Hamsa Asset Management Pvt Ltd launching India's first Renewable Energy Alternative Investment Fund

Hamsa, also the Investment Manager of the AIF, is a joint venture between Distributed Energy, a platform that connects renewable energy projects with investors, and entrepreneurs Arjun Santhanakrishnan and Anish Shankar.

Following approval by SEBI the AIF, Hamsa Alternate Investment Fund Trust, launched this month with an INR 50 crore investment offering through its first fund, Hamsa Solar Fund I (Fund).

“Hamsa Solar Fund I is India’s first offering of its kind for investment in renewable energy,” said Anish Shankar, Co-Founder, Hamsa.

“With a target 15% equity IRR to investors (pre-tax) over 10 years, the offering will have the added advantage of accelerating deployment of solar assets across commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors in India,” said Mr Shankar. Funds worth INR 50 crores will be raised to be deployed in renewable energy projects in the country.

Mr Shankar has an extensive background in finance and business, including in consulting.

Sudhakar Kadavasal, Co-Founder, said “the offer makes available investment in solar energy viable for all classes of investors and not just investments by large institutions.”

“This asset class has been limited to institutional investors until now. We are on a journey to make investing in renewable energy available to all investors,” he said. 

Sudhakar Kadavasal heads compliance, structuring and governance at Hamsa.

The first close of the offering will be within 18 months from launch with a minimum size of INR 20 crores. The final close will be within 36 months from launch with a target size of INR 50 crores. There is a green-shoe option of an additional INR 20 crores. To participate, the minimum investment is INR 1 crore.

Having taken the lead in global initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, India has set an ambitious renewable energy generation target of 450 GW by 2030 and aims to achieve the 100 GW milestone in solar energy by 2022.

“The fund is good news for renewable energy as a whole in India. It assumes importance since it will act as a catalyst for the growth of renewable energy in the country," Kadavasal noted.

"Solar power has heralded the golden age of renewable energy in India,” he added.  "We look at this Fund as complementing and helping to raise capital for the existing and emerging companies in the energy sector.”

Renewable energy offers a non-cyclical investment opportunity, one that is less likely to be affected by the ups and downs of economic cycles. The Fund aims to unlock capital for the renewable energy space by resolving the barriers and bottlenecks that make investors hesitant to invest in the sector. The Founding Team believes that the Indian solar energy market is ripe for investment by the public at large due to favourable market dynamics, including cost and the substantial scope for growth.