Clean Energy Investment Forum Catalyses Investment in the Private Sector
On 23 November 2020, EEP Africa in cooperation with GET.invest hosted a virtual event to catalyse investments to the clean energy sector.
This invitation-only Clean Energy Investment Forum brought together 50 global and regional investors, representing a diverse investment spectrum and including some new to the clean energy sector. A prominent group of 25 innovative companies from the EEP Africa and GET.invest portfolios in Sub Saharan Africa were invited to pitch their investment needs through matchmaking sessions, offering investors a pre-screened pipeline of high-impact projects.
The day highlighted the value of partnership and promoted cooperation among clean energy actors. Synergies across the whole ecosystem of investors supporting scale-up of the sector, as well as between EEP Africa and GET.invest, were demonstrated by the event and advanced the goal of achieving maximum development impact through the private sector.
The EEP Africa Head of Portfolio and Finance, Lauri Tuomaala, noted that,
The EEP Africa team is continuously building partnerships in the sector with the aim of utilising the specific expertise of each player to create a more robust pipeline for follow-on investors. Especially during a year like this, the need for this type of investment event – focused solely on creating new connections between investors and companies – is critical.
The event began with a short introduction by the organisers and an opening address by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA). Oliver Walter, ADA’s Advisor on Sustainable Energy, commented that,
It is our privilege to be a partner of both event organisers, and it is important to point out the complementarity of their two initiatives. First GET.invest provides advisory support to make projects and companies bankable, and then EEP Africa steps in immediately after to support testing and piloting. Both initiatives support the type of transformational change needed to achieve SDG 7.
The main focus of the event was on the Matchmaking sessions, during which the invited clean energy companies had the opportunity to meet up to seven investors. The wide range of attendees included equity investors, debt providers, impact investors, grant makers and representatives of DFIs such as Finnfund, ElectriFI, Gaia Impact Fund, Metier and FEI-OGEF.
GET.invest Team Leader Michael Franz said,
EEP Africa to this day plugs a key gap in the financing landscape. This event was a great opportunity for companies and financiers to engage in times of COVID. We are looking forward to our future collaboration.
EEP Africa was proud to partner with GET.invest on this event. In response to the challenges of 2020, this partnership enabled EEP Africa’s Investor Forum model, implemented as in-person events since 2016, to move online via the GET.invest Matchmaking platform, while retaining its value and effectiveness for investors and clean energy companies.
Thank you to all the participants for making the day such a success. We look forward to future collaboration and investments that stimulate growth in the renewable energy sector in Africa.
EEP Africa provides early stage catalytic financing to innovative clean energy projects, technologies and business models in Southern and East Africa. EEP Africa is hosted and managed by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) with funding from Austria, Finland and NDF. Implementation support is provided by KPMG.
GET.invest is a European programme which supports investments in decentralised renewable energy. The programme targets private sector business and project developers, financiers and regulators to build sustainable energy markets in developing countries. Services include market information, a funding database, matchmaking events and access-to-finance advisory. The programme is supported by the European Union, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria, and works closely with initiatives and business associations in the energy sector.