Windsail Capital Group has announced it has raised $20 million for its first dedicated cleantech fund, Windsail Credit Fund L.P. closed on Nov 27th, according to the SEC filing. The fundraising is detailed in a story in the Boston Business Journal.
Managing Director Ian Bowles said Windsail expects to invest up to $50 million over the next two years, and he is still fundraising. In an email to CleanTechIQ, Bowles says the firm’s current limited partners are high-net-worth individuals, family offices and foundations that are focused on sustainability, current yield/income, capital preservation and robust risk-adjusted returns.
Windsail focuses on secured lending to private cleantech companies that have reached the early commercial stage and need capital for growth. The firm, launched in 2011, is structured more like a hedge fund, providing greater liquidity to limited partners than a private equity or VC, because it generates liquidity in the form of interest and fees.
Bowles said WindSail targets $1 million to $5 million loans to cleantech companies that have some sort of asset the firm can lend against. It will act primarily as a secured lender to companies, but it will selectively take equity positions in clean energy businesses in financial or operational distress.
WindSail has invested in three clean energy companies to date. In July of this year, the firm invested $5 million in Vermont-based natural gas distributor NG Advantage. Massachusetts-based Protonex Technology Corp, a fuel-cell manufacturer for the military, received $2 million in March 2013, and Boston-based Next Step Living received $4 million in April of 2011 and June of this year.
To read the Boston Business Journal story cited in this article, click here