Inspired Evolution, a private equity firm based in Cape Town, South Africa, has announced $199.4 million in commitments from a number of international funders to finance the energy transition in Africa.
Access to finance is one of the main barriers to the development of renewable energy in Africa. The portfolio manager Inspired Evolution intends to remove this obstacle through its Evolution III fund, which has just achieved its first financial closing with $199.4 million in conditional commitments from seven international investors.
These include the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation (FinnFund), the Emerging Markets Climate Action Fund (EMCAF), Swedfund International, the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM) and the Netherlands Development Finance Corporation (FMO).
A capitalisation of USD 400 million
The Mauritius-domiciled Evolution III fund is dedicated to financing renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy access and other resource efficiency projects, as well as investments in companies in Africa. Its manager Inspired Evolution is targeting a capitalisation of $400 million. The Cape Town, South Africa-based company has a 12-to-18-month window to achieve this goal.
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“Achieving this first closing in such a short timeframe is a great validation of our investment thesis, our active investment management approach and the results we have achieved,” says Wayne Keast, co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Evolution.
Through its multiple funds, Inspired Evolution has increased its investments in renewable energy in Africa in recent years. Its Evolution II fund, which reached financial close in 2019, has, for example, awarded $7.3 million to renewable energy producer Gigawatt Global for the Mubuga solar photovoltaic plant, which has been in operation since October 2021 in Burundi. The plant, which has a capacity of 7.5 MWp, supplies 10% of the East African country’s electricity.
Jean Marie Takouleu
