Investing in climate resilience solutions can deliver both financial returns and real benefits to companies, communities, and individuals,” Wagle said. One thing we do know is that companies that have smart solutions to respond to climate change will be increasingly in demand. “As investors, we know very little about the future with any certainty. “Increasing drought, agriculture stress, and supply chain disruption linked to climate change will drive demand for data and analytics to understand those risks and for the solutions to manage them.” “Climate resilience technologies are an overlooked, multi-billion dollar investment opportunity that will just keep growing,” added Koh. “Lightsmith has brought together a team with a unique combination of experience in direct investment and climate change and has secured the commitment of leading global investors to invest in climate resilience.” “Lightsmith Climate Resilience is the first private equity fund to focus on investing in solutions to the effects of climate change,” Kauffman commented.

In addition, the Chairman of the investment committee for Lightsmith Climate Resilience is Richard Kauffman, the Former Chairman of Energy and Finance for New York State. The broader Lightsmith team also draws its experience from Goldman Sachs, True North Partners, Baring Private Equity Asia, IFC, and US DFC.

Lightsmith founders Koh and Wagle each have more than 20 years investing experience at institutions such as The Carlyle Group, VantagePoint Capital Partners, the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC), International Finance Corporation (IFC), US Department of Energy, and New York Green Bank. Importantly, Lightsmith Climate Resilience will follow a strategy that is “committed to delivering economic returns while adhering to global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and providing impact assessment through its Impact Measurement System (IMS),” the company explained. Initially, Lightsmith will focus on investments into six key areas related to climate resilience and adaptation: water efficiency and smart water management, resilient food systems, agricultural analytics, geospatial intelligence, supply chain analytics, and catastrophe risk modeling and risk transfer. It’s estimated that this represents a total addressable market of over $170 billion today.Ĭlimate Policy Initiative (CPI) found that Lightsmith Climate Resilience is the first private equity fund focused on climate resilience, and said that until now less than $500 million per year of private investment has targeted climate change adaptation.Īs a result, this is a huge opportunity in a sector that needs private capital and it’s a sector that has significant relevance to the global insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) industry. Specifically, Lightsmith Climate Resilience will invest its capital into growth-stage companies whose technologies can address the growing physical impacts of climate change. Lightsmith Climate Resilience is the first private equity fund to with this specific climate resilience and adaptation focus and its backers include PNC Insurance Group, The Rockefeller Foundation, Kinneret Group, Caprock Impact Partners, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), European Investment Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, KfW on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Nordic Development Fund, the Government of Luxembourg and other investors. Yesterday, the company announced the final closing of its fund, Lightsmith Climate Resilience Partners SCSp RAIF, with $186 million of commitments from backers including some very well-known institutions. Good friend of Artemis, the Lightsmith Group, has announced the successful raising of a $186 million investment fund focused on climate resilience and adaptation, including risk transfer related opportunities.įounded by Jay Koh, a previous speaker at one of our insurance-linked securities (ILS) conferences in New York, and Sanjay Wagle, Lightsmith Group is a private equity investor with a unique focus on climate resilience and adaptation, deploying its managed funds into growth-stage technology companies that address the effects of climate change. A little outside of the typical Artemis wheelhouse, but this is news we feel our investor community will appreciate and it is also highly relevant for any readers seeking growth equity funding for their risk modelling, analytics and risk transfer businesses.

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