An ex-Tory minister is setting up a private investment bank to support scale-up firms focused on impact, future technologies and net zero.
In a speech at the Alternative Investment Management Association on Tuesday, former net-zero tsar Chris Skidmore said he was helping to establish Desmos Capital Partners – a boutique bank to invest in new markets that are “transforming the world”.
Mr Skidmore, who quit the Tories and Parliament in January in protest at the issuing of new oil and gas licences, said the firm will focus on companies seeking to scale and raise capital from £5 million upwards.
Desmos will look at “creative funding structures and alternative sources of capital” such as private family funds and investors rather than just approaching venture capital funds, he added.
Mr Skidmore spoke about his work leading an independent review of the UK’s net-zero policies under former prime minister Liz Truss in 2022.
He told investors: “As I travelled the country meeting with businesses and organisations, it was clear that for companies seeking to innovate and scale up the solutions needed to decarbonise or reduce emissions, access to private capital was their major issue.
“For those companies that know they can provide the solutions to both help tackle the climate crisis, or meet the changing demands of our ever-changing world, they cannot wait for yet another (Environmental Social and Governance) framework through which to be judged: they need support today.
“Yet too many companies seeking investment to scale up and grow lack the connections and networks into international networks of institutional and private investors who are seriously willing to consider financing the technologies of tomorrow.
“That is why I can announce today that I am helping to establish a new private boutique investment bank, Desmos Capital Partners, that intends to focus on providing the support needed to companies seeking to scale and raise capital.”
The new firm will set up offices globally in London, Paris and later Dubai and Toronto, he said.
The former MP switched his support to Labour during the election campaign.
He praised the new Government for its swift action on net zero, such as ripping up planning restrictions for onshore wind and establishing a new mission control to deliver a 2030 net-zero power grid.
But he also called on ministers to establish an investment road map “that sets out in detail what projects and infrastructure can be delivered, what is the timescale for this, and what is the balance of public and private investment needed to unlock them”.
“We need to provide investors and private capital markets with the confidence that the UK is open for net-zero business,” he added.
The former MP said he would be joined by “some highly experienced banking experts from across the world” at Desmos, adding that they “share my vision that the world is changing, and we need to bring new perspectives and new outlooks to traditional forms of investing”.
He said Desmos was part of a “personal commitment” to deliver and implement net zero on the ground, coming five years after he signed the UK’s net-zero commitment into law.
Since resigning as an MP, he has founded a company called Better Earth, which aims to advise governments on reducing emissions, with former prime minister Boris Johnson as a co-chair.