Candide Group closed the Afterglow Climate Justice Fund at $71.5 million to finance clean energy and climate resilience projects in historically underinvested U.S. communities. Afterglow is a catalytic debt fund launched in 2023.
The strategy addresses projects that may struggle to obtain conventional financing despite serving communities with high energy costs and significant climate risks.
The fund has already deployed more than $35 million across 12 U.S. borrowers.
Its investments include distributed solar, battery storage, clean transportation, and other climate infrastructure.
Investors include Builders Vision, Ceniarth, ImpactAssets, the Grove Action Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, McKnight Foundation, and the Social Finance Impact First Fund.
Afterglow provides financing across multiple stages of project development, including pre-construction, construction, and permanent financing.
One portfolio borrower is RE-volv, a nonprofit solar finance organization.
Afterglow provided RE-volv with $3.2 million in debt financing to expand zero-down solar installations for nonprofit organizations.
The partnership has supported 1.3 MW of clean energy projects and is expected to generate nearly $18 million in lifetime electricity savings for 30 community-serving nonprofits across four states.
Afterglow also incorporates community representatives directly into its investment process.
Members of its Community Advisory Board participate in the fund’s Credit Committee.
Two board members participate in each transaction review, and loans cannot be approved without consent from the entire Community Advisory Board.
Following the final close, Afterglow plans to continue investing across the U.S. in projects designed to expand clean energy access, reduce energy costs, improve climate resilience, and create economic opportunities.
KEY QUOTES:
“In many cases, the issue isn’t the underlying viability of the project; it’s that conventional financing often applies strict credit boxes or does not have the interest or capacity to co-design solutions for communities that have been left out of the climate transition.”
“Afterglow was built to fill that gap, prove these models, and ultimately help make them financeable by a much broader universe of lenders.”
Aner Ben-Ami, Managing Director of Afterglow Climate Justice Fund
“Success is funding projects that otherwise wouldn’t happen, proving working with low-income communities isn’t inherently risky, and building an on-ramp for these projects to access more traditional sources of capital.”
James Pippim, Investment Manager at Afterglow Climate Justice Fund
