Exclusive: HSBC’s climate venture team departs for impact firm – and eyes new €200m fund

The team at HSBC Asset Management’s Climate Growth Partners has been incorporated into Bridges Fund Management, an impact investment firm co-founded by Sir Ronald Mourad Cohen, described by some as the “father of British venture capital.”

Led by climate tech investors Christophe Defert and Mike D'Aurizio, the team will operate under the new banner of Bridges Climate Transition Partners (BCTP).

"What we love about joining Bridges is exactly the fact that there are only a few strategies and so we can make a big impact and we're very much aligned with what Bridges are doing,” Defert tells Impact Loop in an interview.

Defert says the team's departure from HSBC AM was a strategic decision rather than the result of any breakdown in relations.

"HSBC AM has $800bn of AUM…they have a lot of priorities," he says. “It's not that the leadership structure was not supportive of what we did, but they’ve got a lot of other focus areas. We all felt it was the right move.”

New fund on the horizon

BCTP will take over management of the existing Climate Growth Partners fund – which Defert says only has “a few deals left” in the pipeline.

Alongside managing the HSBC AM’s existing fund, Bridges Climate Transition Partners will soon begin fundraising for its own investment vehicle – targeting €200m at final close.

HSBC AM has been confirmed as an anchor investor in the new fund. Bridges is also in discussions with institutional investors, semi-governmental bodies, and family offices to provide the additional backing, says Defert.

Alongside Defert and D'Aurizio, also crossing over to Bridges are the remaining members of the Climate Growth Partners team: Lynn Bernabei, a principal based in New York, associate Andreanne Segalla, and Philip Carter, an investment specialist based in London.

Bridges’ CEO Michele Giddens, who co-founded the firm alongside Sir Ronald Mourad Cohen and Philip Newborough in 2002, said the addition of the team to its ranks aligned “perfectly” with its mission.

“We firmly believe that investing in innovative climate technologies is one of the most powerful ways to achieve positive impact at scale, and we’re delighted to be spinning in this proven, expert team to spearhead our effort,” Giddens said in a statement.

Backing the ‘app layer’ of the climate transition

Climate Growth Partners has made 11 investments to date. Among them are Accra, a spin-out from RWTH Aachen University in Germany which provides data analytics for battery storage systems and Dutch scaleup Chargetrip, which provides route optimisation software for EVs.

"We're not a deep tech fund... actually a lot of what we do is digital technologies,” says Defert. “It's what we call the app layer."

The team will carry that same thesis over into the new fund, which will target Series A and B investments in commercially proven European and North American climate tech companies.

"Proven technology, product-market fit, commercial deployment... when we do a Series A we tend to like companies that have one, two, three million in revenue that have unit economics that are attractive," says Defert.

The team maintains a transatlantic focus, with the portfolio roughly split between North America and Europe.

For the new fund, Defert says he hopes to achieve a first close of between €75m and €100m, with a target LP base weighted toward UK and European institutional investors and family offices, alongside semi-governmental bodies such as the European Investment Fund (EIF).

"I think it's better to start building a fund with institutional investors, particularly for a first close – the folks who can put an anchor check in," he says, while acknowledging that the current fundraising environment remains challenging.

Updated on March 3 - 10:04 CET: A previous version of this article said that BCTP was already fundraising for its new fund, however the fundraising has not yet begun.