BlueInvest advances the maritime economy
Last week, the event "BlueInvest for the Baltic" took place in Hamburg. The focus was on developing investment opportunities for the "blue economy" in the Baltic Sea region. A major role will be played by a new fund, for which 500 million euros of EU money are available.
BlueInvest defines itself as a community that aims to foster innovation and investment in sustainable technologies for the blue economy by providing access to finance for startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The blue or maritime economy encompasses a total of eleven sectors, from fishery to renewable energy and environmental protection to tourism. Common to all eligible projects is a strong sustainability component.
BlueInvest has already made a big difference since 2020
The European Investment Fund (EIF), supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), has earmarked funding for the BlueInvest Fund to meet the requirements of the EU Green Deal. The fund is structured as an EFSI equity product to provide financing to other funds that are wholly or partially focused on the blue economy, or to individual companies supported by more general funds.
In 2020, the BlueInvest fund allocated 75 million ruros from the EFSI and 15 million euros from InnovFin Equity, another EU initiative, to a number of venture capital funds. They will use these resources to invest up to 300 million euros in the blue economy over the next five years, most of it in the EU. 332 projects have been considered so far.
InvestEU Blue Economy, the scaled-up equity initiative that builds on the BlueInvest Fund pilot under EFSI, brings together the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, the EIB Group and InvestEU finance. It mobilizes an additional 500 million euros in EU funding for financial intermediaries. This will result in 1,5 billion euros of risk-financing available to innovative and sustainable blue economy SMEs and start-ups, via financial intermediaries. What is new is that the BlueInvest platform, as well as the EIF and the European Investment Bank (EIB), will provide capacity building and advisory support to financial intermediaries and impact investors looking to invest in the blue economy.
