Key points
- Understand who funds which stage
- Secure the evidence in order of scarcity
- Build the data room before the deck
- Approach matched investors, properly
Teams often go to market before they can evidence what investors screen for, and learn the screening criteria one decline at a time. This guide sets out the sequence that works.
Step one: understand who funds what
Renewable energy capital is not one market. Core infrastructure funds buy contracted, operating or ready to build assets. Value add funds back consented projects and development portfolios. Growth investors fund the developers themselves. Family offices and strategic investors sit across all three. Each has a distinct appetite for development risk, geography and ticket size. Approaching the wrong category wastes what a raise cannot recover: first impressions. We cover investor identification in detail in how to find investors for a renewable energy project.
Place the project honestly on that spectrum. A site with a grid offer and consent pending is not ready to build, and presenting it as such is the quickest way to lose an investor's trust.
Step two: secure the evidence, in order of scarcity
Investors screen renewable projects against a consistent checklist, and the items are not equally weighted. In most markets today the order of scarcity, and therefore of attention, is:
- Grid connection. A secured connection offer with capacity and a credible energisation date. Connection queues are the defining constraint of the sector, and unevidenced connection assumptions end conversations early.
- Land and consent. Documented site control and a planning status you can state in one sentence: granted, submitted or pre application.
- Revenue. A contracted route such as a Contract for Difference or power purchase agreement, or a merchant case built on independent price curves with conservative sensitivities.
- The model. One an analyst can rebuild, with transparent assumptions on yield, capex, opex, degradation and capture prices, and sources. See how to prepare a financial model for investors.
- The team. Evidence of having consented, built or operated comparable projects.
Step three: build the data room before the deck
Most teams polish the deck while the data room stays empty. Investors do the opposite: a strong deck earns a data room request within days, and an incomplete data room turns interest into silence. Build the data room first, then write the deck as a summary of what it proves. See what to include in an investor data room.
Step four: answer questions before they are asked
An institutional narrative is not marketing. It answers, in order, the questions an investment committee will ask: what is the asset, what is the revenue, what are the risks and how are they mitigated, what is being raised, on what terms, and what came before. Every claim should map to a document in the data room.
Step five: approach matched investors, properly
With evidence secured and materials aligned, approach a small number of investors whose current mandate matches your sector, stage, geography and ticket size, ideally through an introduction rather than a cold email. See how to approach institutional investors.
Where BriHel fits
The Investor Readiness Review tests the project against this sequence before an investor does. Where the project is ready, we introduce it to renewable energy investors whose mandate fits.
Before you approach the market. The Investor Readiness Review tells you what an investor will conclude from your materials, and what to fix first. £995 plus VAT.
This article is general information, not investment, legal, tax or financial advice. BriHel Capital introduces only and does not arrange transactions, provide advice, or carry out regulated activities.