Hyderabad-based distributed solar power firm Fourth Partner Energy Pvt Ltd has raised close to $2 million (Rs 13.2 crore) in its Series A round of funding led by Infuse Ventures, an early-stage cleantech investment firm associated with IIM Ahmedabad’s tech incubator CIIE (Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship).
Existing investor The Chennai Angels (TCA), a network of private angel investors, also participated in the round, according to a press release. TCA had also invested in the company last year.
Fourth Partner also received a significant commitment under the Seed Capital Assistance Facility (SCAF) implemented through the United Nations Environment Program and the Asian Development Bank.
The company offers financial structuring, design, turnkey execution and servicing of captive solar assets and positions itself as full-services RESCO (Renewable Energy Services Company). It has offices in Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon, Chennai, Rajkot and Jaipur.
Fourth Partner will use the money to extend more financing options to its clients, it said.
Founded in 2010 by Vivek Subramanian, Saif Dhorajiwala and Vikas Saluguti, Fourth Partner claims it has completed over 400 solar installations across the country with marquee public and private sector companies. While Subramanian and Saluguti are alumni of Insead (France), Dhorajiwala graduated from IIM Calcutta.
“The solar sector in India is at an inflection point today with the coming together of various factors like increasing parity with grid power, regulatory support through norms like net metering and an increase in government’s targets. The biggest problem holding the sector back is availability of finance which the company will focus on," said Amber Maheshwari, vice-president, Infuse Ventures.
Infuse Ventures supports seed- and early-stage enterprises developing new business models across the renewable energy, resource efficiency, waste, water and other sustainability-related areas.
This is its fifth investment since January this year. The other investee companies include Ahmedabad-based Gosolar Ventures Pvt Ltd, which runs online solar products and services marketplace ezysolare.com;cleantech startup GIBSS; Glowship.com, an online marketplace for energy and environment related products, solutions and services, and Chennai-based Proklean Technologies.