Grosvenor UK makes debut investment in European built environment VC fund

Grosvenor’s UK property business has invested in Noa (formerly known as A/O)’s fund II. The fund invests in technologies that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, build climate resilience, and accelerate the energy transition and digitisation of the real estate and construction industries.  Founded in 2019, Noa is one of Europe’s largest venture capital firms focused on the built world, aiming to transform the industry into a more digital, efficient and accessible asset class. Its investment focus spans the sector’s lifecycle, including supply chain, building design, construction, operations and energy transition. Previous companies backed by Noa include Satellite Vu (a thermal data observation firm), Plentific (a property management software platform), 011H (a platform digitising the design and build process) and Passive Logic (which creates next-generation fully autonomous building management systems).  The investment alongside Noa is Grosvenor UK’s first in a VC fund, having already made direct investments in Commonplace, Pupil, QFlow and Demand Logic. Gregory Dewerpe, founder and managing partner at Noa, said: “The built world represents 40% of global carbon emissions yet receives less than 5% of venture funding. Despite this, the last five years have seen the growth of built world tech investments outpace the wider market, and Europe is very much at the centre of the industry’s outperformance. “We have built a strong relationship with Grosvenor over the last few years and have always been impressed by their firm wide alignment and dedication to steering innovation and sustainability in the industry. Working closely with Grosvenor will be an important addition to our fund, particularly as they join our invite-only group of strategic real estate LPs, who we work jointly with to help foster innovation and accelerate the transformation of the incumbents to drive change across the built world.”  Andy Doyle, director of operations, innovation and strategy at Grosvenor, added: “Fostering innovation is critical to addressing the challenges we face, including our response to climate change and its impact on our portfolio. Our investments to date are helping scale solutions to just some of these challenges whilst driving change within Grosvenor.” Photo © Leon Foggitt