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Forrestjoins Bill Gates-led billionaires in green venture fund
Andrew Forrestjoined a band of big-name billionaires each investing a minimum of $US50million ($66 million) in a Bill Gates-led venture capital fund focused onemerging greenhouse gas-reducing technologies, including green steelmanufacture.
Other investorsin Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Virginfounder Richard Branson, businessman and former New York City mayor MichaelBloomberg, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and LinkedIn executivechairman Reid Hoffman.

Bill Gates,philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, is the chairman of BreakthroughEnergy Ventures. AP
The board isheaded by Mr Gates and includes Alibaba founder Jack Ma, venture capitalistJohn Doerr and Abigail Johnson, the chief executive of Fidelity Investments andone of the world’s richest women.
The Forrestfamily’s private company, Tattarang, invested at least the minimum $US50million after being approached by the Gates team.
Dr Forrest, whohas just completed a 14-day quarantine period in NSW after returning from hislatest international hunt for green energy projects and financial backers, joined the ranks of BEV investors while overseas.

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BEV’s initialventure capital fund raised $US1.1 billion from more than 20 billionaires, whoBEV said “embrace the need to take significant technical risk” to achievenet-zero carbon emissions targets.
The fund kickedoff with investments in 46 businesses across agriculture, construction,electricity, manufacturing and transport.
Second fund
A second fundcapped at $US1.5 billion was targeted to support an additional 40-50climate-technology businesses that “seek to mitigate greenhouse gas emissionsby at least half a gigatonne per year”, or about 1 per cent of annual globalemissions.
In addition tothe BEV funds and under the Gates entity’s wider umbrella, Breakthrough EnergyCatalyst (BEC) is looking to raise $US7 billion to scale up critical climatetechnologies, starting with green hydrogen, direct air capture and sustainableaviation fuel.
One of the firstbusinesses backed by BEV was Boston Metals, a developer of green steel-makingtechnology that has also caught the eye of BHP’s venture capital division.
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BHP Ventures wascreated as part of chief executive Mike Henry’s innovation drive. It is taskedwith finding “emerging companies with game-changing technologies”.
Both BHPVentures and BEV, as an existing investor, participated in a $US50 millionraising by Boston Metals in January aimed at accelerating commercial-scalegreen steel-making through its molten oxide electrolysis technology.
This is a fundthat has some of the best and brightest scientists and impact investorsinvolved.
— John Hartman,Tattarang chief investment officer
Dr Forrest, theFortescue Metals Group’s founder, chairman and biggest shareholder, hascommitted the iron ore miner to produce green steel from a pilot plant at itsoperations in Western Australia.
Fortescue,through wholly-owned subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries, has also signedagreements for the development of green energy projects in Australia and overseas,including the giant Grand Inga hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The company ispoised to make a final investment decision on a 250-megawatt green hydrogenplant at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania expected to cost at least $500 millionto develop.
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Dr Forrest hasdeclared his privately-owned Squadron Energy is willing to build a gas and green hydrogen-fuelled power station at PortKembla to sit alongside the LNG import terminal it is building. He expects the terminal to gradually transition from LNG to green hydrogen supplied by Fortescue.
Tattarang chiefinvestment officer John Hartman said BEV would invest in companies at thecutting edge of developing technologies needed in the transition to a net-zeroeconomy.
“We are going toneed significant breakthroughs in several key industrial technologies such asgreen steel, green cement, renewable hydrogen,” he said.