Pioneer Facility raises additional half million dollars for Clean Energy and Water access in Southeast Asia

Phnom Penh, October 20, 2020 – The Pioneer Facility is happy to welcome onboard two new investors, in the Facility’s mission to provide scale-up capital to enterprises enabling access to sustainable energy and clean water for the underserved populations in Southeast Asia.

The additional investments of a cumulative USD 500,000 bring total investment in the Facility to USD 2.8M, with Nexus reinvesting USD 250,000 from a blended finance facility of REEEP.

The Pioneer Facility was launched in 2017 and has to date unlocked a total USD 1.8M to four projects in three different countries. The active Pioneer Facility portfolio includes KWSH and TapEffect, two water infrastructure companies in Cambodia, and the recently signed GREE New Energy, a biogas-to-energy operator in Indonesia. In its early days, Pioneer Facility also deployed two- times USD 500,000 in rural solar power development through OREEi in the Philippines for the sustainable electrification of remote islands in the archipelagos.

The Pioneer Facility guarantees to its investors a high level of impact for each investment by investing in enterprises having social and environmental impacts ingrained in their business model. The projects supported so far aim to impact over 130,000 beneficiaries, creating 70+ FTE jobs, producing 18 GWh of clean energy and 1.4M m3 of clean water per year, and avoiding 65,000+ tonnes of C02e per year.

Meanwhile the facility has been instrumental for these growth-stage companies to raise follow-on capital, having developed their documentation and processes, and being able to demonstrate a successful credit record.

With the additional funding now available, the Pioneer Facility is looking for new clean energy and water enterprises to invest in, specifically in Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam and Lao PDR. The enterprises should:

  • use a market-based approach to create social and environmentally conscious goods and services with a medium-term vision of financial sustainability.
  • be capable of managing and paying back a $100k – $500k loan.

Organizations should also have completed pilots, have a business plan, and be ready to scale their activities.

For more information please contact pioneerfacility@nexusfordevelopment.org.