E588 | EUVC Summit 2025 | Natalie Tydemann, Kinnevik: The Path to Large-Scale Climate Impact

0:00Since the Trump era reshaped global climate policy and investor expectations. European Union, they're very tough, very, very tough traders. Climate tech has shifted from political momentum to market-driven execution. Today, success means delivering climate impact at scale while competing on price, product, and performance. Natalie Teideman at Kinevec leads with this mindset, backing companies that target large markets, reduce emissions, and deliver commercial-grade solutions that are also green. Her approach favors proven tech ready to scale as seen in investments like Stegra, Sologen, and Aria.

0:41Natalie sees the biggest opportunity in the energy transition from infrastructure to grid innovation. Had in healthcare and consumer services, we've deployed that strategy with great success in those two sectors. It's a sourcing approach I've long been an advocate of and long practiced. And so going forward, we'll look to implement that more intrinsically in financial services. But it takes more than capital. It demands gross margin positive companies with a real path to cost down and efficiency. Backed by Kinovich's long-term perspective and a focus on capital efficient growth, Natalie is helping shape the next era of climate tech investing.

1:24Good evening. I appreciate that I am coming very close to dinner. so your stomachs are probably rumbling and you've probably had enough of listening to people speak. In case anyone here doesn't know about Shinnevik, we've been around for 100 years. We are a growth equity platform listed on NASDAQ Stockholm. We have about$3 billion in NAV and about$1 billion of cash. We invest across Europe and the US, across three core sectors, software, healthcare and climate. And because we're investing from our balance sheet, we truly have long-term capital, which is unconstrained by fund cycles. We are very consciously not a prolific investor.

2:09We seek to invest in a small number of companies that we believe can become really, really big and can generate and create value over decades. And we have many examples of companies that we've stayed in for 15, 20 years. So one of the consistent themes in Shinovich's 100-year history has been challenging established norms and incumbents through disruptive technologies and bold business models. We've done this in industrials. We then did it in telecoms and media, in consumer internet, and next-generation tech and tech platforms for healthcare delivery and drug discovery. The shift to a low-carbon economy is the defining industrial and commercial transformation of our time now.

2:59So it was very logical for us to move into this as a way to extend our legacy with impact. We're very committed to backing the bold companies, building infrastructure, technologies and platforms that are going to power this transformation over the coming decades. So we started investing in climate tech back in 2021. We were drawn by the potential we saw to deliver financial returns and impact at scale. The need for the low carbon transition is obvious to everyone. We have emissions at record highs. We have rising global temperatures. We have extreme weather events causing complete disruption, as we've just seen in Spain.

3:47and although political support has changed in some parts of the world and some companies have been watering down or delaying their net zero commitments the underlying need is greater than ever and at least in Europe policy support for climate tech remains very strong and at the same time what we're seeing is that climate technologies and services no longer require a choice between green and cheap or green and commercially attractive. Those two are now going increasingly hand in hand. And also many climate tech businesses can now point to other co-benefits like supply chain resiliency, etc. So they are commercial opportunities in their own right.

4:30They're addressing massive markets, trillion dollar markets, which happen to be some of the biggest emitting markets as well. So you really can build businesses with large scale revenues and impact. And critically, we have a new cohort of top-tier entrepreneurs who are drawn by a moral imperative as well as the size of the opportunity and the positive tailwinds to build new businesses in this space. And lastly, we think that this is a space that needs the kind of capital that we have. R &D, when you're looking at supply chain transition, for example, having a long-term capital that can deal with long R &D cycles, long sales cycles is really essential.

5:19So when we look at investing in climate, we're not just doing it to do something good. We're applying the same kind of investment discipline we apply across all of our sectors. We're looking to deliver long-term economic value creation at scale. So we have a number of clear criteria for the companies into which we're going to invest. They have to have near-term climate impact. We're not looking at businesses that aren't going to have an impact until 2030, 2035, 2050. The urgent need is now. They must be addressing large TAMs, so giving the opportunity to build really large businesses. Critically, they have to have strong customer ROIs.

5:59So the purchase decision for a customer has to be based on strong economic logic, not depending on regulatory tailwinds or green ambition. And fourthly, we need really outstanding founder teams. Climate tech businesses are really complex. They require technical and scientific expertise alongside commercial nows. You need to be able to navigate complex stakeholder groups, commercial customers, industry bodies, policy makers and regulators, multiple funding sources for different stages of your capital journey. And critically, they require both from the founders and from the investors, patience, resilience, adaptability and creativity.

6:45And then the other criteria are much as you would find in any other business. But I guess the capital profile of the business, the co-investors that we're joined together with are really important, given that many of these businesses are going to be relatively capital intense. We focus on two umbrella categories, green supply chains and energy transition. Green supply chain really founded in the fact that industry represents 25 percent of global emissions, agriculture another 9 percent. and these are huge TAMs. We have, and the long-term capital we believe is particularly valuable. As I said before, the transition of supply chains often has long R &D cycles and long sales cycles.

7:35The second area we focus on is energy transition, now more than ever, because access to any electron, let alone a green electron, is one of the most critical pain points for industries and consumers. You've got surging energy demand coming from next generation manufacturing, coming from AI, coming from electrification. At the same time, you've got new sources of energy, renewable energies, which have a different profile. You've got an aging grid infrastructure that can't cope with this surge in demand and adapt to intermittent energy sources. you've got energy, you've got geopolitical uncertainty, and so in total the ability to access secure and reliable energy and reducing energy costs and volatility is a strategic priority across industries and geographies.

8:29I've said before that to build a scaled climate tech business is really complex. You have to be able to work with knitting together a complex web of stakeholders, including industry bodies, governments, and finance partners. Industry is really critical. Becoming or identifying your strategic relevance for key customer groups enables you to sign take-or-pay-off-take agreements. Those can underwrite – those provide visibility on the future revenue streams. They can underwrite capital projects and underpin debt financing. And joint development agreements can reduce R &D and CapEx outlay. Government is a great source of low-cost financing, but also important from a policy perspective.

9:20And you need many different finance partners. You need equity partners, debt partners, project finance, asset-based lending, and others. I won't have time to go into detail. I'm already over time, but we've made four investments in Europe, two in energy transition and two in green supply chains, a greener targeting regenerative agriculture as a way to reduce agriculture emissions, breathe, hoping to increase the or remove some of the pain points to EV rollout by, through a superior battery design and management software, Stegra, huge ambition to be the first greenfield, green steel producer, reducing emissions from steel production by about 95%, and Aero with an ambition to be the energy hub of the home, a vertically integrated model to manufacturing and installing heat pumps, delivering cheaper, better, greener heating.

10:28Just to give you a sense of our ambition, by 2030, our portfolio companies have the ambition to remove annual emissions equivalent to the emissions of all of Sweden. So as I said, we're talking about financial returns and impact at scale. We believe that Europe is a fantastic breeding ground for these kinds of companies. We have fantastic depth of technical talent coming out of our universities. We have still a pro-climate regulatory environment. We have, relative to certain other regions, a more stable macro landscape today, strong financing, supportive consumers with 84 % of consumers interested in being more environmentally conscious.

11:12and we have growing availability of renewable energy with about nearly 50 % actually of European energy coming from renewable sources versus in the US it's less than 20%. So really excited to continue to very selectively find the companies in Europe that can build climate impact and financial returns at scale. Before you go, I just want to give a massive shout out to the partners who made the EUVC Summit and awards possible. So please do not tune out. We're partnering with these firms because they're great people with offerings that we know from our friends in the ecosystem are truly world-class.

11:51First up, I want to give a big thanks to HSBC Innovation Banking. They helped us incept the awards in the very beginning. And truly, they are the leading bank for anyone in European venture. There's a reason why everyone knows them. Google Cloud, they were our venue hosted the summit. What a team. what a big effort they put on to help us. We're hugely grateful. Make sure to reach out to Arabella or Oksana at the Google Cloud team to hear how they can help you as well as your portfolio. Massive credits goes to them. Ace Alternatives, we have so many friends in the Berlin ecosystem partnered with these guys.

12:25Just the best fund ops team around. And as with any good restaurant, where the locals are is also where you get the best service. And now they're expanding across Europe. so they're definitely someone to talk to. Hainspoon, they're longtime partners of ours in both our own legal work. They're great supporters of us here at EUBC, and I definitely think that they are one of the go-to legal teams to have in your corner. CW Communications, our dear friends who helped us secure CNBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times, and many more for this summer. It's a joy working with Dan and Kathy and the team. Fundcraft, Digital Native, Full Suite, Lux Headquarter, and a great partner as you grow your firm out of Luxembourg.

13:07Definitely a fund admin to consider in your stack. I can only say that the team are incredible to work with. I'm very thankful that I've gotten to know them. I think they're one of the up and coming fund admins that you want to be thinking about. Portfolio IQ by Synaptic. You may know them for the Discover tool, which is branded under Synaptic, but Portfolio IQ is absolutely a product you should know because there's no one that understands intelligence better than this team. And finally, Goodwin. They are a truly world-class legal partner you can trust. They're hands-on, business-oriented, and expert in everything and anything transatlantic.

13:43So those were our partners for the summit and awards. I know this might have been a bit long and boring, but really, if you have these guys on your side, I don't think your firm could be in any better hands. And also, they're helping us do what we're doing every day for you.