London-based A/O launches €250 million Fund II to double down on the green transition of the built world
Summary
The built world is facing what many consider to be an existential threat, with a storm of challenges, including rising interest rates, rampant inflation, tightening environmental regulations, and capital markets pressure on non-ESG-compliant assets. Furthermore, the emergence of AI in the built world is showing very promising potential to further accelerate the transition to automation, efficiency and transparency across the entire lifecycle of assets and power the next wave of adoption. An unprecedented climate and energy crisis marred by extreme weather and catastrophic natural disasters has contributed to accelerate the need to drive the digital and sustainable transformation of the sector. Examples of investments in those specific climate related verticals include, amongst others, are SPAN (California-based housing electrification), Satellite Vu (UK-based Earth Observation firm), PassiveLogic (US-based next-gen BMS leveraging AI to operate buildings more efficiently.011H (Spain-based sustainable mass timber prefab developer) taking an asset-light and software-first approach to timber construction, Plentific (UK-based property management software platform and trades marketplace). A/O’s second investment is into a company currently in stealth mode, developing a digital first solution and software platform solving the skilled labour shortages currently holding back the retrofitting industry Dewerde added: “A lot of the attention on climate change appears to remain somewhat misdirected, creating a false impression that we can solve climate change simply with meatless burgers or paper straws or carbon credits.