CLEANTECH EIB-EIF CO-INVESTMENT PROGRAMME

A co-investment facility, whereby the EIB will co-invest alongside EIF-backed fund managers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and mid-caps that qualify under EIF's criteria for Climate Action and Environmental Sustainability (CA&ES).

Under this Programme, the EIB and the EIF will work together to make a series of equity co-investments - alongside EIF-supported funds - into EU/EFTA-based cleantech businesses whose activities qualify under the EIB Group Climate Action & Environmental Sustainability (CA&ES) objectives.

This equity co-investment programme aims to bolster support for Europe's cleantech sector at a critical time. EIB will deploy equity, alongside EIF-backed fund managers, into EU-based SMEs and Midcaps active in the clean technology sector. The Programme will improve access to high-risk equity capital for venture stage businesses seeking to develop and commercially scale-up innovative technologies that would have a direct, positive climate impact. Cleantech ventures are, by their nature, often more capital intensive in their development phase than other tech companies, putting them out of sync with exposure limits of many of Europe's VC investors. Companies in this sector that are pre-profitability cannot normally access debt financing, while equity financing tends to be limited to smaller tickets.

EIB's intervention will allow fund managers to extend further capital to successful cleantech ventures in their portfolio, and the signalling effect will also help crowd-in other investors, which helps to accelerate the path towards carbon neutrality and strengthen Europe's position in a key growth sector. 

The EIF will use its own procedures and Environmental, Social and Governance principles to ensure that the financed companies and their investments are acceptable in environmental and social terms. Fund Managers will be required to include in the contractual documentation related to each Portfolio Company an obligation to comply, in all respects with all laws and regulations to which they are subject (including without limitation laws and regulations on environmental and social matters).

The final beneficiaries in which the co-investment facility will invest will be private companies not being subject to EU rules on public procurement and concessions. However, in case final beneficiaries are after all subject to EU public procurement legislation (i.e. Directive 2014/24/EU where applicable), then the EIF shall require that commercial fund managers take all the requisite measures to ensure that contracts for the implementation of the projects carried out by final beneficiaries will be tendered in accordance with the relevant applicable EU procurement legislation (i.e. Directive 2014/24/EU and Directive 89/665/EEC), as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU, with publication of tender notices in the Official Journal of the EU, as and where required.