Planet First

Mars is for cowards

While some people are preparing to evacuate our planet to live on a red rock, in a glass cage with free wifi, 225 million km away from home, others, like ourselves, prefer to make things better where we live. Not just for us, but also for the 2.13 million species we live with. Stakes are high, but so are the returns, when we, together with Planet First, invest in technologies with the highest scale-up potential and world changing impact imaginable.

How we operate

Planet First Partners is classified as an Article 9 fund under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), whereby investments are made exclusively in organizations which substantially contribute to an environmental or to a social objective. They use rigorous methodologies to assess people, products, and businesses to ensure the decisions they make will have the greatest positive impact. Their processes have been verified by Bluemark to ensure compliance with the SFDR requirements.
Their verticals of investment: Green Cities, Energy Transition, Industry 4.0, Farm 2 Fork
Geographies: Primarily for European and Israeli-based companies.

Entrepreneur

Frédéric de Mévius founded Planet First Partners in 2020, with the support of a team of sustainability and finance experts, alongside a set of seasoned advisers. He has decades of experience across investment banking, as well as steering growth and company strategy.
Having helped grow AB-InBev into the world’s largest brewer, in 1995 he set up a new investment vehicle called Verlinvest, where he built a portfolio of brands, including Oatly & Vita Coco. In 2019, he stepped down and turned his attention to becoming a strategic investor in companies which provided solutions to the climate crisis. Subsequently, Planet First Partners was founded.
Frédéric is also a supporter of a number of charities, in 2015 he became involved in ‘Out of the Box’, an alternative school targeting those who drop out of mainstream education. He has also served as a Trustee of the Science Museum and is heavily involved in the Zoological Society of London, the leading British conservation charity.

Results

Launched in 2020, Planet First Partners (PFP) invested in 3 thriving companies (Sunfire, Submer and Nanogence) and one ecosystem investment (Eka ventures) as of end 2023. PFP developed a proprietary Sustainable Assessment Methodology (SAM) to identify companies delivering substantial contributions to sustainability and assure that the investment and post-investment process will meet compliance requirements. More importantly, their approach is designed to support our portfolio companies in creating value from sustainability.

Impact & sustainability amounts to twenty-five percent (25%) of the carried interest remuneration of the General Partner, which aligns with the achievement of the pre-defined sustainability milestones and portfolio performance (alignment with EU Taxonomy, as approved by the Sustainability Committee.)
Following BlueMark’s recommendations, PFP will further enhance its impact management system by implementing notably the following steps:
• Strengthen the documentation of a thematic-level sustainability thesis for each of the four investment verticals.
• Strengthen the modelling of the links between commercial and sustainability success.