Energize leads $25M investment in Banyan Infrastructure

At Energize we have proprietary data sources that reveal the types of assets being deployed within the energy & sustainability movement. We also have the benefit of focus, and our team has been tracking the funds flow of renewables projects for close to 5 years. While utility scale projects capture the headlines and are a major driver in market growth, the number of small-to-mid scale projects has grown at a stunning annual pace. The constituents in that ecosystem (developers, owners, operators, banks, tax underwriters) have grown in parallel as has the complexity of monitoring and optimizing the number of active transactions.

Enter Banyan Infrastructure. Led by Amanda Li and Will Greene, Banyan is the defacto software platform to help manage the project finance ecosystem. For those that know the startup ecosystem, think of Banyan as the Carta for renewables. Energize led the $25M Series B and Juan Muldoon is representing us on the board. And as is common with all of our investments, we also have a board observer…. with Honour Masters taking the seat. Honour has a specific skill set in/around the financial services and technology landscape and she and Juan are going to be powerful partners to the Banyan cofounders. In addition to Juan, we already have our operating team fully engaged with the company. Exciting times ahead.

The Energize team is always looking a few steps ahead and this investment is years of hard work and I am excited for us to partner with the Banyan team for the next stage of their growth.

The press release is here and the Energize “Why We Invested” post is here.

Axios had a good summary and I have pasted that below, as well:

How it works: Banyan Infrastructure uses its customers’ data to analyze potential returns for different projects and recommends different types of financing structures for project developers, CEO Will Greene tells Axios.

Between the lines: Project financing is poised to become another lucrative asset for investors working with sustainable developers.

• Banyan Infrastructure is planning for that shift already, Greene says, with long-term goals to move from a SaaS subscription model to a transaction percentage revenue model down the line.

The bottom line: Billions of dollars in newly available funds will pour into project development over the lifecycle of the IRA, and fintech startups are looking to get a piece of the action.