Plus, BII makes further investment to accelerate EV adoption in India | Sustainable investors acquire agri-food water purification and recycling solutions specialist
World Resources Institute Africa (WRI Africa) has announced a $4m (€3.9m) investment in Barka Fund, an early-stage impact venture fund investing in African entrepreneurs whose companies combat climate change in their communities.
The investment will be used to accelerate large-scale land restoration and sustainable economic growth across Africa, and complements an $8m investment from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and seed funding from the Bezos Earth Fund.
The investment is said to align with WRI’s commitment to fostering Africa’s environmental resilience and empowering local institutions, and aims to demonstrate that African businesses can restore land while achieving profitability. The institute said it also wanted to encourage more funders to recognise the low-risk, high-reward potential of investing in emerging African institutions driving sustainable development.
WRI Africa’s allocation contributes to Barka Fund’s larger $20m funding goal to catalyse African-led and Africa-focused restoration initiatives and builds on WRI Africa’s TerraFund, a financing programme for restoration enterprises that has facilitated 39 debt and equity investments worth $5m, in partnership with Realize Impact, a non-profit that facilitates impact investing using philanthropic funds.
BII makes further investment to accelerate EV adoption in India
British International Investment (BII) has made a INR 650 crore (€73.4m) investment into electric vehicle manufacturer (EV) Mahindra Electric Automobile.
This latest investment is part of a partnership announced in 2022 with Indian automobile manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra in which BII committed a total of INR 1,925 crore for the launch of the new EV company.
The aim of the partnership is to accelerate the availability and adoption of EVs in India and other markets and the first tranche of INR 1,200 crore was invested by September 2023.
The investment will be made through BII’s managed vehicle and existing shareholding entity BII India EV, which in turn has been financed by a syndicate of climate-focused investors, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, OP Finnfund Global Impact Fund I, and Finnish DFI Finnfund.
Samir Abhyankar, managing director and head of financial services at BII, said: “An important objective for this investment was to support a clean, green and sustainable economic future for India by backing superior business models in nascent industries. A critical part of that task is to crowd in other investors. Today’s announcement is a fulfilment of that mandate by bringing in three like-minded impact investors and a significant vote of confidence in Mahindra’s EV business and the wider EV sector in India.”
Sustainable investors acquire agri-food water purification and recycling solutions specialist
Paris-based impact investor SWEN Capital Partners has acquired VAM WaterTech and several of its subsidiaries, alongside lead investor and Luxembourg environmental private equity firm ORAXYS, and Hans Blaak, managing director of VAM WaterTech.
VAM WaterTech is a Dutch agri-food water purification and recycling solutions specialist, which was founded in 1995 in Zeeland in the Netherlands by Eduard van Antwerpen who exits the company through this transaction.
The company designs, develops and manufactures customised modular water purification and recycling equipment for its clients worldwide, who include agri-food industrial processors, packers and retailers.
According to SWEN Capital Partners, the company’s solutions enable the operation of closed-cycle processes, allowing for the reduction of clean water use by up to 95%, especially to wash and rinse vegetables.
The investment, for an undisclosed sum, is aimed at helping the company to accelerate its growth in Europe, North America and Asia and to develop new solutions to address additional varieties of vegetable crops.
