Swiss investment firm Mountain Cleantech AG has announced the first close of Mountain Cleantech Fund II (Fund II) at EUR23 million. With a target fund size of EUR100 million, Mountain Cleantech Fund II aims to become the largest dedicated growth equity Cleantech fund in the German-speaking and Nordic regions.
Fund II follows the success of Mountain Cleantech’s first dedicated Cleantech fund, which demonstrated the team‘s ability to drive top-line growth and create value within its portfolio companies even through the recent financial crisis. A full exit from solar waste recycler SiC Processing AG to Nordic Capital in 2010 generated one of the highest investment returns in the European Cleantech space in recent years.
Despite the challenging environment for fundraising, Fund II has attracted a diverse group of investors, including a strategic corporate cornerstone investor, funds-of-funds and leading family offices.
Drawing on Mountain Cleantech’s knowledge of the Cleantech space, Fund II will seek investment opportunities primarily in the renewable energy, energy efficiency, recycling and new materials sectors. These markets continue to show strong growth, driven by increasing resource demand, concerns over security of supply, climate change considerations and political support.
Target investment regions for Fund II are primarily the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) as well as the Nordic countries. These markets lie at the cutting edge of much Cleantech development, but are relatively poorly served by sources of venture capital for growing companies – a need which the Fund will help to satisfy.
The investment process will be managed by Mountain Cleantech’s ten-person technology team, which consists of investment professionals and senior advisors with deep expertise in private equity and technology. Prior to its first closing, Fund II had already entered into detailed negotiations with several target companies and aims to execute the first investments in Q4 2011.
Jürgen Habichler, Founder and Managing Partner of Mountain Cleantech AG, says: “The first close of Mountain Cleantech Fund II is a positive milestone for Mountain Cleantech AG and European Cleantech in general considering the current challenging fundraising climate. The strong demand we have seen from investors is a clear signal of their confidence in the Cleantech market and in the credentials of our investment team. We are confident of securing additional investor commitments and of achieving the target fund size in 2012. We look forward to executing the exciting deals we have in our pipeline, helping these companies to realise their full potential and generating strong returns for our investors.”
Habichler will be speaking in London at ‘Investing in Resource Recovery’ on Friday 28 October. This is a free conference held by the London Environmental Investment Forum for institutional investors, entrepreneurs and media exploring opportunities in recycling, critical metals recovery, urban mining and waste-to-energy.
