SunEdison Founder Launches 'Infrastructure As a Service' Company

SunEdison invented the solar leasing model that’s so widely used today, and now its founder, Jigar Shah, is taking the concept
another step forward through "infrastructure as a service."

Instead of funding new technologies, his new venture – Generate Capital – will provide the financing needed to get current ones to scale.

The team will work with project developers and technology manufacturers around the world "to finance the Resource Revolution" – readily available sustainable solutions that vastly reduce overconsumption of critical resources like energy, water, food and basic materials.

We all know what the solutions are: scaling renewable energy, energy storage and efficient products of all kinds, transitioning to local, organic agriculture, water conservation and treatment, and getting toxics and waste out of the system.

Generate Capital will be the financial partner so many companies need to get their products out there in big ways. They plan to  take on hundreds of projects that are too small for banks in the $2 million to $20 million range. The first projects will be announced early next year.

"Many innovative companies have technologies that deliver compelling value to their customers, but they lack a financial partner to help them achieve their sales goals – few sources of that capital exist today for energy and resource-related project opportunities under $20 million in size," says Jigar Shah, Generate’s President. "Companies and project developers recognize that most customers simply don’t want to pay cash up-front for technology that saves them money over time." 

That’s the key to Generate’s approach. Through its Infrastructure-as-a-ServiceTM model, the end user will benefit from these solutions without having to pay for it upfront – analogous to solar leases. Generate finances and owns the new system, whether it’s LED streetlights for cities or efficient HVAC for a company, and gets paid back through energy savings.

"Generate Capital will apply well-proven financial products to the smaller scale renewable energy and energy efficiency assets which have lacked this capital historically, and this team is capable of doing it profitably and at scale," notes Jason Fish, Chair of Generate Capital.  

The company closed a Series A investment round in September to create the fund that finances their services.

Here’s their website: