Gates’ Climate Firm Sets Sights on Developing World

(Bloomberg) -- The clean-tech investment firm founded by Bill Gates, Breakthrough Energy, needs to fund more companies in the developing world, Executive Director Rodi Guidero said. 

Breakthrough manages $4.5 billion it devotes to technology companies trying to cut greenhouse gases. But of the firm’s 165 portfolio companies, only a handful are based outside North America and Europe, Guidero said Wednesday on Bloomberg TV.  

“We need to expand that,” Guidero said. “Innovation has to happen everywhere.”

The firm has launched a version of its fellows program in Singapore, which Guidero said will be “a case study” for future efforts in other regions. The program offers innovators funding and mentorship to develop their technologies. The Singapore expansion will be the first regional hub outside the US. 

Breakthrough also is focusing on helping its companies move from pilot projects to first-of-a-kind commercial plants that can cut costs and work at scale, Guidero said. 

“That’s the next stage,” he said. 

Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, is an investor in Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

(Corrects firm’s capital amount in second paragraph.)

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