CATAL1.5°T Initiative: supporting investments in innovative climate start-ups in Latin America and West Africa

Context

New technologies and business models are urgently needed to achieve the global climate targets – including those from emerging and developing countries, where an ever-increasing proportion of global emissions are generated. Therefore, more climate start-ups in Latin America and West Africa need to be promoted in order to make them attractive to private investors.

Objective

Start-ups and emerging companies in the Global South are enabled to access venture capital more easily, develop climate-protection solutions and support the transition to climate-neutrality.

Approach

The initiative supports innovative companies in Latin America and West Africa. It is supporting 180 start-ups through regional programmes known as CATAL1.5°T platforms. By 2029, the initiative aims to mobilise 35 million euros in private capital and save 230,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

The initiative is broken down into four programmes:

• The Accelerator programme helps companies to launch promising products and services more quickly by providing them with training, coaching and start-up funding.
• In the Pre-accelerator programme, start-ups receive technical support and financial grants to transform their ideas into actual products.
• The Ideation programme organises climate hackathons (‘Climathons’) in municipalities to develop local start-up communities and come up with ideas for new climate technologies.
• The Ecosystem programme supports innovation networks with training sessions on measuring climate potential, promoting gender equality and inclusion, and integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects. In addition, dialogue between start-ups, venture capitalists and policy-makers is intended to improve the governmental framework conditions.

Last update: August 2023