India renewables platform Ayana receives $70m
India’s Ayana Renewable Power has received $70 million in equity funding from a group of government-backed impact investors, including UK-based CDC Group.
CDC was joined by National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), a greenfield and brownfield platform seeded by the Indian government, as well as Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF), which was set up by the UK and Indian governments. CDC, which is also owned by the UK government, joined NIIF in a $330 million investment in Ayana last year.
Ayana was launched in 2018 to develop utility-scale solar and wind generation projects, as well as rooftop solar solutions, in underserved states in India, as well as neighboring countries. It currently has about 1.1 gigawatts of solar capacity under construction. The latest round brings equity raised to $721 million, which is sufficient to bring capacity to 4 GW by 2022. The goal is to reach 450 GW.
“NIIF’s continuing support to Ayana demonstrates our belief in the large growth potential of the Indian renewable energy sector and our confidence in Ayana’s ability to generate stable risk-adjusted returns for our investors,” Sujoy Bose, CEO of NIIF, said in a statement. “With committed like-minded shareholders and a strong management team, we are confident that Ayana will become a leading player in this space, over the next few years.”
NIIF has about $4.3 billion of equity capital commitments across three funds. These include a fund targeting long-horizon and undercapitalized projects, a fund specializing in transport and energy, and a fund-of-funds to back third-party managers focused on areas such as climate infrastructure, middle-income and affordable housing, and digital consumer platforms. The fund-of-funds is an anchor investor in GGEF.
GGEF is managed by EverSource Capital, a joint venture between India’s Everstone Capital and UK solar developer Lightsource BP. GGEF is targeting a corpus of GBP500 million ($677 million) and received $70 million as recently as July from UK energy giant BP. In addition to Ayana, its portfolio includes a distributed energy platform called Radiance Renewables, an e-mobility platform called GreenCell, and a waste management platform called EverEnviro.
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