Investor Profile: Planet A Ventures — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Planet A Ventures funding is built on an unusual premise for venture capital: scientists get a veto. The Berlin-based early-stage firm, founded in 2020 by entrepreneurs, investors and environmental experts, was the first European VC to make scientific impact assessment — full life-cycle assessments — a required part of every investment decision, with an in-house science team spending roughly 100–200 hours of analysis per prospective deal. Its first fund closed at €160M in February 2023, above its original €100M target, and the firm is actively deploying: it led Project Eaden's €15M oversubscribed Series A in February 2026 and backed Gigaton's $26M Series A in June 2026.

Planet A invests from pre-seed to Series A with initial tickets of €500k–€4m — stated on its official homepage — and a pan-European mandate summed up as "From London to Zurich and beyond." The LP base for Fund I is institutional-grade: BMW, KfW Capital, Allianz, REWE and Denmark's EIFO state fund, alongside entrepreneurs Rolf Schrömgens (Trivago), Maximilian Backhaus (HelloFresh) and Rubin Ritter (Zalando). No second fund has been publicly announced, so the fund count stays at one.

The Planet A Ventures thesis: science-led climate investing

Planet A's stated mission is to "contribute to an economy within the planetary boundaries by helping scale innovative technologies faster and supporting a science-based approach to venture capital." It invests only in companies demonstrating significant, measurable positive impact in at least one of four areas: climate mitigation, resource savings, biodiversity protection and waste reduction.

Sectors, stages and cheque size

Stages run pre-seed to Series A with €500k–€4m initial cheques — a range that lets the firm lead early rounds or take meaningful positions alongside co-investors. Sector scope is broad within the green-tech envelope, from e-fuels and geothermal to food tech and circular materials.

Notable portfolio

The official portfolio page names 27 companies plus six unannounced entries. Verified standouts include Traceless Materials (compostable, plastic-free materials; €36.6M raised in 2023), Makersite (product-sustainability software; €60M raised in 2025), Hived (UK electric parcel delivery; $42M raised in 2025), Project Eaden (fibre-technology plant-based meat; the €15M Series A led by Planet A with REWE Group in February 2026), Ineratec (e-fuels for aviation and shipping) and GA Drilling (super-critical geothermal energy). In June 2026 London AI industrial-control company Gigaton raised $26M led by Plural, with Planet A participating as an existing investor alongside 2150 and Semapa Next.

Programs and perks

Planet A runs no named accelerator or founder-facing community programme. Its closest equivalent is an internal Platform & Ecosystem function supporting portfolio founders, per its own Impact Report 2025. The practical perks are the science team's diligence (which doubles as third-party validation of a startup's climate claims for later investors) and a network anchored by corporate LPs like BMW and REWE that can become customers.

How to apply for funding

Founders pitch via [email protected] — the firm's listed contact for startup outreach. Named partners include general partners Nick de la Forge, Fridtjof Detzner (Jimdo co-founder, named Investor of the Year at the German Startup Awards 2023), Lena Thiede, Tobias Seikel and Jan Christoph Gras, with Christian Schad as founding and venture partner.