A new venture capital company called Leitmotif has been on a silent blitz for 16 months, the financing of around twenty startups have largely focused on decarbonization. Its portfolio includes EV companies, spaces of space and battery and four nuclear fusion startups. But the company only said that its funding came from “European industrial interests”.
Now Leitmotif told Techcrunch where the money came from: the Volkswagen group.
The German car giant has engaged $ 300 million in the first leitmotif fund and is its only limited partner; Leitmotif has deployed about a third of this so far.
And Leitmotif, according to the general partners of the young company, Matt Trevithic and Jens Wiese, wants to run successive funds which attract a more European industrial interest beyond Volkswagen. (A spokesperson for the Volkswagen group refused to comment on the communication period before his annual meeting later during the day.)
It is an ambitious effort. Securing the financing of hardware startups, in particular those with a serious manufacturing component, has been difficult in recent years. But Trevitick thinks it’s a good time to try to invest in these kinds of businesses.
“Technology has always been an engine of human progress, and I think the United States is about to overeat this,” he told Techcrunch. “I think that the next few years are about to produce a number of technical capacities in the United States that the rest of the world will marvel.”
Leitmotif also builds a transatlantic fund while the geopolitical environment is tense by the Trump administration.
Despite this turmoil, Wiese – who was the head of the M&A division of Volkswagen Group, Advisory Investment and Partnerships before starting Leitmotif – said that the primordial objective of the new company is to “create a bridge between the European industrial establishment and the American innovation ecosystem”.
Priority: to earn money
Trevithick and Wiese said Volkswagen had an absolute priority when she agreed to invest in the fund: to earn money.
“First and foremost, it is a question of setting up a successful venture capital company,” said Wiese.
While the Volkswagen group goes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year of income, Wiese said that earning money is still partly important because it is “the way the industry maintains the score”.
After that, the venture capital company said it was planning to invest in “the category defining businesses in our areas of interest”, according to Wiese, and also identifying “new innovation pockets” which could benefit the Volkswagen group.
Wiese said he expected about a quarter of the leitmotif portfolio over time to interact with Volkswagen and its countless brands.
Truck startup EV Harbinger is an example. Leitmotif co-directed the $ 100 million in Harbinger Series B in JanuaryAnd Wiese said that the startup had discussions on collaboration with the Volkswagen truck division.
Geographically, leitmotif’s investment strategy is structured so that around 70% of its capital will be deployed in the United States, the remaining 30% being invested in the EU, the company will maintain offices in Palo Alto and Munich.
Trevithick said that 70% of global leitmotive investments in this first fund will be made in startups that “solve today’s known problems” and existed in “a billion dollars and markets with customers ready to buy innovation”.
The remaining 30% of the fund will be focused on what it called “revolutionary innovation” which will create “billion dollars markets in the 2030s and beyond”.
Until now, this strategy has led to investments in the Redwood Materials battery recycling company, the reusable Stoke Space rocket company and even the Syre of circular polyester startup. Leitmotif has publicly supported 13 startups to date, although there is more in its portfolio which has not been announced.
Leitmotif will eventually have other funds; Trevithick and Wiese declared that they were particularly looking at robotics and AI then. Volkswagen will have the right to invest in them if he chooses it, but Leitmotif is independent and, for the moment, focused on the end of his first fund.
Timing is everything
The end of 2023 was undoubtedly the worst time for recent memory startups to lock the major financing cycles, in particular those focused on equipment or “deep technology”, thanks to high interest rates.
Trevithick said it had made an ideal moment to start leitmotif.
“It is on the broken down markets when strong companies separate from the weak. In a bubble, everyone is funded, “he said.
This slowdown in fundraising has led other companies to take less risks outside the startups in which they were already invested, said Trevithick.
“There were fewer new dollars available to finance good companies that were there because everyone became myopic on their own portfolio,” he said. “I think that is why we had a lot of interest in participating in rounds which, in the time of the bubble, we might not have access.”
This interest has largely came thanks to the history of Wiese and Trevithick.
Wiese spent almost 8 years at the Volkswagen group, where he led mergers, acquisitions and investments for the German car manufacturer. During this visit to Volkswagen, Wiese developed what he called “a fairly deep network in the venture capital community, both in Europe and in the United States” which included a relationship with the battery manufacturer Quantumscape, where Wiese was a member of the board of directors until 2024.
Trevithick, on the other hand, was a partner of Venrock for a decade. There, he focused on investment in Green Energy during the original original technology boom in the early 2010s, his best forced bet being a start on the battery manufacturer in Atieva – the company which ultimately became lucid engines.
Investing, advising and guiding businesses through the subsequent clean technology bust has been a precious experience for navigating the uncertainty that is currently afflicting industry, said Trevithic.
While many “zero net” objectives are either covered or abandoned, Trevithic said that the own technology industry “begins in a much better position this time”.
In addition, Trevithic said that he believed that unpredictability would have more opportunities for companies like leitmotif – and startups behind.
“I think we can all agree that it will just be a very volatile environment. Which should disproportionately promote entrepreneurs, startups and venture capital, “he said.
“We feel very confident about our portfolio,” added Wiese. “Yes, [decarbonization] is our global theme. At the same time, we invest in companies where we are convinced that they have profitability analysis to succeed, regardless of what, say, the theme of the day is. »»
