Generation
Generation’s third and largest growth equity fund will invest in growth-stage companies accelerating the transition to a sustainable economy
London & San Fransisco
Generation Investment Management LLP, the dedicated sustainable investment firm with approximately $22 billion of assets under management, today announced the close of its $1 billion Generation IM Sustainable Solutions Fund III. This fund builds on the firm’s 15-year commitment to investing globally in companies which it sees are accelerating the transition to a sustainable economy.
The new fund, Generation’s third and largest in its Growth Equity strategy, sits alongside its established public equity strategy, and enables Generation to make meaningful minority investments of $50-150 million in innovative companies with high-growth potential.
“We believe that we are at the early stages of a technology-led sustainability revolution, which has the scale of the industrial revolution, and the pace of the digital revolution,” said Al Gore, Chairman and Co-Founder.
“Globally, we see the rapid adoption of sustainable solutions at an important inflection point. By taking advantage of technology cost-down curves, companies can drive sustainable transition through profitable growth and innovative business models,” said Lilly Wollman, Partner and Co-Head of the Growth Equity platform.
The Generation Sustainable Solutions Fund will focus on investments in growth-stage businesses with well-established technology and commercial traction in three areas:
1. Planetary health: low carbon solutionstransforming mobility, food, energy, and enterprise
2. People health: enabling health outcomes and a lower-cost, accessible healthcare system
3. Financial inclusion:supporting accessto finance and an equitable future of work.
“Sustainability is about both what a company does (the products and services it sells) and how a company operates,” said Lila Preston, Partner and Co-Head of the Growth Equity platform. “A hallmark of our investment approach is that we take a systems-level view and leverage our long-term horizon and deep industry insights.”
The first two investments in Generation’s Sustainable Solutions Fund have been SOPHiA GENETICS, a company leveraging its deep expertise in life sciences and computing to democratise data driven medicine, and Andela, the engineering-as-a-service business enabling fast growing global enterprises to access Africa’s top software engineering talent.
The following companies are representative of Growth Equity opportunities: Asana, DocuSign, gogoro, CiBO, M-Kopa, Ocado, Optoro and Seventh Generation, amongst others. The common thread among these companies is a commitment to providing customers with superior products and services, and a dedication to promoting fully sustainable business models.
The fund builds on Generation Investment Management’s global investment platform which is based on a robust research methodology, a long-term view and differentiated insight into what sustainable organizations require to effectively accelerate market adoption.
“Generation is a pure play sustainable investment manager. We seek businesses that provide goods and services consistent with a low-carbon, prosperous, equitable, healthy and fair society,” said David Blood, Co Founder and Senior Partner at the firm. “Sustainable investing is all we do, and all we will ever do. With a continuum of capital, and the collaboration between our public and private investment teams, we can be true long-term equity partners to the very best companies big and small.”
The Sustainable Solutions Fund has a global and diverse institutional investor base. With a presence in London and San Francisco, the Growth Equity team of 14 people offers portfolio companies a rich diversity of thinking and experience. The team represents eight nationalities and nearly sixty per cent of the team is female.