The fund offers investors an evergreen structure with a global approach aimed at solving environmental and social impacts that are aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Blue Earth Capital, a Switzerland-based impact investor, said its first evergreen, semi-liquid open-ended impact private credit strategy fund has had its first close for investors, after raising $113m (€108m).
The fund, which focuses on private credit investments across developed and emerging markets, attracted a select group of investors, including family offices and a “large” pension fund, Blue Earth Capital said, declining to provide further details.
The introduction of the firm’s new fund “will expand our global reach, with a focus on scaling our investments through their growth in non-cyclical asset classes”, Daniel Perroud, head of fundraising and investor relations at Blue Earth Capital, told Impact Investor.
The fund will focus on a number of non-cyclical sectors such as healthcare, education and financial inclusion, which is in line with Blue Earth Capital’s wider impact approach of “aiming to address social and environmental causes whilst aiming to deliver market-rate returns”, said Perroud.
Credit investments offer investors “significant benefits”, according to Perroud, who added that they can provide “low correlation to traditional assets and performance in non-cyclical sectors”, as well as deliver measurable impact alongside potential returns.
Diversified approach
Amy Wang, head of private credit at Blue Earth Capital, said the new fund represented “a significant milestone for our firm, reflecting the continued growth and rapid maturity of impact as an investment approach”.
Wang said investors were drawn to the fund because it offered them exposure “to both developed and emerging markets through a single, diversified, vehicle”.
As Blue Earth has grown in recent years, the firm has “observed a growing demand among impact investors who seek liquidity alongside their aims to achieve impact through private credit investments, where traditional, close-ended vehicles would not provide sufficient flexibility”, Perroud said.
“The introduction of this platform enables this large investor base to access impact investments – making a real, measurable difference in societal and environmental causes alongside the potential of market-rate returns, whilst facilitating the flexibility required by certain investors,” Perroud said.
Going mainstream
Stephen Marquardt, chief executive officer of Blue Earth Capital, told Impact Investor in an interview in September that he believes impact has the potential to become a mainstream asset class.
Blue Earth Capital is owned by the Blue Earth Foundation, a Swiss-based non-profit whose initiatives and business ventures focus on creating a more equitable and sustainable future. Since its foundation in 2015, the firm has grown to $1.2bn in assets under management.
