CalCEF Angel Fund, San Francisco, CA
Susan Preston and Paul Fox
What is California Clean Energy Fund and what is its interest in early stage investing?
The California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) is a nonprofit corporation formed in 2004 to accelerate investment in California’s clean energy ecosystem. Established as a result of the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) bankruptcy, CalCEF seeks to promote the growth of companies developing a wide range of clean energy technologies that will bring economic and environmental benefits to California. CalCEF has a number of programs in place to provide financial and intellectual capital to promising clean energy companies at various stages of the investment life cycle. Of particular note, CalCEF is currently building a later-stage evergreen clean energy investment portfolio that combines thought leadership and investment capital to produce market-based returns and support California’s world-leading policy objectives. A core element of CalCEF’s mission is to identify and address gaps in the clean energy funding cycle. Given the wide and ever increasing gap in investment funding for seed and start up clean energy companies, the launch of an angel fund is a natural extension of CalCEF’s approach to the clean energy market. CalCEF’s domain expertise, its experience in building a clean energy investment portfolio and its relationships with investment managers and clean energy stakeholders position CalCEF to bring critical resources to the Angel Fund.
