Bill Gates rallied a group of 21 investors to back Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an ambitious effort to fund carbon-neutral energy technology.
"We’ve raised over a billion dollars and that will be deployed over the years ahead," Gates said on a press call Monday. "We expect in the next three months to have the key people hired to let us move forward."
The fund is looking at nuclear fission, solar fuels, and other expensive and risky endeavors. It will be able to back companies that need billions of dollars in financing to get off the ground.
"The real gap today is the ability to fund and lead the eight- and nine-figure rounds," said the hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, one of the investors in the venture. "Other companies have often hit a wall when they get to that stage. Breakthrough Energy won’t have that constraint."
Other investors include Michael Bloomberg, Vinod Khosla, Jack Ma, and John Doerr.