Demeter Partners

Demeter sources deals through its deep sector specialization and geographic footprint. The firm maintains six offices across France, Germany, Spain, and Canada, with partners often embedded in regional cleantech ecosystems — Bordeaux for agritech, Lyon for infrastructure, and Düsseldorf for German industrials. Its 20-year track record in the niche also generates significant inbound from entrepreneurs, research spinouts, and co-investors. Additionally, Demeter participates in French tech transfer networks and industry consortia like The Shift Project.

No. While France is its home market, Demeter invests across Europe, notably in Germany and Spain, and has an office in Montreal covering North American opportunities. Portfolio companies include German smart-grid software firm Cuculus and Spanish circular-construction company Construcía. The firm's infrastructure vehicles have also executed cross-border projects, such as stationary storage systems in Germany with Renault and Mitsui & Co.

They are managed as distinct strategies but benefit from a shared investment thesis and sector intelligence. The venture team backs pre-revenue startups with industrial applications, the private equity team provides growth capital or buyout financing to profitable SMEs, and the infrastructure team structures project finance for hard assets like solar farms, EV charging networks, and hydrogen production plants. A company could theoretically receive seed funding from the venture arm, growth equity later, and eventually have its production facility financed by the infrastructure team.

As co-founders and managing partners, both remain actively involved in firm leadership and investment decisions. The firm's website prominently features them alongside four investment directors — Antoine Troesch, Lionel Cormier, Philippe Detours, and Eric Marty — suggesting a relatively flat decision-making structure with partners directly engaged in portfolio management rather than a purely administrative role.

Demeter operates as an independent asset manager raising capital from institutional third-party investors, not a single-family office. It manages €1.5 billion across multiple commingled funds and special-purpose vehicles, and its signatory status to PRI and CDP reflects its fiduciary duty to external limited partners. The firm is not tied to a single industrial or family fortune.

The firm has a history of partnering with large corporates on infrastructure SPVs. Notable examples include three lighting-efficiency joint ventures with EDF subsidiary Perfesco, the eborn EV-charging network operated under a public-service contract across 11 French departments, and the Tokay stationary-storage projects co-developed with Renault and The Mobility House in both France and Germany. These structures allow Demeter to underwrite project-level risk while providing institutional investors with exposure to contracted cash flows.

Demeter explicitly focuses on the environmental transition; it does not invest in generalist software, consumer internet, fintech, or life sciences outside of environmental applications. While it covers seed through infrastructure, it does not engage in public-market strategies or hedge-fund-style trading. The firm also avoids sectors it considers incompatible with a sustainability mandate, such as fossil-fuel extraction or conventional chemicals, as indicated by its portfolio composition.