Frequently Asked Questions

Carbon Equity only offers top-tier private market funds with a focus to decarbonize the planet. We pool investments through our Carbon Equity investment vehicles. This means that all cash transfers, fees and expenses are paid through our investment vehicles. Carbon Equity represents you as an investor towards the underlying funds. To ensure secure and efficient fund investment & management we work with best in class partners such as AssetCare, Finnius, Zuidbroek and Amstone.

Carbon Equity offers Portfolio Funds. Portfolio Funds provide access to a curated selection of 5–10 top-tier climate venture capital, private equity and infrastructure funds and companies. This structure offers broad diversification across sectors, geographies, and stages of company growth.

Climate Tech Portfolio Funds: Invests in 7-10 top-tier VC and PE funds, eventually gaining exposure to over 150 climate tech companies across early to late stages, primarily in the US and EU. Target net IRR: 10-15%

Climate Infrastructure Funds: Focuses on 40–50 infrastructure projects like battery storage and renewable energy, with 75% exposure in Europe. Target net return: 10-12%. 

Access to Climate Tech Funds: Aims to invest in 5–7 VC, PE, and infrastructure funds, covering a full suite of climate solutions. Target net IRR: 8–12%.

Crowdfunding platforms enable you to invest in single companies. Typically, you must do your own homework on the opportunity. The risk of a single company failing is very high — hence the risk of crowdfunding is typically very high.

Carbon Equity allows you to invest in private equity funds, which are generally more diversified, curated and professionally managed compared to crowdfunding.

Diversified: Crowdfunding platforms raise money for individual startup companies. Carbon Equity funds invest in many startups at the same time.

Curated: Crowdfunding requires investors to research and select companies themselves. Carbon Equity does this for you, with its experienced investment team.

Professionally managed: Carbon Equity and the investment teams within the private equity funds leverage professional resources and expertise to ensure companies get the help needed to grow.

When you invest in the stock market, you are investing public companies. A public company is one that has held an initial public offering (first sale of stock to the public) and whose shares can be bought, sold or traded on a stock exchange.

Carbon Equity focuses on private equity, which is an asset class focused on acquiring ownership stakes (equity) in privately held companies (i.e. not listed on a stock exchange). The investment horizon, cash flows and other investing dynamics are different within private equity compared to stock marketing investing. You can read more about that in the how it works section below.

After you finalize your subscription to a fund, you are ready to invest. We will hold a closing every few months in which we accept investors who finalized their onboarding process. In the closing you will be legally accepted as an investor in the fund and shortly afterwards you will receive a capital call. A capital call is the request to transfer (part of) your committed investment amount.

Certain minimums may apply. Generally speaking, the first capital call will be the higher of  €100,000 or 25% of your commitment. The remainder of your commitment will be called over roughly 5 years in semi-annual installments which depend on the expected calls from underlying funds (e.g. roughly 5-10% of the commitment will be drawn every 6 months).

If you qualify as a professional investor or if you invest in one of our funds specifically aimed at investors who commit to investing below €100,000, the minimum capital call will be different.

Carbon Equity funds typically have a duration of 10-13 years, just like the private equity funds Carbon Equity invests in. During the first 3-5 years, these funds invest part of the money into startup and scaleup companies. The remaining years they use to continue investing in, growing and selling these companies.

If you invest with Carbon Equity, you commit money for the full lifetime of the fund. That doesn’t mean you don’t see any money back before the end date. Any time a portfolio company is sold or goes public, you receive your share of the proceeds. It is expected that, on average, you get your initial investment back within 5-7 years, and further distributions in the years thereafter.

The investment process consists of 5 steps:

• Create an account: To find more information on our funds and compare your options, you first have to create a free account with us.
• Request fund info: On each fund page you can request more information about our investing strategy and the diligence done on each underlying fun
• Reserve your investment: Once you decide to sign up, you must fill out the reservation to invest form. The reservation form is non-binding.
• Onboarding and subscription: You will be invited to the digital onboarding process and sign a subscription form. The subscription form is binding. For Access to Climate Tech Fund II this step also consists of a suitability assessment
• Capital call: After subscribing, you will receive the first ‘capital call’, i.e. the first cash transfer request

Currently, the minimum investment for most funds is €100,000.

For Carbon Equity Access to Climate Tech Fund II the minimum investment amount is €20,000. Investors who are treated as professional investors can have a lower minimum, depending on the fund.

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‍Cash outflows: Depending on the amount you commit, you will have a single upfront capital call (the full amount) or have several capital calls spread out over the years. See “How and when do I need to transfer my investment?”.

Cash inflows: Typically, funds will start to exit companies (e.g. sell their ownership shares) after 5 years, and the cash proceeds will be distributed to you periodically. It is expected that, on average, you will have received proceeds equal to your initial investment after 5-7 years and you will receive incremental distributions in the years thereafter.

J-curve: If you look at the typical pattern in a venture capital or private equity fund, it resembles a J-curve. Private equity funds tend to post negative returns in the initial years as a result of investment costs, management fees and a not yet mature investment portfolio. Then, they post increasing returns in later years when the investments mature.
Create an account and explore our cash flow calculator.

Target returns will differ per fund depending on the risk profile of the underlying assets the fund invests in. Our Portfolio Funds are well diversified and aim to return 1.5-2.5x your invested capital over the lifetime of the fund (8-15% net IRR).

See “What is the difference between Carbon Equity funds?” for fund specifics.

Fund reporting: Customers receive a financial overview of the fund every quarter, including capital account statements, commitment summaries, contextual details from our investment team and fund performance.

Investment dashboard: The investment dashboard offers access to an overview of all your investments, a continuous stream of portfolio company milestones and updates and more background reading on how we can solve the climate challenge.

In our investor portal, we also provide exciting updates and business milestones, share impact stories and follow-on rounds of all your portfolio companies.

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Most of our funds do not offer liquidity itself. You may be able to sell your investment to a third party but Carbon Equity will not find an investor for you and it is not guaranteed that you would be able to sell your investment against the full value at that time. Provided that the purchaser is a qualifying investor, we will accept them. A small administrative fee of EUR 500 will be charged for the onboarding and legal documentation.

Carbon Equity Access to Climate Tech Fund II is structured differently from our other funds and will provide a limited option to request for a redemption (subject to certain restrictions and discounts).

No, you cannot select specific companies to invest in on the Carbon Equity platform. Through Carbon Equity you invest in a fund managed by a team of expert investors. You will be invested in the entire portfolio of a fund. By investing in multiple companies your investment is more diversified, lowering the risk of losing your initial investment.

Investors pay two layers of fees. Fund managers of the funds we invest into will typically charge a 1.5%-2% management fee annually. Most funds will initially charge this over the committed amount and after the investment period (3-5 years) charge over the amount of capital that is actually invested. Funds will also typically take 20% of the returns, in excess of a certain minimum hurdle rate (typically 8% return per annum).

Carbon Equity charges a 1% setup and 0.3%-1.1% annual management fee to enable access, select the right funds and handle the administration for you.

We tried to keep it simple. When the person you refer mentions you while reserving an investment in the same fund, you and the person you refer automatically benefit from a 0.05% discount on your yearly management fees. You can find more details on our ambassador program here.

If you fail to make a capital call contribution, you may be regarded as a defaulting investor. This follows from the Terms and Conditions of the funds managed by Carbon Equity. Being a defaulting investor may lead us to (A) impose a penalty interest, (B) impose a penalty of 50% of your total obligations or (C) seize and forfeit your existing investment. In addition, Carbon Equity can also require a defaulting investor to compensate for the costs incurred related to the default if the default leads to further damages.

Everyone can invest with Carbon Equity! That is part of our mission. Investors do need to be able to meet the minimum ticket sizes, which is currently €100,000 for most funds (except for professional investors). For Carbon Equity Access To Climate Tech Fund II the minimum ticket size is €20,000.

Yes, except for our Access to Climate Tech Fund II. Investors from around the world invest with Carbon Equity. Some countries may require that investors meet Accredited or Qualified Investor criteria. Such criteria require that you have a minimum net worth, a certain level of annual income or professional experience working as an investor. These criteria will differ per country. Until we have requested specific access to a country, the Access to Climate Tech Fund II is restricted to Dutch residents only.

Carbon Equity invests in high-growth climate tech companies. These are companies developing products and/or services that are part of the solution to reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. Like next-generation solar panels, fermented proteins, zero-carbon fuel for aviation, and geothermal energy generation. You can find all our portfolio companies here.

There are seven sectors that Carbon Equity invests in: energy, industry, agrifood, transportation, buildings, carbon control and enablers. Each of these sectors have a critical role to play to get to net-zero CO2 emissions.

Carbon Equity has a highly experienced investment team, with decades of private equity fund investing experience and energy transition expertise who select funds based on a 4 step process. Learn more here.

Carbon Equity leverages its extensive network of advisors, shareholders and clients to gain access to top funds. Funds are eager to work with Carbon Equity because they support the Carbon Equity mission to enable access to more people. Carbon Equity furthermore can add value to funds through its best in class climate diligence framework and expertise on climate fund best practices.

First, we assess how committed a fund is to impact. Funds can prove their impact commitment to investors in several ways, including its impact mandate, impact goal, impact thresholds, impact sourcing and impact incentives. Then, we thoroughly vet a fund on its climate impact. We do so using our proprietary climate impact scorecard that requires input on 40+ questions across 12 topics.

Investments in venture capital and private equity funds involve a high degree of risk. Past performance does not guarantee future performance. The value of an investment may decrease as well as increase, and investors may not be able to retrieve their original investment. Please review the documentation of respective funds for details about potential risks, charges and expenses.

Carbon Equity Portfolio Funds offer a higher degree of diversification and therefore have a different risk profile than a Direct Fund investment.

Investments in Carbon Equity funds should be considered illiquid. Investors should only invest with capital they can afford to set aside for 10 years.

Given the high risk and illiquid nature of venture capital and private equity, investors should only invest a sensible portion of their liquid net worth in this asset class.

Carbon Equity’s recent funds are limited partnerships (commanditaire vennootschapen) incorporated under Dutch law. A limited partnership consists of a general partner (which will be a Carbon Equity company) and limited partners (the investors). A separate foundation, (stichting) under Dutch law, will be incorporated to hold legal title to the assets and liabilities of the fund. Although the funds are limited partnerships, as of 2025 these are treated as a fund for mutual account (fonds voor gemene rekening) and are non-transparent for Dutch tax purposes. The funds qualify as a fiscal investment institution (fiscale beleggingsinstelling), which creates tax neutrality for the investors. This has been confirmed with the Dutch tax authorities.

Carbon Equity historically managed a number of contractual funds for mutual accounts under Dutch law (fonds voor gemene rekening, or FGR). An FGR is a contractual arrangement between a fund manager and its investors, requiring the manager to invest and manage assets contributed by the participants for their joint account. The legal ownership of the assets and liabilities of such an FGR is held by a separate legal entity (titleholder) which has the legal form of a foundation (stichting) under Dutch law. Like the new funds, they are treated as non-transparent for Dutch tax purposes as of 2025 and qualify as a fiscal investment institution.

The assets of a Carbon Equity fund are either held by a separate foundation (stichting) that acts as a custodian, or by the fund itself. Carbon Equity will act as fund manager only. The fund assets are completely separate from those of the fund manager, so in case Carbon Equity B.V. goes out of business, the funds are not impacted and can be managed by a newly appointed manager. In case of bankruptcy of Carbon Equity, the trustee (curator) cannot put a claim on the assets of the fund. The fund agreements provide for a mechanism through which Carbon Equity can be replaced in such an event.

If you have a complaint or are dissatisfied with Carbon Equity or your investment product, you may submit a complaint in writing to support@carbonequity.com, or Carbon Equity B.V., Geldersekade 101-F, 1011 EM Amsterdam. Your complaint will be handled carefully and as soon as possible. Carbon Equity is also registered with the KiFID, the Dutch Institute for Financial Disputes. You can file a complaint with KiFID as well about Carbon Equity. You can find more information at www.kifid.nl.

Carbon Equity is licensed as a fund manager by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, under article 2:65 of the Dutch Financial Markets Supervision Act. This means that Carbon Equity meets legal requirements to be active as a fund manager and is subject to conduct supervision by the AFM and prudential supervision by the Dutch Central Bank. Carbon Equity is included in the AFM register for investment funds.