Blisce has become the latest VC firm to launch a fund dedicated to climate tech, for which it plans to raise as much as €150 million (about $162 million). The firm is hiring investor Pierre-Edouard Berion to lead the fund, and Lucie Basch, the co-founder of Too Good To Go, is going to support the fund as a venture partner.
If you aren’t familiar with Blisce, the VC firm is based in Paris, has an office in New York, and is better known as the investment vehicle of Alexandre Mars (pictured above). Mars is an entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist who created a handful of tech companies during the early 2000s and sold them to big names like Publicis and Blackberry. Blisce raised $240 million (about €225 million) for its last fund.
More recently, Mars launched Blisce, a classic, for-profit VC firm, though it carries a B Corp label. He also started Epic, a non-profit foundation that finances organizations that reduce childhood inequality when it comes to education or health, and supports organizations that fight climate change.
It’s hard to talk about Blisce without mentioning Epic, because a portion of Blisce’s profits are reinvested in Epic to cover the foundation’s operational costs. Similarly, the Blisce team is committing 20% of its carried interest to Epic.
It appears to have been working well, especially because Blisce has invested in several unicorns such as Spotify, Pinterest and Headspace. More recently, the firm invested in Brut, Sorare and Welcome to the Jungle. As you can see, the company’s portfolio is a mix of consumer tech companies, and it hasn’t yet focused on climate tech.
With the firm’s new fund, Blisce wants to invest in tech startups that have a positive impact on climate change, especially in polluting industries like materials, food, construction, mobility and energy. The firm is going to put together a dedicated team for this fund, and as mentioned above, has hired Pierre-Edouard Berion to head it.
Berion is a familiar face in Paris’ VC circles. After working for a few years as investment director at Eurazeo (he invested in Zenly, Withings and Vestiaire Collective), he joined Raise Ventures as a partner.
As for Lucie Basch, she already knows the Blisce team quite well, as the firm is an investor in her company, Too Good To Go. She will become a venture partner for the new climate fund — in VC lingo, that means she’ll remain at Too Good To Go and help the fund on the side. Blisce is still raising money for its new fund, so it’s going to be interesting to see how much they manage to raise.