The university's endowment has backed Ecosystem Integrity Fund's fourth sustainability-oriented vehicle, slated to raise $200m at close.
University of Vermont’s endowment has invested $7m in the fourth fund of environmental sustainability-focused venture capital firm Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Pensions & Investments reported yesterday.
Ecosystem Integrity Fund IV aims to raise $200m, according to a regulatory filing published last month, however information on its current total was unavailable.
Ecosystem Integrity Fund supplies early-stage funding for sustainability-related applications including renewables, green chemistry and energy efficiency.
The firm focuses on identifying niches where the business case for sustainability already exists in order to facilitate monetisation and help foster more systemic environmental progress.
Ecosystem Integrity generally invests $2m to $4m, often leading the first funding round that it enters. Target industries include energy, food and water production, transportation and building materials.
Probiotic alcoholic beverage supplier Flying Embers is among the firm’s portfolio companies, as is heating, ventilation and air conditioning refrigerant producer Bluon.
Ecosystem Integrity has secured three exits to date: solar mounting technology developer Zep Solar, organic probiotic beverage supplier Kevita and electric vehicle charging infrastructure business eMotorWerks.
The companies were acquired, respectively, by solar energy services provider SolarCity, beverage production and marketing group PepsiCo and energy producer Enel.
Ecosystem Integrity Fund was founded in 2010. Filings suggest its first fund closed with around $19.5m of its $30m target in 2013, followed by successors in 2015 and May 2019 sized at $36.7m and $95.7m respectively. However, TechCrunch reported the 2015 fund to have reached $57m close.
