HSBC – the UK-based universal bank and financial services group, announced further support towards nascent climate technologies including carbon dioxide removal. The group announced on September 20th that it plans to make available $1 billion of financing to early-stage climate tech companies around the world.
The technologies HSBC is focusing on, according to the announcement are EV charging, battery storage, sustainable food and agriculture, and carbon removal technologies. The new funding initiative also follows two other programs that HSBC has recently made available to support the cleantech space – HSBC Innovation Banking and HSBC Asset Management’s Climate Tech Venture Capital strategy.
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The goal of the newly announced financial boost is to enable these critical for solving climate change technologies to reach the market more quickly at scale, as they have experienced some hurdles in attracting early-stage funding due to worsened market conditions in 2023. According to the bank, recent data shows that after successive rapid year-on-year growth, venture capital funding for climate start-ups plunged by 40% in the first half of 2023.
“Access to finance is critical for early-stage climate tech companies to create and scale real-world solutions. We are already working with some of the most exciting companies at the forefront of climate tech, from seed to global scale-up. With HSBC’s global reach, in-house climate tech expertise, and newly launched Innovation Banking proposition, we can offer these pioneer companies unrivalled support,” said Barry O’Byrne, CEO of Global Commercial Banking at HSBC.
Relevant: HSBC Invests $100 mln In Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst Fund
Back in 2022, HSBC also announced a $100 million investment in the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst (BEC) fund that supports green projects across the globe and its keen interest in becoming a key partner in the venture.
