportation, and services without contributing to greenhouse gas emissions
will not be an easy job," the organisation says.
"Developing the
tools we need will require broad investment across a landscape of
innovation-;and no investor or group of investors can do this alone.
Breakthrough Energy is committed to encouraging a wide network of public and
private capital to work together to solve the problem."
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an
investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos
Expeditions.
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