As inventor Tony Stark, Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr. reworked into superhero Iron Man. Now the Oscar nominee is taking motion in opposition to environmental threats to the planet.
Downey is seeking to sustainable expertise to sort out points like deforestation and microplastics.
The Iron Man and Avengers star, 55, introduced on Wednesday he was launching enterprise capital funds, aiming to “accelerate groundbreaking technologies that are addressing the world’s largest environmental challenges”.
Downey’s FootPrint Coalition, based in 2019 and made up of “investors, donors and storytellers committed to scaling technologies to restore our planet”, has already invested in corporations like Ynsect, which breeds mealworms, and Cloud Paper, which makes bamboo rest room paper, amongst others.
Now he needs to “quickly mobilize more people and catalyze more capital”.
“There’s groundbreaking technologies we’re going to vet and … keep doing what we’re doing, finding the best in class and accelerate scaling them up,” Downey advised Reuters.
“We feel (the funds) is a move towards just a little bit of democratisation in this usually very exclusive space.”
FootPrint Coalition Ventures could have an early- and late-stage fund, with a $5,000 quarterly subscription price and minimal one-year subscription.
It says it needs to spend money on meals and agriculture expertise, sustainability-focused client services and products, vitality and transport, supplies and industrial tech, training and media and superior environmental options.
“Rather than raising money infrequently from very large anonymous institutions … we do the opposite,” Jonathan Schulhof, who will co-lead FootPrint Coalition Ventures, advised Reuters.
“We raise money constantly because it’s constantly an opportunity to tell the story and activate and mobilise the audience.”
Downey, who additionally took half in a panel in regards to the Arctic on the digital World Economic Forum on Wednesday, narrates quick movies made by his artistic crew on the coalition’s web site, speaking about subjects like aquaculture and deforestation.
“I always feel that if you have great content and the community feels that, the audience grows, that helps us with our access to deals and then we get better outcomes,” Downey stated.
