Fundo Vale and KTPL, a venture capital manager, today launch the investment fund in startups that generate a positive impact in the area of forest and climate. The initiative provides for BRL 200 million in contributions over the next five years. The duration term is 10 years, which can be extended for another two years term. The areas of activity are forests, carbon, bioeconomy and regenerative economy. Companies that work with technologies with the potential to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of carbon credit certification, as well as large-scale forest restoration and protection, are on the radar.

The role of Fundo Vale (FV) is to structure the business, supporting the measurement and evaluation of impact, the analysis of some of the companies identified and the connection with actors in the impact ecosystem. FV is currently responsible for coordinating and implementing Vale’s forestry goal of recovering and protecting another 500,000 hectares of forests by 2030. In two years, the fund has already recovered more than 6 thousand hectares in partnerships with startups, most of them in the Amazon, and entered into agreements with seven conservation units, totaling about 115 thousand hectares of protected areas.

“In the course of investing in new businesses that impact Vale’s forestry goal, we realized that one of the great challenges for large-scale operations is to unlock structuring bottlenecks for the chain as a whole. We thereby decided to dedicate ourselves to the structuring of the new fund in partnership with KPTL with the belief that, by investing in technological solutions that bring answers to reduce costs and increase efficiency in forestry operations and in the mitigation of climate change, we will generate value for the ecosystem as a whole”, explains Gustavo Luz, manager of Fundo Vale & Participações.

Fundo Floresta e Clima has as strategic partners and important shareholders such as Tridon Participações, family office of the founders of Jacto, in addition to entrepreneurs Denis and Ilana Minev, from Lojas Bemol, and Marco Riguzzi, entrepreneur in the packaging area and shareholder of Farmaplast. “Brazil is in a position to be a global player in innovations for sustainability. And fostering new technologies is a fundamental part for us to occupy this position”, says Renato Ramalho, CEO of KPTL.

In 2021, Fundo Vale made a wide selection of managers with the aim of choosing the partner that would launch the target fund of its investment, starting a process in which more investors could join. KPTL was selected in this process, due to the manager’s experience in innovation for the environment in investments in AgTech, Biotecnologia, IoT (Internet of Things) e Digital.

Entrepreneur Denis Minev brings the experiences of Fundação Amazonas Sustentável, AMAZ Aceleradora de Impacto and the management of Grupo Bemol, a retail chain located in northern Brazil and a pioneer in the adoption of an ESG agenda in the region. “Forests are our best opportunity to strengthen Brazil as a major power in food production and at the same time in carbon storage and bioeconomy innovation, in preparation for a reinvention of the national economy for the 21st century. In our forests, Brazil finds its opportunity for redemption and sustainable prosperity”, believes Minev.

Profile

Fundo Clima e Floresta's investment thesis seeks startups in different stages of development, from the initial phase, the so-called pre-seed, through the seed, to the series A funding stage. The investment opportunities mapping will be done by the team at KPTL, currently with 27 professionals, in partnership with innovation hubs, universities and angel investors from all over the country. 

“This is the type of startup that is often not in large centers, so the search for good entrepreneurs will happen in a distributed way, always guided by the potential for positive impact they can generate”, explains Ramalho. It means that they can be part of the fund from fintechs that are developing solutions for carbon credits to agtechs that work with traceability and genetic improvement, biofertilizers and precision agriculture. 

In addition to KPTL, the accelerator Troposlab and the consultancies Imaflora, with a long socio-environmental trajectory, and Resultante, an ESG specialist, will act in the structuring of the fund.