North Sky Capital Raises $250 Million Impact Secondaries Fund
MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#impactinvesting—North Sky Capital (“North Sky”) is pleased to announce the closing of its latest impact secondaries fund, Clean Growth VI (“CG VI”), with $250 million of commitments. Investors include prominent pension plans, foundations, wealth management platforms and family offices from across the United States, Canada, Brazil, Singapore and the UK/Europe. The goal of the fund is to generate strong private equity returns for its investors, while also creating positive environmental and social benefits. The fund is expected to invest predominantly in the energy transition, climatech, the circular economy and healthy living sectors.
“North Sky launched the world’s first impact secondaries fund in 2013, and CG VI is our ninth impact fund,” said Gretchen Postula, North Sky’s Managing Director and Head of Investor Relations. “The team has already deployed nearly 60% of CG VI and has scheduled its first distribution to investors later this month,” she added.
CG VI is an Article 8 fund under Europe’s SFDR framework.
North Sky CEO Scott Barrington said, “I am really proud of our secondaries team for the strong returns they are generating for investors and the important work they are doing to create a cleaner, greener planet Earth. North Sky has been at the leading edge of sustainable investing since that movement began in the private markets circa 2005. This team utilizes our global network of GPs, LPs, company founders and other market participants to source what we believe will be attractive, highly impactful investments.”
Tom Jorgensen, co-head of the impact secondaries team, commented on the investment opportunities available to the team today. “Market conditions are terrific for secondaries buyers right now, especially in impact sectors. LP-led impact secondary investment sizes tend to be smaller and just outside the scope of traditional secondary funds, which results in less competition in our areas of focus. On the GP-led side, there is a large and expanding universe of investable companies that meet our impact parameters and need our growth capital.”
“North Sky is seeing a broad range of investments globally in developed markets, including in companies working on water remediation, smart grid, natural consumer products, heat pumps, EV charging, smokestack abatement for heavy industry, for-profit education, healthcare and many other sectors,” he added. “Another positive is the impact marketplace has depth and breadth it did not have 10-15 years ago when most opportunities were confined to LP-led deals from 2005-8 venture firms. Today, the opportunities range from LP secondaries of venture capital, growth equity and buyout funds to single-asset and multi-asset GP-led deals that often include mature, cash-flowing businesses with strong growth profiles. Opportunities also come from both impact/ESG firms but also those that don’t think of themselves as impact firms. For example, we recently did three deals with GPs widely recognized as long-standing private equity investors in traditional energy sectors, yet the businesses involved were right in our wheelhouse, such as (1) methane capture/re-use, (2) engineering for energy transition projects and (3) water technology used in green hydrogen, life sciences, high tech and environmental sectors.”
About North Sky Capital
North Sky Capital is a pioneer in impact investing. Now in its 24th year, North Sky has deployed more than $1.4 billion across 140+ impact investments on behalf of its various impact funds. The firm has two flagship investment strategies: impact secondaries (private equity) and sustainable infrastructure. Both strategies support positive environmental and social impact while targeting market rate investment returns. North Sky has been an active impact investor since the beginning of the modern era of private markets impact investing in 2005. For more information, visit northskycapital.com.
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