The United Nations Environment Programme, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility have launched a Seed Capital Assistance Facility (SCAF) to help stimulate renewable energy and energy efficiency ventures in the developing world.
“Entrepreneurs can transform markets, but the environment for entrepreneurship remains weak in many countries, particularly in the energy sector.” said UNEP’s Executive Director Achim Steiner. New ventures often lack business development support and seed financing is hard to secure, he added.
According to ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda, “Although the financial markets are now taking low carbon energy sectors like wind power and solar energy quite seriously in the Asian region, there is still reluctance to engage too early.”
SCAF addresses these issues by helping private equity fund managers provide seed financing and business assistance to early stage clean energy projects and enterprise developments.
Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, said that this facility is helping African entrepreneurs “jump-start new ventures aimed at solving the continent’s energy deficit.” SCAF is bringing vitality to Africa’s high potential renewable energy sector, he said.
Six fund managers have been engaged to date in Asia and Africa, employing a range of early stage investment strategies.
In China SCAF is helping fund manager Conduit Ventures set up a clean energy incubation center with local partners, such as the Shanghai Science and Technology Investment Corporation, to provide entrepreneurs with business development, technology commercialization support and seed financing. According to Linda Zheng of Conduit Ventures, “SCAF is helping us build a domestic platform for nurturing low carbon technology companies across China. We expect these centers to create globally competitive companies targeting the low carbon economy.”
In India work is underway with Yes Bank to create a syndicate of financial institutions that will invest seed and follow-on capital in socially and environmentally oriented small and medium-sized enterprises. Mr. Rana Kapoor, Founder / Managing Director and CEO of Yes Bank, said, “Since inception we have focused on integrating sustainability within our business focus and I truly believe that this opportunity to associate with SCAF will enable us to further deliver value to all our stakeholders in accordance with our Responsible Banking philosophy.”
