Bleu Capital is a venture family office funding ultra-efficient climate startups worldwide. They offer founders a partner to help build the foundations of tomorrow.

Bleu Capital

Bleu Capital is a venture family office dedicated to scaling ultra-efficient climate companies. We take a concentrated and highly active approach to investing.

Efficient growth is in our DNA: As operators, we've bootstrapped to $200M+ in sales. As investors, we bring a bold, brutally honest and high conviction partnership to founders.

Our thesis: We back the companies unlocking sustainable progress at the earliest stages of their journey. Pre-seed to Series A.

Contact : julien@bleucap.com

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Fun fact: In 1973, US President Nixon promised the construction of 1,000 nuclear reactors, designed to fill double the US's energy demand forecasted in... 2022.

The outcome: Only 93 built.

A symbol of America's innovation engine sputtering, failing to deliver on the promise of sustainable progress.

At Bleu Capital, we've launched a new investment focus: Revitalizing the systems of production behind sustainable progress. 

Why? The need is urgent - our century's greatest challenge.

I'm excited to share a perspective on:

1️⃣ The decoupling of America's innovation engine
2️⃣ The greatest challenge of our century
3️⃣ (Re)accelerationism
4️⃣ Thoughts on what to fund - and avoid - in climate tech

When investors say “hardware is too complicated”, they likely mean that the risks associated with it are too difficult to understand to justify the potential outcome. 

Unfortunately, too much capital stays on the sidelines when these companies reach VC inboxes. 

The thing is, the next generation of great companies will be built with atoms, not just bits. Most deeptech and climate startups rely on hardware at some point in their product.

The solution to this issue is to work on facilitating the measurement of these risks, especially at the early stage. So I’m releasing a framework I use to evaluate and take the ‘right’ risks in hard tech companies.  

PS: I’d love to read and integrate your feedback, so I left a working draft link in the comments!

Bleu Capital's portfolio companies LA VIE™ and HUBCYCLE scooped up spots on the Impact40 list released last night at ChangeNOW (top French companies in the climate space) 👏 

5.6Bn raised, 120 companies, 3.1Bn in aggregated revenue last year.... Happy to see the French climate ecosystem thriving and growing!

Discover LA VIE™ - https://lnkd.in/dDcb9K9Q
Discover HUBCYCLE - https://lnkd.in/dkjyjg85

Full list for French speakers 😁 https://lnkd.in/dYCy7Xuz

Trashie's product reveal is a game changer for brands and platforms who are serious about #sustainability ♻ 

Why?

The emergence of second-hand marketplaces on brand websites have been a great step in the right direction. But not the full answer, limited to luxury and high brand-value items.

The opportunity?

Everyone has too much stuff. Many struggle to get rid of their products on brand's second hand platforms. Or do it for small amounts of credits that end up only having value on that specific brand's website.

Customers have not been finding real value for doing the right thing.

Kristy Caylor and her team built a two punch solution to that.

1) The Take Back Bag 🛍  (https://lnkd.in/ecMGiwtQ), a wild experiment where customers can recycle almost any garments, send it back to For Days, and get $20 in credits for doing so. They built a profitable model around it, working with recyclers and building a robust reverse logistics system.

Last year alone, 300K Take Back Bags where sold on the For Days platform!

2) The Trashie currency 💰 : A unified rewards system where customers who participate in the Take Back bag Program to earn Trashie Cash, which can be used on a ton of different marketplaces from Sephora to Uber Eats and Trip Advisor.

This is the missing link. A real way to value the long tail of stuff we each keep in our closets.

And to top this off, Walmart launched the Take Back Bag in store last month!

Few founders have shown more resilience and grit than Kristy Caylor. We're incredibly proud of the work done alongside her to make closed-loop consumption the norm in the US.

cc: Julien Lepleux Jean-Pierre Chessé

It's time to make hardware great again 👀 

"Climate targets won’t be achieved with carbon accounting software or ESG data visibility alone"

Most in the venture space would agree with this statement. But not everyone has become comfortable enough with the elephant in the room, hardware-first businesses. 

I've put together a short writeup on the topic to explore common narratives. ✍

Wow!!!

A big heartfelt thank you to the Bleu Capital founders who made it to Paris for our annual French portfolio dinner 💙

What started as a casual bistro ‘get together’ a few years back has now become a tradition!

A few special shoutouts to those who contributed to making the night extra special:

🎙️ Michel RAMIS, Amaury de Larauze, Gilles Chetelat and Virginie Preseguer for giving us 4 great masterclasses on pricing, GTM, M&A and ‘wow’ effects.

🛫 Teo Borschberg, our repeat founder, for making it all the way to France for the night.

🥂 Tenaya Santos da Silva, for helping us put together such a wonderful event.

We’ve got stars in our eyes just thinking about what will come next year (and we’ve got plenty more to announce 🤫)

cc: Jean-Pierre Chessé Julien Lepleux LA VIE™ Kiliba Malou HUBCYCLE mediarithmics TEKYN OTO Systems Frenchfounders NOLEO Contentsquare

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