Impact Investing | November 18, 2021

Evergrow raises $7 million to provide offtake and funding for carbon reduction projects

Amy Cortese
ImpactAlpha Editor

Amy Cortese

ImpactAlpha, Nov. 18 – San Francisco-based Evergrow will act as an intermediary, pooling capital from institutional investors to provide “long term, bankable offtake agreements” for developers of biofuel, waste-to-energy, electric vehicle charging and other carbon reduction projects, Evergrow’s James Richards told ImpactAlpha.

Offtake, or advance purchase, agreements can unlock capital for project developers. “When you have guaranteed revenue, you can get cheap financing against that revenue,” said Richards. “That’s how we’ve deployed $300 billion in 2020 alone to new solar and wind.”

Richards and his cofounder Luke Whiting saw a shortage of such agreements for carbon commodities. At the same time, investors lacked an easy way to participate in carbon markets. Evergrow will use technology to standardize and speed up project underwriting.

The company’s goal: to remove or avoid a billion tons of greenhouse gas by 2030.

The seed round was led by XYZ Venture Capital and Congruent Ventures. First Round Capital, Garuda Ventures, MCJ Collective, Skyview Ventures and several individuals also participated.