BP Ventures

Gareth Burns serves as Managing Director and leads the investment team from London. He oversees a group that evaluates opportunities across BP Ventures' five focus domains. The team operates within BP's innovation and engineering division, and each investment requires endorsement from a business-unit sponsor inside BP before a deal can proceed.

BP Ventures sources deals through a combination of internal business-unit referrals, relationships with venture capital syndicate partners, and direct engagement with the climate-tech startup ecosystem. Because every portfolio company must be paired with a BP internal champion who commits to exploring a commercial relationship, sourcing is heavily weighted toward technologies where BP's existing infrastructure — refineries, retail networks, trading desks — can serve as a testbed or first customer.

BP Ventures is a corporate venture arm funded from BP's balance sheet, not a standalone fund with external limited partners. The unit has no fixed fund life and does not raise outside capital. This structure gives it the flexibility to hold positions longer than a typical ten-year venture fund — but it also means investment pace and budget are subject to BP's annual corporate planning cycle and broader strategic priorities.

BP Ventures targets early- and growth-stage companies, typically from Series A through late-stage venture rounds. Initial check sizes generally range from $2 million to $20 million. The unit also makes follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies as they scale, and occasionally participates as a limited partner in climate-tech funds when the strategy complements its direct investment activity.

BP Ventures does not invest in upstream oil and gas exploration or production technologies. The unit's mandate is firmly outside BP's legacy hydrocarbon extraction business and instead focuses on decarbonization and energy-transition technologies. This means it also does not invest in traditional fossil-fuel infrastructure, oilfield services, or conventional refining technologies.

Yes, BP Ventures frequently co-invests alongside other energy-sector corporate VCs and traditional venture firms. Common co-investors include Chevron Technology Ventures, Shell Ventures, TotalEnergies Ventures, and Temasek. These syndicates are most common in capital-intensive verticals like sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture, and large-scale battery storage, where multiple strategic partners can accelerate commercialization.

BP Ventures is a core component of BP's innovation engine supporting its net-zero ambition by 2050. The unit identifies and nurtures technologies that BP can integrate into its own operations — biofuels for its refining and trading business, EV charging for its retail network, carbon capture for its industrial sites. Portfolio companies are not passive holdings; they are candidates for commercial partnership, licensing agreements, or eventual acquisition as BP reshapes its business mix away from hydrocarbons.