Bill Gates to lead $1B clean energy investment fund

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is leading a team of high-profile investors in launching an investment fund to commercialize clean energy technologies.

Gates said in a Monday blog post that the mission of Breakthrough Energy Ventures will be to help bring new energy technologies “from a lab to the marketplace,” complementing the research funding that governments undertake.

{mosads}“We need affordable and reliable energy that doesn’t emit greenhouse gas to power the future — and to get it, we need a different model for investing in good ideas and moving them from the lab to the market,” Gates wrote in his post.

“The private sector knows how to take great research, turn it into a great product, and ultimately create a great company to bring a transformative technology to market.”

The fund is meant to have a 20-year duration and start investments next year.

The directors of the fund include a who’s-who of high-profile international investors, such as Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson.

Together, they are worth more than $170 billion, Quartz reported.

The venture fund’s announcement comes on the first anniversary of the Paris agreement, in which nearly 200 nations agreed to limit their individual greenhouse gas emissions.

Along with last year’s meeting in Paris, Gates announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures as one of its first major projects.

The larger effort focuses on commercializing clean energy technology, which governments usually help to develop.