Oakridge Rooftops Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Oakridge Energy, one of the leading solar power companies in the country, has raised a first-of-a-kind crowd financing from Germany for its portfolio of urban solar projects in New Delhi.
Oakridge energy is a leading rooftop solar company with over 1000 customers in North India including over 400 projects in New Delhi itself. Among its leading clients are government buildings, schools, colleges, corporates, industrial and commercial establishments.
This is the first time an Indian rooftop solar company has tapped into the large European crowd financing market to raise capital for projects in India. Oakridge, in collaboration with leading German crowd-funding platform Bettervest Gmbh, obtained necessary regulatory approvals from the financial regulator BAFIN to list themselves for investment. This fund-raise opens the doors for Indian companies to explore newer and more innovative sources of international financing to develop renewable energy projects in India.
Speaking on the occasion, Oakridge CEO Shravan Sampath said, “We are happy to be solarizing a part of our Delhi solar portfolio through crowd funding through retail investors in Germany. It was nice to see the extent of interest there was in the German market for Indian projects. We have always focussed on developing niche projects and offering best possible returns to our partners.”
Speaking about the financing, Marilyn Heib, CEO, Bettervest Gmbh said, “Oakridge is one of our premium partners in the solar space, and the Oakridge rooftops’ portfolio is also the single largest project we have ever financed until date. Based on this experience, we can say that market interest remains strong for green projects that are backed by a strong professional management team with a proven track record. It was particularly good to see that Oakridge managed to fulfil its commitment to develop all projects within the committed timeframe even during challenging COVID environment.”
Oakridge would be making repayments from their portfolio of projects that are tied into long-term power purchase agreements with strong counterparties and have a proven track record of making timely payments.
