Statkraft Ventures

Statkraft Ventures is the in-house investor for Statkraft, the Norwegian state-owned utility that is Europe's largest producer of renewable power. That parentage is the whole story, the fund exists to scout the energy-transition technologies its owner will one day buy from, build with, or learn from, which is why its mandate reads energy and climate tech rather than water. Water shows up here as a consequence of climate, not as a target.

Statkraft Ventures' single water bet makes that logic concrete. It backed Hydrosat, a US- and Luxembourg-based company that flies thermal-infrared sensors on satellites to measure the temperature of the ground itself, turning that reading into early warning for drought, irrigation needs, and water stress. Investment Director Alexander Küppers championed the bet around a blunt premise, that surface temperatures are rising and water scarcity is a pressing problem. For Statkraft Ventures, water is something you measure from orbit before it becomes a crisis on the ground.

Statkraft Ventures runs two pools, an International Fund and a Norway Fund, and writes cheques from Series A into growth rounds. It does not spread itself across water the way a dedicated water fund does, it picks the one or two companies where a data or hardware edge maps onto its parent's world. Statkraft Ventures backed Hydrosat early and stayed in as the company grew, the kind of repeat conviction that signals a real thesis rather than a one-off experiment. The pattern is concentration, not coverage.

What I watch with Statkraft Ventures is whether water stays a single line item or earns a second name. Its parent spent 2025 sharpening back toward core renewables, hydropower, solar, wind, and batteries, so the venture arm has every reason to stay disciplined about where climate spills into water. For now Statkraft Ventures is an energy investor that owns one genuinely interesting water company, and Hydrosat is the name to know it by.