Speedinvest was among the first European early-stage VC firms when its founders started to take Silicon Valley's getting-hands-dirty practices from their own entrepreneurs' journey to the Old Continent, said investor Andreas Schwarzenbrunner.

Vienna-headquartered Speedinvest has invested in some 250 companies, including 20 investments in climate tech startups. The firm manages assets of about half a billion euros.

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, Tarmo Virki talks with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.

Subscribe to the NatureBacked newsletter on LinkedIn. 

**

A few key takeaways from Andreas Schwarzenbrunner:

**

"I think there's a gap between the software digital-focused climate tech companies versus ones that are really into more development of new ideas, R&D, infrastructure, and hardware."

**

"I think there the investor scene needs to adapt because if you're serious about climate tech, and if you are serious about decarbonization, and reducing emissions, the investor scene, including us, has to realize that there is no way around hardware.

At the end of the day, if you really look at the hard problems in climate tech, there are so many things that can't be solved otherwise. It's about reducing emissions when you use concrete and steel; it's about new ways of electrified mobility and charging infrastructure.

If you look at energy storage and hydrogen solutions, there's no way around building storage facilities and all those things. Investors need to adapt and realize that if you're serious about it, you have to tackle these problems."

**

"We also see that this climate tech is basically a maturing asset class ... you can see the rise of investors in climate tech, money that goes into that space. And for us, we also want to double down on this, and we want to continue to invest and even invest more in climate tech companies over the years to come."

**

Follow NatureBacked across platforms:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts

Twitter | Instagram

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices