InnoEnergy’s plans to secure further capital and build a growth capital fund arm are well underway.
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.
Olivier plays a crucial role together with Pierre-Louis Auzel, InnoEnergy Managing Director of growth Capital and Partnerships, to keep the financial wheels turning, and set the fund business in motion.
“Pierre-Louis is focused on raising further capital. I am leading work on our company governance and fund management business. This is all happening to support an equity event,” said Olivier about how the two work closely together. “These tasks are all very inter-related.”
InnoEnergy is currently building the financial muscle to accelerate its Fund management arm. 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.
Olivier 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 Olivier 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 Olivier 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 supports negotiations for funding of and exits from some of our larger portfolio companies.
While Olivier 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.
