At the BlueInvest Days 2022 in Brussels, Commissioner Virginius Sinkevičius and EIF Deputy Chief Executive, Roger Havenith announced a new dedicated equity initiative for the blue economy under InvestEU. The initiative will mobilize an additional EUR 500 million of EU funds for financial intermediaries investing in this sector. Commissioner Sinkevičius also announced that the European Commission’s successful BlueInvest initiative will continue beyond 2022 until 2026.
European Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius, responsible for Environment, Oceans, and Fisheries, praised the achievements of the BlueInvest initiative, which in the past 3 years has been highly successful in terms of getting hundreds of SMEs coached and matched with investors. The initiative has led to a large number of financing deals being signed, has strengthened the investment landscape for the blue economy, increased investor awareness, and helped bridge the finance gap for blue technology SMEs and start-ups.
He said: “The first phase of the platform acted as an accelerator to foster innovation and investment in sustainable technologies for the blue economy. To further deepen and scale up these activities, we are now launching the second stage of BlueInvest. This will provide an even better service to European SMEs and investors, and more impact to support the European Green Deal objectives.”
EIF Deputy CE, Roger Havenith said: “After the success of the pilot initiative launched under EFSI, we are now very excited to be launching the new InvestEU Blue Economy initiative to support European businesses in the blue economy. Climate action and environmental sustainability are a top EU priority. We are confident that this initiative will make a meaningful contribution in that direction, making financing available to support innovative businesses and ambitious entrepreneurs that seek to find solutions to the blue economy challenges”.
From BlueInvest to InvestEU Blue Economy
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, thereby mobilizing an additional EUR 500 million of EU funds for financial intermediaries investing in this sector. This will result in EUR 1,5 billion of risk-financing available to innovative and sustainable blue economy SMEs and start-ups, via financial intermediaries. The call for expression of interest will be soon published by the EIF.
As a novelty, the BlueInvest platform as well as the EIF and EIB will provide capacity building and advisory support for financial intermediaries and impact investors targeting investments in the blue economy
