Traveling to foreign territories takes some guidance.
Or so says Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, a Canadian firm that announced Wednesday it is teaming up with Robeco, a Rotterdam-based investment group that is going to help Chrysalix distribute a new €50 million ($73.3 million) fund to European cleantech companies.
"We felt we needed feet on the ground in the European market to see things there, and have people based in Europe," Chrysalix managing director Richard Mackellar said. "Our model has always been one of close cooperation and close association."
In forming the Robeco partnership, Chrysalix decided to take a somewhat different route toward global expansion than the path taken by such large venture-capital firms as Kleiner Perkins and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which have set up their own satellite offices in various parts of the globe to direct global investments.
The new joint venture -- dubbed Sustainable Energy Technology Venture Partners -- received its infusion of cash from Dutch utilities Delta and Essent, and its funding is expected to double to more than €100 million by next year.
The fund will be distributed among new technologies in the areas of biofuels, wind and solar power, hydrogen production, greenhouse-gas capture and other pollution reduction, as well as energy-efficiency technologies, smart-grid systems and energy-distribution networks, the company said.
"These are things we strongly believe should help the planet," Mackeller said. "We're looking carefully to make sure the fund meets the objective not only of good financial returns but responsibility as well."