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1.5° Ventures
1.5° Ventures was co-founded by Jan-Gisbert Schultze, who is also a Partner at Acton Capital, and Dr. Fabian Heilemann, founder of climate tech fund AENU.
1.5° Ventures
1.5° Ventures was co-founded by Jan-Gisbert Schultze, who is also a Partner at Acton Capital, and Dr. Fabian Heilemann, founder of climate tech fund AENU. The Berlin-based firm operates as a venture builder, which means it actively constructs startups by matching technical and business founders rather than screening external deal flow. The firm’s website states it only pursues topics where emission reductions are coupled directly with revenue and the business model is ready for hyperscaling. The firm’s strategy centers on direct creation of early-stage, physical-solutions climate tech startups. Its portfolio companies include ICODOS, which pairs biogas upgrading with e-methanol synthesis; Spark e-Fuels, a sustainable aviation fuel developer; Heatrix, which stores renewable electricity as high-temperature industrial process heat; ecoLocked, turning waste biomass into carbon-negative construction materials; and We Do Solar, making balcony solar accessible to renters. 1.5° Ventures covers the European market from its Berlin headquarters and explicitly addresses the capital expenditure complexity of hardware climate startups through a financing strategy covering equity, debt, and grants. Day-to-day operations are led by four Partners on the public-facing team. Dr. Tobias Lechtenfeld, a former green hydrogen program lead at Germany’s BMZ, handles climate solutions and public finance; Jeff Katz, previously CTO at KIWI.KI and a Techstars mentor, oversees technology; Julian Weisbrod, an early backer of Rasa and Raisin, brings venture and go-to-market expertise. The firm operates out of a single office in Berlin and is a member of the WIN Initiative and Impact Hub networks. In May 2024, the founding team’s ties to AENU, the climate tech fund launched by Dr. Fabian Heilemann, remained a visible adjacent vehicle in the ecosystem, though the nature of any capital or deal flow relationship between the entities is not publicly detailed (per Altss research, 2024). The firm’s structural differentiator is its venture-builder model applied exclusively to climate tech hardware. Rather than writing checks to external founders, 1.5° Ventures pairs domain experts, provides shared IT and legal services, and embeds operational partners into each startup. This architecture addresses what it calls the core market failure — the gap between motivated climate scientists and the business infrastructure needed to scale CAPEX-heavy, physical solutions — by supplying the missing company-building layer itself.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Europe
Country
Germany
City
Berlin
Corporate office
Schönhauser Allee 175, 10119 Berlin, Germany
Principals
Jeff Katz
Partner
Dr. Tobias Lechtenfeld
Partner
Dr. Julian Weisbrod
Partner
Altss tracks 2 additional named team members for this firm — including direct investment leads, IR, and operating principals not listed on the public website.
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Frequently asked questions
How does 1.5° Ventures source and create new portfolio companies?
1.5° Ventures does not source external deals in the traditional venture capital sense. It operates as a venture builder, actively identifying stellar climate founders from tech and business backgrounds, matching them to form founding teams, and then embedding operational support to build companies around pre-identified, high-impact problem areas. The firm states it only pursues topics with the potential to reduce at least 100Mt of CO2e annually and where emission reductions are directly tied to revenue (per the firm's website).
Is 1.5° Ventures a fund or a venture builder, and how does that affect its capital deployment?
1.5° Ventures identifies itself as a lean climate tech venture builder, not a fund. It brings a comprehensive financing strategy covering equity, debt, and grants to the startups it builds, but it does not publicly disclose a committed fund size or AUM (per the firm's website). The structure means the firm's capital and services are directed at companies it creates internally rather than at third-party startups through fund commitments.
Who makes the investment decisions at 1.5° Ventures?
The public leadership team consists of four Partners: Jeff Katz, Dr. Tobias Lechtenfeld, Dr. Julian Weisbrod, and the co-founders Jan-Gisbert Schultze and Dr. Fabian Heilemann. Katz oversees technology and engineering, Lechtenfeld manages climate solutions and public finance, and Weisbrod brings venture and go-to-market expertise. As a venture builder, the firm's decisions center on which climate problem areas to pursue and which founding teams to assemble, with the Partners operating as active architects.
What investment stages does 1.5° Ventures typically target?
1.5° Ventures focuses on the earliest stage of company formation — startup and growth from inception. The venture builder model means the firm is involved in ideation, founder matching, and company creation before a formal seed round exists. It targets business models and technologies that are ready for hyperscaling and where emission reductions are coupled directly with revenue (per the firm's website).
Which industries or technologies does 1.5° Ventures explicitly avoid?
The firm explicitly avoids software-only climate solutions, stating on its website that carbon is a physical problem requiring physical solutions and that atoms, not bits, are the key. It also avoids any climate topic that does not have the theoretical potential to reduce or abate at least 100Mt of CO2e every year, filtering out smaller-scale or incremental-impact interventions.
How is 1.5° Ventures related to AENU?
Dr. Fabian Heilemann, a co-founder of 1.5° Ventures, is also the founder of AENU, a climate tech investment fund (per Altss research). AENU is listed as a co-investor with a close link via shared leadership, though the precise operational or capital relationship between the two entities has not been publicly detailed.
Does 1.5° Ventures provide shared services to its startups?
Yes. 1.5° Ventures provides a wide array of shared services — from IT infrastructure to complex legal documentation — and grants its startups 24/7 access to its Berlin office. This force-multiplication model is intended to accelerate each company by at least 20%, allowing founding teams to focus on development and deployment rather than administrative build-out (per the firm's website).
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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