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The second Eurazeo Smart City venture fund will back start-ups that are supporting digital transformation in cities.
Paris-headquartered venture capital firm Eurazeo has announced the initial close of its second Smart City fund, raising €80m to invest in international start-ups in areas such as energy, mobility, proptech and logistics.
The round saw contributions from new investors in Europe and Asia alongside Eurazeo’s existing partners, including Dutch car maker Stellantis, global energy operator Total, and Thai real-estate developer Sansiri.
Eurazeo’s Smart City venture team invests in tech companies that are supporting the rapid digital transformation of cities, looking at areas such as working from home, shared and electric mobility, renewable energy transition and food delivery. The venture capital firm said that the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up the shift to smarter cities and placed a focus on a green recovery.
Through its first Smart City venture fund, almost 25 investments were made in Europe, Asia and North America. Spanish delivery company Glovo was one of the start-ups to receive funding in the first Eurazeo Smart City fund. In late 2019, Glovo became the second privately held business in Spain to reach unicorn status after a $150m investment led by Mubadala.
Other start-ups that received investment from the first Smart City fund include Volta Charging, the US charging network for electric vehicles, and Chinese autonomous driving start-up WeRide.
Matthieu Bonamy, partner at Eurazeo subsidiary Idinvest Partners, commented: “The Smart City venture strategy aims to select and support the future global leaders in each of their sectors thanks to an expertise in our investments themes and a selectivity rate at the level of the best generalist funds.
“The fund benefit is also extra-financial as we support entrepreneurs who take decisive action to reduce carbon emissions and enable the development of more inclusive and resilient cities. This is crucial today as cities consume 78pc of the world’s energy and produce more than 60pc of the world’s greenhouse gases.”
