WovenEarth closes $155M cleantech fund, leans on co-investments

WovenEarth Ventures has closed WovenEarth Fund II at $155 million, ESG Today reports, an early-stage cleantech vehicle aimed at energy, industry, and resilience companies that the Palo Alto firm, founded in 2022, will spread across more than 250 companies by committing to a select group of US early-stage cleantech funds and holding back roughly one-third of investable capital to invest directly alongside those managers. Commitments so far span seven funds and 20 co-investments across geothermal energy, battery storage, critical minerals, robotics, and orchestration software.

Repeat investors from the first WovenEarth fund — The Pennsylvania State University, Glenmede, Mortenson Family Foundation, and M.A. Mortenson Companies — are joined in Fund II by new backers that include foundations, family offices, and J.M. Huber Corporation. For a manager barely four years old, returning institutional LPs suggest the approach has passed an early test, not just the pitch.

Managing Partner Jane Woodward calls the moment 'a massive innovation wave' — 'Cleantech 2.0' — driven by AI-driven electricity demand, the push to domesticate supply chains, and the rising cost of extreme weather. 'We see them as better businesses that happen to be clean,' she said.

The structure matters more than the $155 million headline: WovenEarth is selling a fund-of-funds sleeve with a built-in co-investment pipeline, a workable answer to the breadth of modern cleantech, because no LP needs to pick a winner in geothermal, critical minerals, or orchestration software when one ticket buys a portfolio of 250-plus names. The trade-off is the fee stack. Layer a fund-of-funds fee on top of the underlying managers' fees, and the vehicle needs its co-investments to outperform by enough to pay for the structure. That math, not the close, will set the pace for the firm's next fundraising.

The close also fits a broader private-fund shelf pattern: the shelf is filling and segmenting at once. WovenEarth is positioning a single niche vehicle as a diversified entry point, and the family offices and foundations on the investor list are the natural audience for that pitch. The next fund's LP list will show whether the fee structure earned its keep.