Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has backed renewables funding agency Infradebt with $200 million from his non-public household VC agency Grok Ventures.
The funding announcement emerged lower than 48 hours after Cannon-Brookes had a $5 billion takeover provide for power provider AGL rejected as undervaluing the enterprise by the corporate’s board.
Infradebt is a specialist infrastructure undertaking finance fund supervisor/financier, offering capital for renewables and battery storage tasks, stepping in the place conventional finance fashions don’t match. It has financed 27 tasks to this point.
The Grok funding is complemented by a “significant funding” within the ACT agency, which was undisclosed, for a minority stake.
Cannon-Brookes beforehand backed Infradebt through its moral fund, IEF – Australia’s first ethically screened infrastructure debt fund. That fund has supplied capital for 22 tasks starting from a number of photo voltaic and farms to a Queensland college and Victorian hospital. The fastened revenue fund has delivered an IRR of 6.7% since inception.
Infradebt CEO Alexander Austin mentioned: “Grok Ventures are one of many basis buyers in Infradebt’s moral fund. We’re extraordinarily happy to welcome them as a shareholder as Infradebt strikes to the subsequent part of its progress.”
The funds are already being deployed on the Tesla-backed Bouldercombe 50MW/100MWh large battery undertaking in Queensland.
Infradebt is lending a $35 million debt facility to undertaking developer Genex in the direction of the development. Bouldercombe
Bouldercombe is predicted to be absolutely operational within the second half of 2023– offering timing shifting/arbitrage providers to the grid.
Cannon-Brookes mentioned that as a a basis investor in IEF, “we all know capital circulation is essential to our transition to a greener financial system”.
“Bouldercombe proves that battery and storage is just not solely sustainable, however delivers strong charges of return. It’s a win-win for Australia’s financial system,” he mentioned.
Final yr, Cannon-Brookes pledged to make investments $1 billion through Grok in local weather change startups, so the Infradebt funding represents 20% of that promise.
Grok Ventures has now backed extra {that a} dozen sustainability-focused startups, starting from Solar Cable’s big $30 billion photo voltaic farm within the Northern Territory, to photo voltaic cell startup SunDrive, residence photo voltaic finance firm Brighte, to Michael Fox’s mushroom-based “alt-meat” enterprise, Fable Meals Co, e-bike startup Zoomo, which this week introduced an additional $28 million increase, WeaveGrid, which tackles the combination of electrical transport and the grid Zoox
