Renowned actor and producer Robert Downey Jr. known for his role as Iron Man in the popular Marvel series, has announced the launch of Footprint Coalition Ventures, a new venture capital fund focused on investing in sustainable tech startups and technologies that are addressing the world’s largest environmental challenges such as climate change. Robert Downey Jr announced the launch of the venture capital fund while speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Digital Davos Agenda on a High-Level Panel.
The Footprint Coalition Ventures will initially comprise of two funds – one for early-stage and the other for late-stage investments, with six investment areas of focus: sustainability-focused consumer products and services; food and agriculture technology; materials and industrial technology; energy and transportation; education and media; and advanced environmental solutions.
The venture funds are part of Footprint Coalition, a project announced by the Iron Man and Avengers star in 2019, which also includes a non-profit arm that supports early scientific research and a storytelling component that produces content about sustainable technologies.
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Downey Junior explains that the creation of the new venture capital fund is aimed at addressing challenges faced globally with innovative and sustainable technological solutions.
“Having spent the last 18 months in dialogue with scientists, engineers and technologists, I now have a firm grasp of the obvious: this global existential threat is not something that’s going to be solved by a smattering of elite mega-corporations. I think that paradigm must be smashed in favor of innovation by a broad set of new companies. Investment in sustainable technology is a critical pathway toward the discovery and scaling of better solutions for our planet. We need to mobilize more people and catalyze more capital. Thus – FootPrint Coalition Ventures, a group of investors, technologists, and storytellers committed to scaling enviro-tech solutions.”
FootPrint Coalition Ventures
The venture fund aims to accelerate innovative and groundbreaking technologies that are addressing some of the world’s largest environmental challenges such as climate change. Currently, the venture capital company has launched a rolling fund, this allows qualified and accredited investors to invest in the venture capital fund and is being held in partnership with AngelList.
Jonathan Schulhof, co-founder of FootPrint Coalition Ventures explains that the rolling fund initiative aims to yield a positive turnover.
“We see two powerful trends working together to support the environment. First, engaging content and media distribution enable us to create a passionate community from Robert’s 100 million followers and to use that audience to access great investments. Second, a turnkey technology platform now enables us to manage a broad set of individual investors. Venture funds traditionally have high minimums that exclude only the wealthiest individuals, or endowments and foundations. With much lower minimums and shorter investment periods, we can now offer access to these same companies to a much broader group. When these investors further ignite our passionate audience, we hope to set a positive feedback loop in motion with environmental technologies as the ultimate beneficiary.”
The newly established venture fund will reportedly first be comprised of two funds, an early-stage as a pre-Seed, Series A and late-stage, a Series B and beyond.
Footprint Coalition Ventures will invest in the following tech startups addressing sustainability in the following sectors; consumer products and services; food and agriculture technology; materials and industrial tech; energy and transportation; education and media; and advanced environmental solutions.
The venture capital find has reportedly already invested in five companies; Arcadia Earth, Cloud Paper, RWDC Industries, Ÿnsect, and Aspiration.
Andrei Cherny, co-founder and CEO of Aspiration comments on the investment secured from the Footprint Coalition Ventures.
“For years, huge fortunes have been built off of actions that harm our planet. FootPrint Coalition is opening the door to allow real people to invest in the companies that are building businesses around the mission of saving the Earth for generations to come. We are honored to have them and Robert Downey Jr. as investors and partners in this worthwhile battle.”
