A mobile-first platform for sustainable investments focusing on climate change has launched fully.
Clim8 was founded by Duncan Grierson, an EY Entrepreneur of Year Cleantech award winner, and is built by ex-Credit Suisse, Google, BBC and Amazon execs.
It raised £1.35m in crowdfunding from 1,200 investors last year, including board directors of leading unicorn FinTechs such as Marcus Exall of Monese and Marcus Mosen of N26.
The mobile investment app provides a way to invest in a portfolio of companies making a positive climate impact.
Its portfolio focuses are clean energy, clean technology, smart mobility, clean water, the circular economy and sustainable food.
Over the last 12 months, based on a mixture of simulated and actual past performance, Clim8’s balanced portfolio has returned 25.35%, significantly ahead of its benchmark. The comparative benchmark performance over the past 10 years is 7.76%.
“We are launching at an exciting time for sustainable investing. 2020 was an exceptional year for environmentally-focused investment offerings such as ours, as investors looked harder at climate related opportunities,” said CEO Grierson.
“Sustainable investments have continued to outperform markets since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and we believe this will continue.”
Sustainable fund inflows more than doubled in 2020 for equity, reaching $348 billion compared to $166bn in 2019.
“Not only is sustainable investment becoming mainstream, we believe it has the basis for sustained out-performance in the medium-term, irrespective of views on the environmental crisis,” said Vincent Gilles, Chief Investment Officer at Clim8.
“We believe this outperformance can be explained by two main factors: the demise of the oil and gas sector, in which sustainable funds are typically not invested in, and the defensive qualities of the more sustainable companies in a period of market turmoil.
“What is more, it is anticipated that billions if not trillions will be redeployed towards sustainable investment. Clean energy technologies are now economically competitive and will amplify the trend towards sustainable solutions.
“And as more evidence of the environmental crisis emerges, regulations will continue to get tougher for polluters.”
Gilles and his experienced investment team have developed an in-depth due diligence process for stock selection from a combined 50 years’ of experience in the energy focused capital markets.
“We are focused on structural growth, sustainable returns, and competitive advantage. We filter companies that make the best use of their resources and show positive developments on carbon emissions relative to their sector and region,” he added.
“When assessing sustainability we use temperature alignment models to actively select companies that are working towards the Paris goals.”
The Clim8 Invest mobile app can be downloaded from the Apple and Android app stores.