The Allocators’ Table

At Tech for Climate at Oktoberfest on 24 September, one table was kept for allocators only. Its question was simple: how do you go from caring about climate to putting money behind it?

This lunch gives that conversation the room it needs. Where can capital be deployed today? Which structures suit a family office, a foundation or a corporate? Who finances the first commercial plant? Which impact claims hold up?

We want this lunch to bridge Korea, Japan, the US and Europe. Seira Yun, the host, works between Europe and Asia, so cross-border capital comes up at the tables and over lunch: corporate LPs from Japan and Korea, allocation across US, European and Asian funds, and who buys the output of a European plant.

“I know what makes such a gathering work, and Tech for Impact has it.”

For almost 25 years I have brought researchers, founders and investors together in Munich. It is by invitation only, its guest list curated by hand: founders, corporate leaders, family offices, investors and policymakers, from Japan, Europe and other regions, all senior decision makers. It cuts across industries, so energy, mobility, finance and manufacturing sit at the same table. It puts technology and impact on one agenda, with the people who can act on both in the room. Its Tokyo roots bring a Japanese corporate network into that room. It is built for collaboration: little time listening to a stage, much more working out what to do together, so people leave with a partner and a next step. The record shows it works: past gatherings have led to partnerships, corporate-startup collaborations and investment deals. In format and spirit it is truly creative and unique. I am glad to support Seira Yun in building it.

Where this lunch comes from

Who joined Tech for Climate at Oktoberfest

Tech for Climate brought investors, corporates, founders and the City of Munich to one tent on 24 September. These are some of the people who chaired its tables and spoke there.

Kristin Siegel

Managing Director Global Engagement, Toniic

Clarissa Mayer

Head of Partnerships & Innovation, UBS Optimus Foundation

Moritz Jungmann

General Partner, Future Energy Ventures

Mascha Bonk

Investor, Hitachi Ventures

Sabine Flechet

Co-Founding Partner, Masawa

Megumi Ikeda

General Partner, Ode Growth Partners

Svenja Becker

Stiftungsrätin, Blue Earth Foundation

Lucio Milanese

Co-Founder & Chief External Affairs Officer, Proxima Fusion GmbH

Jens Kahrweg

SVP & Managing Director, Samsung Semiconductor Europe

Itsuma Tanaka

CEO, DOCOMO Euro-Labs

Christian Bauer

CEO DACH, InnoEnergy GmbH

Ursula Triebswetter

Deputy Head of Economic Policy, City of Munich / Department of Labor and Economic Development

The Tech for Climate programme → All Tech for Climate speakers →

Dr. Karen Wendt

President, SwissFinTechLadies

Moderator · Who pays for the grid

Clarissa Mayer

Head of Partnerships & Innovation, UBS Optimus Foundation

Table lead · Revenue models for physical climate risk

1. Where did the climate money go?

   Climate-specialist funds raised a fraction of what they did in 2021. Defence, AI and power raised the rest. Is “climate” still a line in the allocation, or a lens over infrastructure, energy and industrials?

2. Who pays for the grid

   Data centres, heat pumps and electric fleets all wait on the grid, and a connection can take years. Firm power, from storage to nuclear and fusion, had a record year. Where does an allocator in this room get exposure: an infrastructure fund, grid-technology venture, a corporate’s own balance sheet? Who carries the merchant and permitting risk?

   Moderator: Dr. Karen Wendt

3. Fusion, a venture bet or an infrastructure asset?

   Fusion raised a record $4.5bn in the twelve months to July 2026, according to the Fusion Industry Association. Munich is one of its centres: Proxima Fusion has signed with RWE, the Free State of Bavaria and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics to build a commercial plant. What do investors underwrite when the first sale of power is years away? Who pays for the first plant when venture money runs out and infrastructure lenders will not take technology risk?

4. Real DPI in climate venture

   Liquidity in a ten-year asset class. Distributions against paper marks. Secondaries and continuation vehicles after a record half-year. Evergreen and SPV structures. What a climate hardware fund now has to offer before a family office signs.

5. Japanese and Korean capital for European plants.

   Japan’s emissions trading is starting to bite, and Japanese and Korean corporates are LPs, offtakers and buyers of European climate companies. What do they need to see before committing, and what does a European fund or plant have to change?

6. Do we still say impact?

   In Germany the word reads as charity, cleantech reads as politics, and SFDR 2.0 will relabel every fund. What do you call this book internally, and what does the label change about who approves it?

7. Co-investing with public guarantees.

   Germany’s new infrastructure and climate fund, KfW and EIF anchors, public guarantees. Where can a private allocator sit alongside, and where does public money crowd you out or lock you in?

8. Does defence belong in the sustainability bucket?

   Grid security, energy independence, critical materials. Defence is Europe’s fastest-growing venture segment and it is taking allocations that used to go to climate. Which mandates allow it, which exclude it, and who in your house decides?

9. Revenue models for physical climate risk.

   Floods, heat, water and crop risk. What turns adaptation into revenue an investor can underwrite, and where does catalytic capital belong in the stack?

   Table lead: Clarissa Mayer

10. Investing the foundation corpus.

    For foundation investors who have decided to move the endowment, not only the grants: mandate, trustees, German foundation law, the first fund and the reporting that follows. A peer exchange, not a primer.

11. Sustainability’s business case: which numbers move the price?

    For sustainability leads inside companies, with the investors who read their numbers. Take away the reporting requirement and see what is left. What proof got a CFO to fund sustainability, and does the same proof convince an investor?

Further questions are held in reserve if the room asks for them: exited founders as LPs, carbon costs at the border (CBAM), and owner-investors decarbonising their own Mittelstand companies.

• How peers handle the same decisions, unattributed: what they ask, what they back, what they have stopped doing.
• A few peers who have worked through the same questions with you.

The Tech for Impact Summit (T4IS)

An invitation-only summit held every year in Tokyo, with smaller gatherings like this one in between.

Your host: Seira Yun

Founder and CEO of Socious, convener of the Tech for Impact Summit, and host of Tech for Climate at Oktoberfest. Works between Europe, Asia and North America.

Presented by Munich Climate Week

The lunch is part of the Munich Climate Week 2026 programme, 19 to 25 October.

Under the auspices of

Consulate-General of Japan in Munich在ミュンヘン日本国総領事館

Munich photographs: Nicolas Görmer and Dovlet Hojayev on Unsplash.