International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank, is planning to invest in Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions Pvt Ltd, a renewable energy service company, as per a disclosure note.
IFC said it intends to invest up to $15 million (Rs 100 crore) in Clean Max through compulsory convertible debentures.
Founded in 2010 by Kuldeep Jain, a first-time entrepreneur, Clean Max provides solar solutions for commercial and industrial customers in India through both onsite and off-site facilities.
It has installed over 51 MW across onsite/rooftop (45 MW) and offsite/solar farm (6 MW) in 10 states for 40 clients. It has a pan-India presence with five offices with projects in all major industrial clusters and over 90 employees.
Jain and his family own 79% of the company. The remaining is owned by the company management, employees and high net-worth individuals.
The company plans to commission more than 250 MW of solar projects over the next three years.
This is the first new direct investment by IFC in 2017.
IFC has an active direct private equity-style investment practice in India. It also lends to firms and has an active limited partner, or LP, portfolio in India where it backs PE and VC funds.
Last month, it committed to invest $20 million (around Rs 136 crore) in IDG Ventures India's third country-focused fund. The third fund has a target corpus of $200 million.
In the renewable energy sector, IFC last year committed up to $125 million (Rs 840 crore) in Hero Future Energies Pvt. Ltd. This investment was to be done together with IFC Global Infrastructure Fund and the proceeds would be used to fund the construction of solar and wind power plants.
Hero Future Energies is a renewable energy company backed by the Hero Group, a diversified conglomerate in India promoted by the Munjal family. The family fully owns the company through its investment vehicles. The company develops both solar (grid connected and rooftop) and wind power plants. It plans to commission capacity of more than 1 gigawatt in next 12 months, IFC said at the time.
Last year, IFC also decided to facilitate debt funding worth around $177 million to Ostro Energy Pvt. Ltd, a renewable energy platform backed by emerging markets-focused private equity major Actis.
India's renewable energy sector has seen a lot of activity over the past couple of years after the government set ambitious capacity addition targets. The government aims to achieve 175 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2022. This includes 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind power capacity. India's renewable energy capacity is currently around 44 GW.
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