Braemar fund oversubscribed

The fund was oversubscribed at the targeted maximum size of US$250m and includes many new institutional investors from the US, Europe and Asia. Among the larger investors participating are MassMutual, AlpInvest Partners, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investments, Robeco, GIC Special Investments (The Government of Singapore), Macquarie and the PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund whose anchor investor is the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

The fund will typically invest US$5m to US$20m in each portfolio company over the life of an investment from start-up to expansion stages. Among the investments in Braemar Energy Ventures’ first fund were EnerNOC, which went public in May 2007 and Celunol, which merged with Diversa to form Verenium in June 2007. Braemar’s current investments also include companies operating in waste to energy, fuel processing, batteries, photovoltaics, energy-related information technology and clean coal.

Investments will be led by Braemar’s team of energy industry veterans William D Lese, Neil Suslak, Dennis Costello and George Reichenbach. Together, they have been responsible for investing in 38 energy technology companies.

The new fund reunites Braemar managing director Reichenbach with his former partner from Advent International, Costello. During their tenure at Advent, Reichenbach ran the industrial group and Costello was the chief investment officer for North America. The two will be in charge of Braemar’s newly opened Boston office.

Costello said: “It is particularly encouraging to finally see the commercial maturation of many of the energy technologies and solutions that we have followed since the beginning of my career.”