CEFC launches specialist cleantech fund manager Virescent Ventures
Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation is breaking new ground, spearheading the creation of its first specialist fund manager, Virescent Ventures, to substantially lift the amount of investment capital available for cleantech start-ups.
Already Australia’s largest specialist cleantech investor, through the $200 million Clean Energy Innovation Fund, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is now a foundation shareholder in Virescent Ventures, a new fund manager focused on investing in ambitious cleantech founders, technologies and businesses that can help achieve net zero emissions.
Virescent Ventures is targeting a $200 million capital raising, with the CEFC expected to be a cornerstone investor alongside superannuation funds, strategic investors and large family offices.
Virescent Ventures is co-owned by the CEFC and its founders, formerly senior executives with the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, including Executive Director Ben Gust and investment leads Kristin Vaughan and Blair Pritchard, all of whom have extensive investment experience in the venture sector, and cleantech in particular.
The CEFC is also ‘externalising’ management of the Clean Energy Innovation Fund to Virescent Ventures, which has been appointed to manage the portfolio on behalf of the CEFC given the long association with the portfolio companies.
The Clean Energy Innovation Fund made lifetime investment commitments of almost $150 million in cleantech companies to 31 December 2021. This includes direct investments in 21 companies and indirect investments in some 100 additional companies via three cleantech accelerator and incubator programs.
Significantly, each dollar of Innovation Fund capital has attracted an additional $3.07 in private sector investment, delivering total lifetime transaction value of almost $580 million to 31 December 2021.
