InnoEnergy’s plans to secure private placement and build a growth capital fund arm are well underway. Targeted to be finalised by the end of this year, these two business strategies are intended to expand the company’s financial capabilities.
Olivier Takx, InnoEnergy head of Corporate Finance, describes the job of the upcoming fund management arm as “connecting the dots in the funding journey” for growing businesses. As of now, a lack of sizable capital that can support earlier-stage companies slows their commercial breakthrough. But he is optimistic that the fund business will smooth the course for InnoEnergy portfolio companies — accelerating the energy transition as a whole.
Takx plays a crucial role together with Pierre-Louis Auzel, InnoEnergy Managing Director of growth Capital and Partnerships, to keep the financial wheels turning, accomplish the private placement, and set the fund business in motion.
“Pierre-Louis is more focused on coordinating the private placement. I am leading ‘Project Evo’ which we kicked-off in 2024 to facilitate a new company structure, and governance and fund management business. This is all happening to support our 2026 equity event,” said Takx about how the two work closely together. “These tasks are all very inter-related because you need the structure to get the private placement going and we need the private placement to establish the fund management business.”
With the fresh cash that InnoEnergy will receive from the Private Placement, InnoEnergy will have the financial muscle to accelerate its Fund management business with a General Partner. A GP is the entity that will run our day-to-day management of the fund, including investment decisions, overseeing operations and executing the fund’s strategy. For the company, this will be with the goal of reaching 10 billion euros of assets under management and an investment capacity of over 400 million euros, from 2030 onwards. InnoEnergy positioning itself as the GP of the fund also means it will generate revenue through a management fee, while it works with Limited Partners (LPs) who provide the capital.
Takx has been with InnoEnergy since October 2024 after being introduced to the clean tech company’s work in 2022 at his previous position with Sustainable Capital Group. “I recognised the hidden gem because, in the financial community, it was quite an unknown beast,” said Takx about his first impression of InnoEnergy before joining the team.
He began his career as an analyst and found his niche in sustainability over the last 30 years. “When I started my career there was no sustainable finance,” said Takx about his launch into renewables. He was introduced to the sector as an investment committee member of two government funding venture firms in the Netherlands themed “innovation and sustainability,” and his interest was piqued by the role finance plays in making a lasting difference for the planet.
“Once an analyst, always an analyst, so I really wanted to understand how this works… It’s a bit like if you buy a red car and then you see red cars everywhere, so the same happened with sustainable finance. The more I learnt about it, the more enthusiastic I got and was convinced of the need to use capital to achieve impact.”
So now at InnoEnergy, he co-manages the funding strategy of the company and ensures the equity story is fit for purpose for the IPO and other liquidity events InnoEnergy looks for. Also, as Head of Corporate Finance, he helps with negotiations for funding of and exits from some of our larger portfolio companies.
While Takx is a new face to InnoEnergy, he has already found resonance with the core values. He says that “We Think Beyond” and “We Make It Happen” are the most relevant to his work, and he says those are only possible because “We Care.”
“What really resonates with me is the combination of the core values because if you only care, nothing happens. If you say, ‘think beyond’ and ‘make it happen’ then you go about it in a righteous way to create a better future.
