This is industrial impact: inside the investment strategy of Melissa Cheong and Blackhorn Ventures
(Image: Melissa Cheong, Managing Partner at Blackhorn Ventures)
The venture capital world isn’t short on headlines.
From AI hype to billion-dollar exits, most attention is focused on software that makes consumer lives easier. But what about the software transforming the systems that keep our economy running?
This is where Melissa Cheong and Blackhorn Ventures come in.
As Managing Partner of the $150m Industrial Impact Fund II, Melissa is helping redefine what venture capital looks like when it’s focused on climate, infrastructure, and real-world outcomes.
From Wall Street to Industry 4.0
Melissa Cheong’s career path defies VC convention. She cut her teeth in leveraged finance at Deutsche Bank Securities, then moved into special situations and credit at Plainfield Asset Management, and later helped lead impact investing platforms at Imprint Capital (acquired by Goldman Sachs) and ZOMA Capital, the family office of Ben and Lucy Ana Walton.
Recognised as one of the ‘Top 30 Family Office CIOs’, Melissa has long understood how capital flows shape real-world impact.
Today, she brings that lens to Blackhorn Ventures - a firm founded in 2017 by a group of operators and investors aligned around the Industry 4.0 thesis: that the transformation and decarbonisation of our industrial economy depends on the rapid adoption of digital infrastructure.
Bits and Atoms: Blackhorn’s Investment Thesis
Blackhorn invests in seed and Series A stage companies digitising and decarbonising the most critical industrial sectors: energy, construction and the built environment, supply chains, logistics, and transportation. These interconnected industries generate more than $3 trillion annually and form the bedrock of the U.S. and global economy.
As Melissa shared on The Purse Podcast:
“The work we do is really about addressing this massive need to help old economy, laggard sectors in adopting technology - but in doing so, using market forces to generate ROI for the customers they serve, while also creating environmental and social outcomes at the same time.”
Blackhorn backs capital-efficient, software-centric startups in traditionally hard-to-abate sectors - startups that deliver operational savings, labour productivity, and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Their approach blends digital tools with physical systems, accelerating real-world impact without massive hardware rollouts.
Companies like Ecoworks, for example, are revolutionising the retrofit process for aging housing stock with prefab components and satellite-data-driven energy modelling. Others, like Formic, make industrial automation more accessible through a Robots-as-a-Service model.
The AI and Policy Supercycle
In our conversation, Melissa reflected on the unique moment we’re in:
“We see this opportunity to deploy a lot of private capital alongside historic public capital to build the future infrastructure of the economy.”
Blackhorn is operating at the convergence of industrial decarbonisation, public-private capital alignment, and digital infrastructure. With policies like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act unlocking new capital pathways, the firm sees opportunity in backing founders who are building the operational backbone of a lower-carbon, technology-enabled economy.
And whilst Melissa acknowledged the growing politicisation of ESG, she emphasised that Blackhorn focuses on market-driven solutions that generate both commercial and societal value:
“The way that we see the world today is the path to really supporting both goals… is, in many cases, not different. And so there is this ability and need to continue to address these market driven solutions that help to create more productivity, more efficiency, and more growth for the wellbeing of all.”
Power, Equity, and Capital Culture
Melissa reflected on the persistent funding gap for emerging and female GPs despite the growth of institutional emerging manager programmes, noting:
"I do think at the end of the day, the groups that are deploying the largest dollar volume need to do better and need to find ways to be more effective in actively deploying capital to a more diverse set of underlying managers."
Blackhorn isn’t a gender-lens fund, but inclusion and equity are embedded in how they hire, source, and support companies. The firm takes an active approach to founder relationships and team-building, focusing on long-term alignment, leadership potential, and organisational culture at the early stages where they believe company DNA is formed.
What Comes Next
Blackhorn’s new fund is more than a climate play. It’s a bet on the future of industrial value creation - one where digital infrastructure, environmental responsibility, and economic resilience are inseparable.
At a time when much of venture capital is chasing what’s flashy, Melissa Cheong is doubling down on what’s foundational:
“We back the entrepreneurs that are building the world we live in - who’s powering, who’s moving, who’s maintaining the systems that keep society going.”
Listen to the full interview with Melissa Cheong on The Purse Podcast.
We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.
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