Climatize, a Santa Cruz-based crowdfunding platform that offers investors a way to fund renewable energy projects, has raised $1.75 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Myriad Venture Partners and also including investments from Climate Capital, Techstars, Responsibly Ventures, and Temerity Capital.
“Historically, small and medium-sized renewable energy projects across the U.S. have been severely underfunded,” the company said in a release. “Projects at this scale are not large enough for institutional capital, and they’re often too big for community lenders that aren’t familiar with renewable energy technology or economics.”
Climatize identifies renewable energy projects and lists them on the Climatize platform, where any investor over the age of 18 with a U.S. bank account can fund them with an investment as little as $10.
“We built the Climatize platform to enable anyone to become an active stakeholder in the energy transition by investing directly in renewable energy projects,” said Will Wiseman, the Santa Cruz High grad who is co-founder and CEO of Climatize.
So far, the platform has funded 11 projects across seven states with the support of more than 950 members investing more than $4.6 million. Projects have included installing solar energy and battery storage for businesses such as farms, community centers and churches, and resulted in 965 kilowatt-hours of new solar capacity and 1,357 kWh of energy storage added to the grid.
“Most banking institutions in rural communities have no idea how to loan capital against solar or other renewable energy assets, and as such many potentially lucrative projects aren’t built,” said Lester Crafton, CSO & co-founder of Ovanova, whose company has had projects funded by the platform. “Climatize has made it possible for rural small businesses and farmers to access capital that otherwise wouldn’t be available.”
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