ETF Partners Research
Investment Thesis
ETF Partners (formally The Environmental Technologies Fund) is a London-based venture capital firm founded in 2005 by Patrick Sheehan, positioning itself as Europe's original venture capital firm dedicated to sustainability and impact investing. The firm's thesis rests on the conviction that technological innovation, and specifically an "intelligence layer" that makes modern infrastructure smarter, is the most practical route to addressing the climate crisis at scale. The team explicitly seeks businesses where financial return and environmental impact reinforce each other rather than trade off against one another, and describes its unofficial motto as "the challenge is the opportunity."
Sector Focus
The firm organizes its portfolio across five market segments: Energy Transition, Future Mobility, Green Connectivity, Responsible Consumer, and Sustainable Food. In practice this spans energy and grid software (Amber, Dexter Energy, Modo Energy), climate and carbon-accounting software (Normative, Net Purpose), space infrastructure and Earth intelligence (Open Cosmos, Look Up Space), cybersecurity (Intigriti, and the exited MWR InfoSecurity), sovereign cloud infrastructure (Cubbit), robotics and industrial inspection (Flyability), circular-economy materials (Gen Phoenix, Ecoparts, Hubcycle), quantum computing (Riverlane), construction decision-intelligence (Nodes & Links), building intelligence (Next Sense), fashion traceability (Fairly Made), and insurance (Hellas Direct).
Stage Focus
ETF Partners does not publish a fixed stage mandate on its site, but its current portfolio and recent activity skew toward Series A through growth-stage companies with proven or rapidly scaling commercial traction, rather than pre-seed or concept-stage bets. The About page states the firm looks for "companies with rapidly growing revenue or the potential for large-scale commercial success," and 2026 activity shows it leading a €300M Series C (Open Cosmos) and participating in an oversubscribed $78.5M Series E (Amber), alongside backing a recent growth round for Nodes & Links.
Check Size
No specific check-size range is published on the website. Given participation in rounds from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars/euros, the firm appears able to write both lead and follow-on checks at meaningful scale for a specialist climate/deep-tech investor, but a precise minimum or maximum could not be confirmed from public sources.
Lead Tendency
Mixed. ETF Partners led the €300M Series C for Open Cosmos (September 2026) alongside a syndicate of over a dozen co-investors, but was one of several participants (alongside lead investor 1GT, Morgan Stanley's climate tech fund, and E.ON) in Amber's $78.5M Series E (September 2026). This suggests the firm leads when it has strong conviction and history with a company, and follows in larger syndicated rounds.
Recent Activity
The firm has been active through the second half of 2026: it led Open Cosmos's €300M Series C (announced 14 September 2026) to fund satellite mass-manufacturing and Earth-intelligence infrastructure; it participated in Amber's $78.5M Series E (announced ~September 2026) backing the Australian home-battery automation leader's international expansion; and podcast commentary from Partner Lucy Rands (August 2026) referenced a recent, unspecified funding round for portfolio company Nodes & Links. The firm was also an investor behind Normative, which announced a merger with Greenly in September 2026 to build what the companies describe as the world's largest climate software platform.
Portfolio Highlights
The firm currently lists more than 20 active portfolio companies on its website plus several public exits, including MWR InfoSecurity (cybersecurity, acquired), Enablon (EHS/sustainability software, acquired by Wolters Kluwer), Greenbird (utility data integration, acquired), and DeepSea Technologies (AI-driven shipping optimization, acquired). Standout active names include Open Cosmos (space infrastructure), Riverlane (quantum error correction, celebrating 10 years in 2026), Cubbit (geo-distributed sovereign cloud storage, recently deployed in Ukraine and Poland with GigaCloud), Nodes & Links (AI decision intelligence for capital infrastructure, deployed across 22,000+ projects in 23 countries), Fairly Made (fashion supply-chain traceability), and Hellas Direct (Greek insurtech).
Team
- Patrick Sheehan, Founder & Managing Partner — co-founded ETF Partners in 2005; earlier built 3i's venture capital practice and led 3i's Silicon Valley operation; PhD in electronics, UCL.
- Rob Genieser, Managing Partner — joined 2010; previously Managing Partner for Vertex Europe (Temasek) and Managing Director at JP Morgan Europe and Hambrecht & Quist; Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
- Zoë VanderWolk, Partner — joined 2019 as Head of IR and Sustainability, became Partner in 2023; former corporate lawyer at Baker & McKenzie's Environmental Finance group; co-founded Accessible Clean Energy LLP.
- Lucy Rands, Partner — joined 2016 as Investment Manager, became Partner in 2023; leads on new deals and portfolio work; Materials Science, Oxford.
- Tomer Strikovsky, Partner; Fabrice Bienfait and Remy de Tonnac, Senior Partners; Claudio Simao, Mikko Suonenlahti and Hitoshi Yoshida, Venture Partners.
- Supporting investment team: Kajsa Hammar (Investment Manager), Alice Chan and Alejandro Diaz Horstmann (Investment roles), Sophie Lemarchand (Investment Associate).
- Operations/finance: Leanne England (CFO), Tiina Tanav (Finance Manager), Andrew Hoyland (Fund Operations), Aleksandra Lament (IR & Sustainability Operations), Courtney Glymph (Head of Communications).
Decision Process
Not explicitly disclosed, but the presence of multiple Partners and Senior Partners actively leading deals (Sheehan, Genieser, VanderWolk, Rands, Strikovsky, Bienfait, de Tonnac) points to a partnership-style decision process rather than a solo-GP model.
Founder Preferences
The firm states it invests in "visionary entrepreneurs delivering the intelligence layer that enables modern infrastructure," and its team profiles emphasize backing technical, domain-expert founders (e.g., quantum physicists at Riverlane, project-controls engineers at Nodes & Links, corporate-carbon-accounting scientists at Normative) tackling structurally important, hard problems rather than incremental ones.
Geographic Focus
Primarily Europe — the firm describes itself as investing in "cutting-edge companies across Europe" and is headquartered at 29 Queen Anne's Gate, London. Portfolio exceptions exist where a European syndicate backs a company headquartered elsewhere (e.g., Amber in Australia), typically via existing co-investor relationships (E.ON, Innovation Victoria).
Firm History and Fund
Founded in 2005, ETF Partners has raised at least four numbered funds (Environmental Technologies Fund I–IV; Fund III closed at £167M, Fund IV closed oversubscribed at $302M in 2024) and reported €800M in assets under management as of a November 2024 published note, alongside an Article 9 (SFDR) classification. The firm was ranked 19th on Sifted's 2025 list of Europe's Top Venture Capital Firms.