San Francisco firm Climate Adaptive Infrastructure (CAI) closed its inaugural fund with over $1 billion in equity to deploy in sustainability, officials said this past week.
Climate Adaptive Infrastructure Fund I attracted $825 million in equity, and alongside the fund the firm has raised an affiliated co-investment program of over $200 million for a total of over $1 billion in capital commitments. The strategy is focused on control investments in large-scale, low-carbon real assets in the clean energy, water and urban infrastructure sectors.
CAI Managing Partner Bill Green has three decades of experience within roles in sustainable energy, infrastructure investment and corporate development. Earlier this year, he shared his outlook for the space with Alternatives Watch. The Firm seeks to combat systemic climate change issues by investing in real assets that support the day-to-day needs of growing populations and address the “triple threat” of the climate crisis: physical risk, regulatory risk, and political risk.
“For far too long, our society has invested in infrastructure based on the belief that our future would look just like our past,” said Green in a statement. “The climate crisis is now wreaking increasing havoc with assets that were built for a planet that no longer exists. At CAI, our mission supports the development of real assets purpose-built for the future, with the lowest feasible carbon emissions profile and designed to withstand the impacts of the climate crisis.”
Founded in 2019, CAI utilizes a proprietary screening protocol to evaluate investments, their long-term carbon emissions, and viability as a hedge against climate losses.
So far, CAI has deployed 39% of the fund across three investments — Intersect Power; Sentinel Energy Center; and Rye Development. Intersect Power is a clean energy company providing low-carbon electricity, fuels and related products to customers across North America. Meanwhile, with a plant in Riverside, California, Sentinel Energy Center generates 850 MW. Lastly, Rye Development is a U.S. developer of low-impact hydropower generation and pumped-hydro energy storage.
FirstPoint Equity was the exclusive placement agent for CAI and conducted almost the entirely fundraising process through a virtual process, according to Julian Pearson, co-founder of FirstPoint.
