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My guest today is Murat Arcan, managing director of Sabanci Climate Ventures, the CVC unit of Sabanci Climate Technologies, the international energy arm of one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates.
Primarily operating in the US, the CVC unit works closely with its renewables asset manager counterpart, Sabanci Renewables, under the Sabanci Climate Tehcnologies umbrella, to expand their parent company’s presence in renewables across the global.
Arcan is himself a relative newcomer to CVC, having joined the unit last year from a more operations-focused role at another corporate. He talks to me about what that transition to corporate VC has been like for him and what drew him to the energy sector in the first place, and the unit’s goals of helping the company in its ambitious gigawatt-scale renewable expansion plans and eventually imbed startup technology into their operational portfolio.
He tells me about how their investments into other funds have been helpful in growing their networks and sourcing other direct investments, and how – just as they as a CVC can bring value to a startup – they also seek to bring added value to the funds they invest in.
We also touch on their plans to triple the size of the team by next year, how the unit’s $200m fund is currently set up as a GP-LP, but could go evergreen in the future, and much more.