CHICAGO – Builders Private Capital (BPC), a system-driven, multi-stage, climate-focused investment organization, which includes S2G Ventures, announced that it has launched a $300 million clean energy investment platform. Stephan Feilhauer and Francis O’Sullivan have joined the organization as Managing Directors to oversee this new energy strategy, while Andrea Woodside has joined as Vice President, Real Assets to support investments across all of Builders Private Capital’s themes, including energy, food, agriculture, and oceans. Builders Private Capital is the direct investment arm of Builders Vision, an impact platform dedicated to building a humane and healthy planet.
The global energy transition, which has attracted over $4 trillion of capital since 2004, accelerated renewable energy from a marginal to meaningful role in the future of electricity generation. However, to fully mainstream its role in the 21st century economy, there needs to be more flexible and creative capital to meet the needs of an increasingly complex and integrated energy future – powering transportation, industry and other sectors in new and nuanced market structures.
Builders Private Capital will take a flexible, multi-asset approach to provide solutions for this next stage of the energy transition. BPC’s goal is to invest and support the whole energy system in a way that aligns current technical solutions with evolving market structures and regulatory frameworks to mainstream the transition of a cleaner energy system across industries.
The investment platform leverages Builders Private Capital’s existing value-added services which includes corporate development, policy and regulatory support, marketing and communications, community building, talent development, and data science.
“Having been an investor in sustainable energy for more than a decade, I am thrilled to be joining a platform that values flexibility in capital formation and a long-term mindset,” said Stephan Feilhauer, managing director at Builders Private Capital. “Not only will we invest in core clean energy themes, but we will also focus on adjacencies in industrial and infrastructure sectors, which are often overlooked.”
“The next decade of energy transition is about achieving massive scale and overcoming the many complex, system-level challenges that accompany deep decarbonization. Our focus is on investing to solve these difficult problems,” said Francis O’Sullivan, managing director at Builders Private Capital. “Leading cross-sectoral expertise and the capacity to provide our partners with bespoke capital solutions, tailored to tomorrow’s market needs, sets Builders Private Capital apart, and I’m looking forward to being part of this great team.”
Real assets are a key part of the team’s investment strategy, acting as a force multiplier and helping to deploy technology at scale. Andrea Woodside brings a decade of experience from the impact investing industry where she focused on climate transition investments throughout private markets.
“Given the capital intensity of the sectors in which we’re working, I am excited to be part of a platform that thinks creatively and has a breadth of tools to achieve its goals,” said Andrea Woodside, vice president of real assets at Builders Private Capital. “I’m looking forward to working with current and new portfolio companies within food and agriculture, energy, and oceans to help them scale and ultimately achieve more impact.”
The Builders Private Capital clean energy investment platform builds on the success of S2G Ventures, today’s most active food and agriculture investor, focused on the adjacent climate-focused verticals of food, agriculture, oceans and seafood. S2G Ventures’ systems investing approach will be applied through this platform with deep consideration into how investments fit within the broader value chain.
“Stephan, Francis and Andrea’s backgrounds are a great complement to our current investment platform – a systems approach to specialized underwriting by industry paired with experience in helping to scale “tough tech” technologies that drive more climate smart outcomes for our food, oceans and now energy systems” said Sanjeev Krishnan, chief investment officer and managing director at Builders Private Capital and S2G Ventures. “I am thrilled to be working with them to help mainstream the Energy Transition and leverage what we are building across the broader Builders Vision impact platform.”
