California-based impact investment advisory firm Candide announced that it has raised $71.5 million in commitments at the final close of its Afterglow Climate Justice Fund, focused on financing clean energy and climate resilience projects in historically underinvested U.S. communities.
Launched in 2023, Afterglow was established to address the financing challenges faced by clean energy projects in communities with high energy costs, significant climate risks, and limited access to conventional financing.
The fund provides flexible debt financing across the project lifecycle, including pre-construction, construction, and permanent financing, with a focus on projects that expand access to affordable clean energy and support economic resilience in underserved communities.
To date, Afterglow has deployed more than $35 million across 12 U.S. borrowers, financing projects in areas including distributed solar, battery storage, clean transportation, and climate infrastructure. According to Candide, the investments have supported hundreds of green jobs while reducing energy costs for communities.
Investors in the fund include Builders Vision, Ceniarth, ImpactAssets, the Grove Action Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, the Sobrato Philanthropies, McKnight Foundation, and the Social Finance Impact First Fund.
Aner Ben-Ami, Managing Director of Afterglow Climate Justice Fund, said:
“There is a perception that clean-energy projects serving historically underinvested communities are inherently riskier… 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.”
The fund’s investments include $3.2 million in debt financing provided to nonprofit solar finance organization RE-volv, aimed at expanding its zero-down solar financing for community-serving nonprofits.
Andreas Karelas, Executive Director of RE-volv, said:
“Thanks to Afterglow’s investments, RE-volv has doubled and tripled our volume of projects financed in the last three years, and we’ve been able to attract multiple follow-on investors following Afterglow’s lead. Together, RE-volv and Afterglow’s collaboration has resulted in 1.3 MW of clean energy and nearly $18 million in projected lifetime electricity savings for 30 community-serving nonprofits in four states.”
Source: www.esgtoday.com
