MissionPoint Capital Partners has quietly established a $335 million fund to invest in “green” energy companies.
The Norwalk company”™s fund was the fourth largest nationally to be registered in the first quarter, according to Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.
MissionPoint was founded by Chairman Mark Schwartz, who between 2002 and 2005 was chief executive officer of Soros Fund Management L.L.C., which is controlled by activist investor George Soros. Before that, Schwartz was chairman of Goldman Sachs & Co.”™s Asian operations, and he is currently a director of MasterCard International Inc.
Jesse Fink and Mark Cirilli, managing directors of MissionPoint, previously were senior executives respectively at Norwalk-based Priceline.com Inc. and Danbury bicycle maker Cannondale Corp.
The company did not make any of the executives available for comment by deadline.
MissionPoint targets an initial investment of at least $10 million and typically commits up to $30 million for each portfolio company.
The firm supplies financing for:
- New product introductions;
- Asset purchases, acquisitions and management buyouts;
- Joint ventures; and
- Recapitalizations or stock purchases to diversify founders”™ assets.
To date, MissionPoint has disclosed one portfolio company: SunEdison Corp., a Maryland company that installs and operates solar panels for organizations, including at a Staples Inc. store in Killingly and a Whole Foods Market in Cheshire.
Sun Edison is in the process of buying $500 million in solar panels from Evergreen Solar Inc., a manufacturer in Marlborough, Mass.
MissionPoint”™s principals hope for green returns from future investments; at least two of them have green thumbs as well. Schwartz and wife, Lisa, run the Rainbeau Ridge dairy farm in Bedford Hills, N.Y., which promotes sustainable agricultural techniques. Fink”™s first job was as a forest and land manager for logging company Georgia Pacific.
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In the first quarter, venture capital companies invested $730 million in “clean” technology companies in North America, more than half of it in energy initiatives. The first-quarter totals are up 19 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, and up 42 percent from the first quarter last year.
Companies working with ethanol-extraction technologies received the bulk of clean-tech investments in 2006, followed by those developing solar and fuel cell systems.
While several clean-energy funds have emerged in recent months, including one from a co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc., they are in competition with established venture capital and private equity investors with lengthy track records, including Westport-based Oak Investment Partners and financing vehicles controlled by Fairfield-based General Electric Co.
At least a few companies that received venture capital are about to reward investors, including Boston-based EnerNOC Inc. Since the start of 2005, EnerNOC has generated $21.5 million in revenue, helping business customers of Connecticut Light & Power curtail power during heat waves in exchange for rebates.
“I like them a lot, and I think that”™s going to be a very hot IPO,” said Rafael Coven, managing partner of Cleantech Indices L.L.C., an index pegged to clean-energy companies.
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