Wavemaker Impact, a climate tech venture builder in Southeast Asia, announced Tuesday a partnership with Singapore government agency Enterprise Singapore (ESG), which will help the accelerator to groom more than 12 high-growth climate tech companies in the next three years.
Wavemaker Impact said in a statement, under the partnership, ESG will be supporting Wavemaker Impact as a Startup SG Accelerator partner, to run programs and activities to achieve the goal.
Wavemaker Impact will also leverage its unique model of working with proven entrepreneurs and operators to build new climate tech startups in Singapore, and work with them to export their solutions to other markets.
With a $25 million target for its first fund, Wavemaker Impact was founded by veterans who have invested in and helped build more than 35 sustainability startups, and have stellar track records in growing successful and scalable businesses. They include Steve Melhuish, PropertyGuru founder and impact investor; Doug Parker, Ex-Chief Operating Officer of Nutonomy; Paul Santos, Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners in Southeast Asia; and Quentin Vaquette and Marie Cheong, who built more than 10 climate tech startups during their time at ENGIE Factory, the Asia-based venture arm of a global low-carbon utility.
“We believe that entrepreneurs are critical to driving scalable and disruptive solutions to climate change in Southeast Asia and beyond. Big challenges present big opportunities, and our partnership with ESG underscores our belief that Singapore can be a center for high-impact climate tech innovation in the region,” said Doug Parker.
Edwin Chow, ESG’s Assistant Chief Executive Officer (Innovation & Enterprise) also commented the partnership not only strengthens the startup ecosystem in Singapore, but contributes to ESG goal of helping enterprises incorporate sustainability into their business, and building new capabilities to meet the demands of the green economy.
“We are delighted to partner Wavemaker Impact in growing a pipeline of strong tech startups in Singapore that will have regional impact in sustainability, across areas such as clean energy and mobility,” he added.
Meanwhile, according to Quentin Vaquette, Wavemaker Impact has identified at least 50 opportunity areas where the fund can build companies with the potential to reach $100 million in revenue and abate 100 million metric tons of carbon at scale.
According to the statement, some of the opportunities Wavemaker Impact has identified are in sectors like land use and carbon sinks, agriculture and food, industrial processes, and energy. The team aims to target the biggest sources of carbon emissions in Southeast Asia—where significant impact is possible.
Wavemaker Partners, the Southeast Asia’s venture capital firm which invests in enterprise and deep tech startups, announced last month that it had launched Wavemaker Impact, the first-of-its-kind climate tech venture builder in Southeast Asia.
The Wavemaker Impact team will co-found sustainability-focused businesses with proven entrepreneurs, with the goal of reducing 10 percent of the global carbon budget by 2035. It aims to rally individuals, investors, and businesses that care about the planet, and want to make a rapid, tangible change in the reduction of carbon emissions.