Climate Pledge Fund

Climate Pledge Fund

Company type	Public
Industry	Venture Capital
Founded	2020
Founder	Amazon
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Products	Corporate venture capital
Total assets	$2 billion
Number of employees	10+

The Climate Pledge Fund is a division of Amazon, set up to develop and manage investments in the climate technology space, as part of its Climate Pledge initiative. It is a corporate venture capital fund.

History

The Climate Pledge Fund was founded in June 2020 to make investments into early-stage companies focused on decarbonizing or sustainable technologies and services.^{[ citation needed ]} As of December 2021, Matt Peterson, director, corporate new initiatives, and Kara Hurst, vice president and head of sustainability, lead the fund. ^[1]

Amazon used the fund as the naming rights sponsor of Climate Pledge Arena, a sports and entertainment venue in Seattle that opened in 2021. ^[2] The venue was designed with environmentally-friendly features and aimed to have net-zero emissions. ^[3]

Notable investments

• BETA Technologies - Electric vertical aircraft manufacturer ^[4]
• CarbonCure Technologies - Lower carbon concrete manufacturer ^[5]
• Redwood Materials - process & technologies for recycling lithium-ion batteries and producing battery materials from recovered elements ^[5]
• Rivian - electric vehicle automaker ^[5]
• Turntide Technologies - optimal efficiency motor technologies for building controls (e.g. ventilation, lighting) ^[5]
• ZeroAvia - share-haul hydrogen-electric aircraft ^[6]

See also

• Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund ^[7]
• Breakthrough Energy Ventures
• Elemental Excelerator's Earthshot Ventures Fund ^[8]
• VertueLab's Climate Impact Fund ^[9]
• Decarbon8-US ^[10]

References

1. "Update: Amazon announces $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
2. Belson, Ken (October 29, 2021). "An Arena Where the Goal Is 'Net Zero' Carbon Emissions, Even From Fans". The New York Times . Retrieved January 5, 2025.
3. Stiffler, Lisa (October 16, 2023). "Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena is the first arena in the world to land Zero Carbon certification". GeekWire. Retrieved January 5, 2025.
4. Black, Thomas. "Fidelity, Amazon Back E-Plane Startup in $368 Million Funding". BloombergQuint. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
5. "Amazon Announces First Recipients of Investments from $2 Billion Climate Pledge Fund". www.businesswire.com. 2020-09-17. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
6. Osborne, Charlie. "Amazon invests in zero carbon footprint aviation startup ZeroAvia". ZDNet. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
7. "Climate Innovation Fund | Microsoft CSR". www.microsoft.com.
8. "We spun out a $60M fund. 5 things you didn't read in the press". Elemental Excelerator. September 8, 2021.
9. "Climate Impact Fund". VertueLab. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
10. "DECARBON8 - US". E8 Cleantech Angels.

External links

• The Climate Pledge's Website