C4D Partners secures an exit from Freyr Energy

Published on - 11 Jul 2024

Gender-smart Investor C4D Partners announced its partial exit from portfolio company Freyr Energy, one of India’s leading renewable energy companies. This is the fund’s second exit this year, making it the 16th exit out of 27 invested companies in its Asia Fund portfolio within its initial six years of operations and the sixth out of the thirteen equity investments in the Fund’s India portfolio.

C4D Partners invested in Freyr Energy through its maiden fund in 2018. Since then, the company has expanded across India, catering to more than 7,200 residential and commercial clients and offsetting 78,308 tons of CO2 emissions in FY 24.

Working closely with Freyr, the fund manager, also drove attention to the gender gap in its team, after which the company made conscious efforts to onboard women in the organisation. From 2019 to 2023, the company has achieved 4x growth in the number of women employees, with the number of female executive managers increasing to 63% (from 25%).

Freyr Energy also has a proprietary customer-centric technology platform that makes it easy for customers to transition to solar. The platform also seamlessly manages 15 functions (internal and external) needed to fulfill its customers solar journey. This not only ensures consistent customer experience, it also keeps operating costs low.

Speaking about the company’s performance, Saurabh Marda, Co-founder at Freyr Energy, said, “We are on track to grow 100% y-o-y in FY 25. From FY 21 to FY 24, we grew our residential and MSME business 10X.”

In its latest funding round, Freyr Energy secured investments from Lotus Venture Capital, EDFI, and Schneider Electric’s Energy Access Asia Fund. In addition to this, it also enabled profitable partial exits to its current investors, including C4D Partners, Total Energies, and Schneider Electric. Through this partial exit, C4D Partners has recouped most of its investment.

Radhika Choudary, Co-founder of Freyr Energy, said, “We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with incredible investors over the last few years. It’s also a matter of pride for us to provide exits at ~200% ROI in just three years. As we look forward, we are well positioned to continue our growth in the rooftop solar space and bring in new innovations that add value to our residential and MSME clients.”

Arvind Agarwal, Founder and CEO of C4D Partners, said, “Freyr exemplifies our investment thesis of striking a balance between impact and financial returns. We are proud of the impact we have achieved working with Freyr, not just in terms of environmental sustainability but also gender equity along with such healthy financial returns.”

“I have to mention that Saurabh and Radhika, the co-founders of Freyr, are remarkable entrepreneurs and have always been open to ideas and suggestions that help the business transform positively. While C4D will be partially exiting with the company’s latest investment round, I am positive that the business will continue its robust performance and grow to become a leader in India’s renewable energy sector in the coming years,” he added.

About Freyr Energy

Freyr Energy is one of India’s leading rooftop solar companies, which aims to make rooftop solar accessible to everyone. Empanelled with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Freyr has been providing world-class end-to-end solar solutions to homes and businesses since 2014. The renewable energy company’s innovative customer app with the same name provides a seamless solar adoption experience and allows 24×7 service support.

About C4D Partners

C4D Partners is a gender-smart impact fund manager working toward creating a balance between meaningful impact and healthy financial returns. Incorporated in 2017, C4D invests in growing ventures across sectors, with a commitment to invest at least 30% in women SMEs. The fund manager has a robust focus on climate action, livelihood for underserved communities, and an intersectional approach toward gender. Through its proprietary toolkits for assessing climate, gender, and ESG strategies, C4D monitors and guides its portfolio to adopt appropriate approaches. Additionally, C4D Partners also provides technical assistance and business development support through its Portfolio Support Program (PSP) as non-investment support to portfolio companies and acts as a catalyst for better financial sustainability of the portfolio, potentially reducing the mortality rate.

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