BBVA co-hosts the largest European conference on entrepreneurship and climate venture capital in Bilbao
The bank is sponsoring the fifth edition of the Energy Tech Summit, which will be held in Bilbao for the first time on April 10th and 11th, 2024.
Initially started by the leading climate tech VC firm Contrarian Ventures, the event is recognized as the top conference in the sector in Europe. Energy Tech Summit unites the main stakeholders from the ecosystem of innovation and investment in climate tech, such as start-ups, investors, corporations and government representatives. “The decarbonization of the economy poses an unprecedented opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurship. It will transform business models in nearly all sectors,” said Santiago Muguruza, Head of Investment in Venture Capital at BBVA Spark. “In 2023, climate tech start-ups attracted 27 percent of venture capital in Europe, tripling the levels from 2021 and surpassing areas like fintech,” he added.
Meanwhile, Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Sustainability & CIB Strategy at BBVA, explained that “companies that operate in the climate tech space face significant financing challenges to achieve the scaling of their businesses, which are very intensive in infrastructure investment, while the challenge for large industrial corporations lies in the adoption of innovative technologies that allow them to decarbonize.”
For this reason, BBVA is joining forces with Contrarian Ventures to organize the Growth Meets Capital and Growth Meets Industry side events as part of the global Energy Tech Summit. The first event will connect later-stage (Series A+) climate tech companies with the leading global climate tech growth investors, including funds in which BBVA has investment commitments. The Growth Meets Industry event aims to connect these innovative companies with corporate industries from across the globe that are at the cutting-edge of decarbonization in their respective sectors.
“We are extremely excited to start this partnership with BBVA and bring the Energy Tech Summit to Bilbao - an emerging innovation hotspot to host the global climate tech community. With the launch of the Growth Meets Capital event, we are aiming to accelerate and fast-track founders' fundraising journey by bringing who-is-who in the climate tech investor community,” said Rokas Peciulaitis, Founder & Managing Partner at Contrarian Ventures and Founder & Chairman of Energy Tech Summit. “It’s going to be one of the most productive days this year for climate tech founders. Deals will get done here. You want to be here,” he added.
Bilbao, the heart of innovation
The latest edition of Energy Tech Summit will be held in Bilbao with a dynamic new format designed to inspire, connect and amplify impact in the fight against climate change. The Basque city and the Bilbao-Bizkaia region, which is already the hub of the circular economy and the corridor of green hydrogen, are getting ready to host the main stakeholders in the field of technology and climate innovation, in a public-private collaboration exercise that is helping to drive the energy transition.
The annual Energy Tech Summit event had its inaugural launch in 2019 and since then has grown significantly. The previous edition, which took place in Warsaw, brought together over 230 funds, 170 start-ups and 130 corporations, and organized more than 1,500 individual meetings. “We are very proud of how this conference has grown over the past five years. BBVA's support, as a global leader in promoting the energy transition, gives us a new drive to continue expanding the scope of the Energy Tech Summit,” said Peciulaitis. The next few years will be transformative, as “we believe we have assembled a critical mass of individuals and organizations whom we highly value and admire. Now is the time to evolve, grow, and scale the Energy Tech Summit and there is no better place than Bilbao - home to the leading industries and hubs that aim to propel the transformation of industrial areas through the technological innovation of the sectors.”