Frequently Asked Questions
About that financial support for climate ventures…
Financial Support for Carbon Start-ups
We provide start-ups with non-dilutive loans ranging from €50,000 to €250,000 per project. These loans are interest-free and fully subordinated to other creditors. If the start-up becomes profitable in the future, the interest rate adjusts to a market rate (Euribor) plus 600 basis points from that point onward.
If you receive a €250,000 loan in 2025 and start making an annual profit in 2030, the first five years are interest-free. Assuming the market rate (Euribor) in 2030 is 200 basis points, from 2030 onwards, you’ll pay a total interest of 200 (market rate) + 600 basis points (premium) = 800 basis points, or 8% on the loan. This equates to €20,000 per year from 2030 until the loan is repaid.
Yes, we encourage loan repayment whenever feasible so we can recycle the funds to support others. Loans can be repaid at any time without penalty. However, we require at least one year of interest payment before any loan repayment. In the above example, the minimum repayment would be €250,000 (principal) + €20,000 (one year of interest).
Yes, once your business turns profitable, the loan will become interest-bearing, but there’s no obligation to repay it immediately. You can choose to keep the loan and make annual interest payments.
No. Typically, we define 4-5 milestones that need to be completed to unlock subsequent tranches of financing. These milestones are connected to the project’s progress and together they usually span 12-18 months.
We are open to funding a limited management fee for each founder actively working for the company. We expect management fees to be a relatively small part of the total expenses, preferring most funds to go towards experiments, building pilots, filing patents, etc.
Financial Support for Grantees
CarbonFix Foundation offers grants ranging from €5,000 up to €250,000 per project.
Similar to start-ups, we define 3-5 milestones that need to be completed to unlock subsequent tranches of financing, that typically are spread out over 12-18 months.
Our preference is to grant to non-profit, like NGO’s, but depending on the situation exceptions can be made.
CarbonFix Community
We provide start-ups with non-dilutive loans ranging from €50,000 to €250,000 per project. These loans are interest-free and fully subordinated to other creditors. If the start-up becomes profitable in the future, the interest rate adjusts to a market rate (Euribor) plus 600 basis points from that point onward.
Responsibilities for Project Owners
Your primary responsibility is to bring your CO₂e-reducing innovation to the world. Additionally, we ask that you actively engage in our CarbonFix community and provide annual reports on the CO₂e reduction your project has achieved up until 2030.
Application Criteria
- See the for ventures or for grants pages for more elaboration. But we support projects that meet the following criteria:
- A new innovation in reducing or capturing CO₂e.
- A dedicated founder/team committed to making it work.
- No prior financial investments other than:
- Own funds.
- ‘Friends and family’ money.
- Limited subsidies/grants (up to €250,000).
- At scale and successfully established, your initiative will reduce or capture at least 10 Megaton of CO₂e per year.
If you are raising equity or equity-like instruments such as CLAs or SAFEs, we hope you will succeed and won’t need our support. 🙂
If we can be additional in a first funding round, for example, by unlocking sizable governmental “matching” grants or semi-governmental investment tickets, your project can still be eligible for CarbonFix funding. However, please note that in such cases, we will match the investment terms that are on the table instead of using our standard non-dilutive instruments.
If you have raised a limited amount in ‘friends and family’ equity or in subsidies, grants, or governmental debt, you can still be eligible for CarbonFix financing. Please note that in such cases, we will match the instruments that were used prior to our involvement instead of using our standard non-dilutive instrument.
Application Process
You apply by using the Apply Now button on our website.
We strive to respond to new applications within 2 weeks. If we think your application could meet our criteria we will usually ask for more information and setup an introductory call. This will lead to an initial go/no-go decision from our board in usually another 2-4 weeks depending on the quality of information that you can provide. If we decide to continue with the project we will perform a more thorough due dilligence that takes another 4 weeks. All in all, first money in the bank for any project will usually take about 3 months.
After an initial ‘go’ decision on the project based on high level information provided by you, we will continue with a more thorough due diligence. This DD focuses on the following topics: teaming, the innovation, carbon reduction potential, financials, legal and tax. We always speak to one or more scientists from your field.
We take a rather scientific approach – so strongly encourage to back-up your initiative with two key documents:
- Project description which covers the roll-out plan including the various test phases and definitions of success
- Lifetime cycle analyses (LCA) to substantiate the CO2e saving claims
Other than responding to our questions promptly and with high quality information, there is not much you can do to accelerate our process. We value a good quality research into any project including consulting scientists which leads to the approximate 3 months lead time.