Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Breakthrough Energy Ventures investments

Co-Chair
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates speaks at
the panel Building Human Capital: A Project for the World, during
the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, in Washington, Saturday,
April 21, 2018.
AP Photo/Jose Luis
Magana

• Breakthrough
  Energy Ventures, a $1 billion fund led by Bill
  Gates, Jeff
  Bezos, Mark
  Zuckerberg and a host of other billionaires, announced
  seven more startups that the fund is investing in.
• The startups range from alternative geothermal
  energy systems to technologies that are able to pull clean
  drinking water directly from the air.
• Part of BEV’s mission is to provide “patient capital.”
  The firm is willing to forgo returns to give the
  scientists and engineers at startups a reasonable lead time to
  develop technologies that will help society transition to a
  greener future. 

Bill
Gates, Jeff
Bezos, Mark
Zuckerberg, Michael
Bloomberg and a host of their uber-rich compatriots are
investing in nine energy startups that could solve some of the

biggest problems in transitioning the world to a greener
future.

The billionaires are investing through a $1 billion
fund, Breakthrough Energy
Ventures, known as BEV, which announced last year that energy
storage would be one of its main focuses. Energy storage is one
of the chief bottlenecks in the widespread adoption of renewable
energy. 

Part of BEV’s mission is to provide “patient capital.” That
means BEV is willing to forgo returns on investment for up to 20
years to give the scientists and engineers at startups a
reasonable lead time to develop their technologies. As
billionaires, they have the time to wait for their
return. 

BEV announced its first
two investments in June. The two startups — Form
Energy and Quidnet Energy — both
developed different energy storage techniques. 

Now, as
Quartz reports, BEV has announced another seven startups the
fund is investing in. The startups are working on everything from
alternative geothermal energy systems to technologies that can
pull clean drinking water directly from the air.

Here’s the list of the new investments, per Quartz:

• QuantumScape:
  Startup building a solid-state battery, which is key to
  reducing the cost of electric cars.
• Commonwealth Fusion
  Systems: Energy startup working to develop a fusion-reactor
  that uses high-temperature superconductors. 
• Pivot Bio: Biotech
  startup developing a replacement for nitrogen-based
  fertilizers, which would limit environmental pollution. 
• CarbonCure: Startup
  developing a technology to inject recycled carbon dioxide into
  concrete, in order to produce stronger concrete and reduce the
  carbon footprint of cement production. 
• Fervo Energy:
  Startup working on developing cheaper, more efficient methods
  of geothermal energy production, borrowing technology from
  horizontal drilling and natural gas extraction. 
• DMC Biotechnologies: Biotech
  startup working with microbes to produce biofuels more cheaply.
• 
  Zero Mass Water: Startup selling solar panels and batteries
  that can harvest clean drinking water directly from the air.

And the previously announced investments:

•  Quidnet Energy: Quidnet is
  developing technology to store energy in water pumped
  into repurposed or unused oil-and-gas
  wells. 
•  Form
  Energy: Startup working on developing a
  super-efficient battery that could store large amounts of
  energy for long periods of time.

Some of BEV’s investments haven’t been announced yet, and
the firm declined to disclose the individual sums each company
received. However, as part of BEV’s plan, each company received
between $200,000 and $20 million, out of a total of $100 million
BEV has so far invested. 

To be eligible for BEV’s money, the startups have to
demonstrate viable technology that has the capacity to reduce
annual global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 500 million
metric tons, reports Quartz’s Akshat Rathi.