World Fund

# World Fund: Europe's Leading Climate Tech Venture Capital Fund

World Fund stands as Europe's premier climate technology venture capital fund, dedicated to backing entrepreneurs building scalable solutions to the climate crisis.[1] Founded in 2021, the firm has established itself as a critical bridge between Europe's world-class climate research and the venture capital needed to commercialize breakthrough technologies. With a mission to invest exclusively in startups capable of reducing at least 100 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually, World Fund represents a new breed of impact-driven venture capital that treats climate performance as a predictor of financial returns.[1][3]

High-Level Overview

Mission and Investment Philosophy

World Fund operates on a distinctive thesis: climate performance is an early indicator of financial performance.[6] Rather than pursuing climate investments as a secondary consideration, the fund makes climate impact the primary investment criterion, backing only entrepreneurs who understand decarbonization as a core value driver.[1] This philosophy reflects a fundamental belief that the most valuable companies of the next decade will be those enabling a decarbonized world.[4]

The fund targets a critical market gap in European climate tech. While Europe leads globally in climate technology research and development spending, it significantly lags the United States and China in venture capital deployment for scaling these innovations from laboratory to market.[5] World Fund explicitly aims to fill two investment gaps: the transition from lab to market and the scaling phase from pilot to commercial deployment.[2]

Key Investment Sectors and Stage Focus

World Fund concentrates its portfolio across five high-emission sectors: Energy, Food & Agriculture, Manufacturing, Buildings, and Transport.[2][4] The fund invests from Seed through Series B stage, positioning itself to support companies during their most critical growth phases. This sector focus reflects where the greatest emissions reduction opportunities exist and where technological innovation can deliver the most substantial climate impact.[1]

Impact on the Startup Ecosystem

By combining rigorous climate science with venture capital expertise, World Fund has elevated the standards for climate tech investment across Europe. The fund's methodology—developed in collaboration with TU Berlin, Project Drawdown, and Project Frame—has become a benchmark for assessing climate performance potential.[3] This approach has attracted over 200 institutional investors, including PwC Germany, Ecosia, and the UK Environment Agency's pension fund, signaling broader market validation for science-based climate investing.[1]

Origin Story

Founding and Key Partners

World Fund was established in 2021 by Daria Saharova, Danijel Višević, Craig Douglas, and Tim Schumacher—a founding team combining deep technical expertise with investment experience.[1] The team deliberately assembled a diverse skill set spanning engineers, physicists, chemists, and biologists alongside early and growth-stage investors, reflecting the fund's commitment to evaluating climate technologies with scientific rigor.[1]

The fund's founding came at a pivotal moment. The European Union was intensifying its climate commitments, corporate decarbonization pressures were mounting, and European startups had developed cutting-edge climate solutions lacking adequate venture funding. World Fund was created explicitly to address this market failure, positioning itself as the vehicle to transform European climate innovation into scalable, profitable businesses.[5]

Evolution and Capital Raises

World Fund raised €350 million for its inaugural fund in October 2021, establishing itself immediately as Europe's largest climate tech venture capital vehicle.[4] The fund's success in deploying this capital and demonstrating strong returns has validated its investment thesis. By 2025, World Fund has begun raising its second fund with a target of over €500 million, reflecting investor confidence in the firm's track record and approach.[7] Additionally, the European Investment Fund invested €50 million into World Fund's first fund with support from the InvestEU programme, underscoring institutional backing for the fund's mission.[1]

Core Differentiators

Science-Based Investment Methodology

World Fund's most distinctive feature is its proprietary climate performance potential (CPP) assessment framework. The methodology combines quantitative analysis of CO2 equivalent savings through life-cycle assessment with qualitative evaluation using IRIS+ metrics for environmental and social impact.[3] Every assessment undergoes independent external validation, ensuring rigor and credibility.[3]

This approach has proven predictive of both success and failure. Analysis of climate unicorns in Europe and the US revealed that over 60% of successful companies passed World Fund's climate performance criteria, compared to only low double-digit percentages in standard venture dealflow.[6] Conversely, over 80% of climate unicorns that filed for bankruptcy failed to meet World Fund's climate performance standards, demonstrating that climate impact assessment is genuinely correlated with financial viability.[6]

World-Class Advisory Network

The fund's advisory and investment team includes leading figures from academia, industry, and climate science: researchers from TU Berlin and the Max Planck Institute, IPCC contributors, executives from Siemens and Ecosia, and founders with multiple successful exits.[3] This network provides portfolio companies with both strategic guidance and access to deep technical expertise, accelerating their path to scale.

Regenerative World Framework

World Fund evaluates investments against four pillars of a regenerative world: renewable energy, full material circularity, regenerative systems, and climate & social equity.[3] This framework ensures that investments address not only emissions reduction but also broader environmental and social sustainability, avoiding narrow optimization that might create unintended consequences.

Stage-Specific Positioning

By focusing on Seed through Series B, World Fund occupies a strategic position in the climate tech funding landscape. This stage focus allows the fund to support companies during their most vulnerable and capital-intensive phases while maintaining the potential for substantial returns as successful companies scale.[2]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Riding the Climate Tech Wave

World Fund operates at the intersection of three powerful trends: accelerating corporate and regulatory pressure for decarbonization, maturing climate technologies emerging from European research institutions, and growing investor recognition that climate solutions represent genuine financial opportunities rather than purely philanthropic investments.[5]

The timing is critical. Global economies face an unprecedented transformation requiring rapid decarbonization across all sectors. This creates both urgency and opportunity—companies solving these problems at scale will capture enormous markets. World Fund's positioning allows it to back the winners in this transformation while Europe still has a window to establish leadership in climate tech commercialization.

Influencing Investment Standards

World Fund's success is reshaping how the broader venture capital community evaluates climate investments. By demonstrating that rigorous climate impact assessment predicts financial returns, the fund has legitimized impact measurement as a core investment discipline rather than a secondary consideration. This influence extends beyond climate tech, potentially raising standards for impact investing across all sectors.

Addressing Europe's Innovation Gap

Europe's challenge has never been scientific innovation—the continent leads in climate research spending and breakthrough discoveries. The gap has been in scaling these innovations commercially. World Fund directly addresses this gap, positioning European climate startups to compete globally with better-capitalized American and Chinese competitors. Success here could establish Europe as the global leader in climate tech commercialization.

Quick Take & Future Outlook

World Fund represents a maturing thesis: that climate performance and financial performance are fundamentally aligned, and that rigorous scientific assessment of climate impact can identify the next generation of unicorn companies. The fund's €350 million first fund and planned €500 million second fund signal that this thesis has gained institutional credibility.

Looking forward, World Fund faces both opportunities and challenges. The opportunity lies in a massive and growing market—decarbonization is no longer optional but mandated by regulation and market forces. Portfolio companies addressing energy transition, sustainable agriculture, circular manufacturing, and clean transport operate in markets with structural tailwinds.

The challenge is execution at scale. Climate tech often involves complex physics, long development cycles, and capital-intensive commercialization. World Fund's scientific rigor and patient capital position it well, but success will ultimately depend on whether its portfolio companies can achieve the emissions reductions and financial returns the fund projects.

The fund's influence will likely extend beyond its direct portfolio. As World Fund demonstrates returns from climate-focused investing, it will attract more capital to European climate tech, raising the overall quality of the ecosystem and accelerating the continent's transition to a decarbonized economy. In this sense, World Fund's greatest impact may not be measured in the returns of individual portfolio companies, but in reshaping how European venture capital approaches the defining challenge of our time.