Interviewing the innovation economy's investors: Giant Ventures

As any businessperson will tell you, a shared set of values is crucial to a successful working relationship.

At HSBC Innovation Banking , we are proud to build bespoke solutions for equity-backed founders and investors who are using technology to reshape our world.

It’s fair to say that Giant Ventures is exactly the type of business we love to work with. Not only do they have a similar footprint to ours, with offices across the UK, US, and Nordics, they also have a passion for helping technology companies to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Here’s a bit about their business in their own words.

Tell us a little bit about Giant and your investment thesis

"Giant is a global venture capital firm that builds and backs technology companies solving the world’s most pressing challenges. The firm invests in three themes - climate, health, and inclusive capitalism - across the UK, the US, and the Nordics, from Seed to Series B,” said Rob Hicks, Head of Finance and Operations.

“We have been investing at Seed and Series B, since 2019, and in 2023 we announced the launch of two new funds totalling $250 million. This includes a $100 million seed fund, which will back 25 early-stage companies, and a $150 million climate-focused growth fund. This growth fund is designed to close the major Series B climate funding gap by providing scale-up capital to the world’s leading climate technology companies.”

What trends do you expect to see in your area in the next 5 years?

“We believe the biggest technology companies of the decade will be built by solving climate change and improving healthcare - two of the most urgent issues facing humanity,” said Tommy Stadlen, Co-Founder & General Partner of Giant, “we are excited about many trends happening in climate and health tech. For example, in climate tech, we know high-quality, trusted, and verified credits will be increasingly needed. Elsewhere, biomanufacturing is enabling a huge shift to a less carbon-intensive way to manufacture goods and medicine, and new business models are showing we can bring electrification to everyone - deploying everything from heat pumps to EV chargers efficiently into cities. We are also convinced by the growing need for parametric insurance in a world of increasingly extreme climate weather events.”

“We are also excited by the greening and onshoring of critical supply chains with a focus on circular models,” Cameron McLain, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, said, “if you can achieve the right unit economics and scale your business in a capital-efficient way, you can dominate markets critical to national security and net-zero ambitions. Supply chain security and transparency are becoming a major theme across critical metals, water, metal parts, and other materials in Europe and the US.” When it comes to healthcare, AI is an exciting trend for Giant. “We are excited by the application of AI to discover novel treatments, as well as integrating AI into the current healthcare infrastructure to deliver care in a more decentralised, affordable, personalised and ultimately effective manner,” said McLain.

Why did you choose HSBC Innovation Banking as your banking partner?

“HSBC Innovation Banking offers us the security of working with one of Europe's largest banks”, said Rob Hicks, Head of Finance and Operations at Giant Ventures, “They are a bank that’s shown a commitment to the European technology ecosystem over many years.”