Virescent Ventures Case Study
Pioneering a $200M Portfolio for Sustainable Innovation
Situation
- Virescent Ventures was formed when one of the world’s largest green banks, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), spun out its venture capital arm into a new entity with a $200 million climate tech portfolio.
- Our brief was to establish Virescent Ventures as an independent and credible VC (Venture Capital) investment firm, both nationally and globally.
- This required positioning Virescent Ventures as the largest and most active climate tech VC firm in Australia, and supporting their portfolio companies with investment milestone announcements and rebrands.
Action
- We developed comprehensive media pitches that highlighted Virescent Ventures’ portfolio and role in climate tech innovation independent from the CEFC, carefully negotiating this position with the CEFC.
- We timed the announcement of their second fund’s first close with climate tech industry trends.
- We placed Virescent portfolio investments into tier-1 media, to enhance the visibility and credibility of the portfolio brands, and to again highlight Virescent as an independent climate tech investor separate to the CEFC.
- We also crafted detailed investment notes and communications to further emphasise this credibility and visibility.
Results
- Journalists quickly started referring to Virescent Ventures as Australia’s largest and most active climate tech VC firm in media stories.
- We reset the narrative around their second fund’s first close from being delayed to just launching in multiple top-tier publications like the Australian Financial Review and The Australian, along with key global trade publications.
- Virescent’s portfolio companies were featured across a large number of Tier-1 and trade press publications.
- Cohesive messaging from their spokespeople resulted in industry stakeholders providing volumes of positive feedback and congratulations on the capital raising, establishing Virescent Ventures as an industry leader.
- The Virescent Ventures brand recognition progressed from not well known to widely recognised and understood.