Patrick Gerard Sheehan

Patrick Sheehan has worked in venture capital since 1985. Before his investing career he trained as an engineer: he was a research engineer in electronics at GEC working on fibre-optic signal processing and a technical consultant to Marconi Space Systems, and he holds a Ph.D. in electronics from University College London (UCL). His technical grounding continues to shape a thesis centred on technology-driven solutions to climate change.

He spent roughly two decades at 3i, the UK investment group, where he was instrumental in building out 3i's venture capital practice in the early 1990s and later founded and ran the firm's Silicon Valley operation in the late 1990s. He subsequently returned to Europe. From 2007 to 2010 he served on the Executive Committee and Board of Invest Europe (the European private equity and VC association), where he chaired the Venture Capital Committee and helped establish its venture capital platform.

In 2005–2006 Sheehan co-founded ETF Partners (the Environmental Technologies Fund) in London to prove that venture capital could profitably drive sustainable innovation — a position he describes as being "forward-thinking" and "a decade too early" when he started, versus the mainstream climate-investing wave today. As Founder and Managing Partner he leads the firm and sits on the boards of several portfolio companies, including Cubbit, Open Cosmos, Wirepas, Tomorrow and The Modern Milkman. ETF Partners has grown into one of Europe's established climate VC franchises, with a portfolio spanning energy, mobility, space, quantum and sustainable consumer businesses.

• Impact within a fund's lifetime: "We need to find companies we can scale rapidly to have an impact within the lifetime of a venture capital fund. That's 10 years maximum." He favours near-term, deployable solutions over long-horizon deep tech.
• Software over "big physical things": Prioritises digitally-enabled companies where software creates competitive advantage and rapid, low-cost global deployment — noting "the more you get into big physical things, the harder it is to attract venture capital."
• Example of the thesis in action: On maritime software (e.g. DeepSea) — "Shipping's carbon emissions are nearly all fuel. With a little bit of software, which you can deploy globally in just a few years at almost no cost, you can shave off 0.3% of global emissions."
• Stage & structure: Backs revenue-generating companies starting to scale; writes initial cheques of ~£3–10m, reserves heavily for follow-ons, and typically leads with active board participation.
• What makes him say yes: "Money and people" as the ingredients of a successful business, plus a strong product — but above all alignment of interests with founders, which he calls "the secret of our success." He stresses that how an investor behaves in hard times matters more than how friendly they seem at the outset.
• Sectors: Five verticals — energy, transportation/mobility, connectivity, consumer, and food & agriculture — all viewed through a climate/sustainability lens, Europe only.