The Netherlands will host Nato’s €1bn Innovation Fund, which will invest in early stage start-ups developing technologies with military applications. The fund “will allow Nato to tap into the innovation ecosystem for the benefits of our security and defence,” said David van Weel, Nato’s assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, in a statement on March 20. 

The fund’s establishment in the Netherlands “will increase the possibility for innovative Dutch start-ups to gain access to capital,” said the country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in a statement on the same day. 

Nato has described it as the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. Over time, further regional offices will be set up across the Alliance.

ADNOC and Masdar target geothermal

Two of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned energy groups are partnering to explore geothermal projects domestically and internationally. On March 21, clean energy specialist Masdar announced it had signed a collaboration agreement with ADNOC Drilling, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to explore and develop projects in the renewables sub-sector.

“With Masdar recently adding geothermal energy to our growing clean energy portfolio, we are excited about the important role that geothermal can play in helping to drive forward the global energy transition,” said Masdar’s CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi in the statement. 

OECD urges Portugal to improve investment regime

The OECD has recommended that the Portuguese government implements reforms that improve its labour market and lift regulatory barriers to spur foreign direct investment (FDI). 

“Portugal would benefit from mobilising further FDI to help respond to long-term structural challenges weighing on productivity growth and to accelerate the country’s digital and green transitions,” states the OECD’s March 20 report, ‘The Impact of Regulation on International Investment in Portugal’. 

The authors suggest streamlining licensing and taxation processes, raising investor awareness of government support for employee training, removing barriers to hiring talent from outside the European Economic Area, streamlining investment incentives, and lifting transport and logistics barriers to make it easier for foreign business to move through the country.

And finally: British energy firm Drax has paused its multi-million-pound investment into biomass carbon capture at its power station in the country’s north-east until the UK government clarifies its commitment to the project, the firm said on March 21. The country’s Spring Budget last week included further support for carbon capture and storage technologies.