NEW YORK (PRWEB) March 12, 2021
BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based climate tech startup that is rapidly greening American inner cities, today announced that it has issued the first Climate Impact Note, a peer-to-peer crowdfunded debt offering. BlocPower is raising up to $1 million in project-level debt to satisfy demand from consumers and retail investors seeking to invest in clean energy projects in their cities.
The BlocPower Climate Impact Note follows a $63 million Series A round led by some of America’s top VC firms, investment banks, and major corporations. Now BlocPower is giving regular folks the opportunity to invest in energy efficiency projects as well. The company has raised a total of $68 million to date, which it uses to expand and scale its building construction projects in underserved communities across the U.S. All of the money raised by the Climate Impact Note will be used to fund specific projects that help reduce fossil fuel consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs for building owners and tenants, improve the health and quality of life for urban residents, and create living wage green jobs within their local communities.
“Among average Americans, 18 to 25 percent say they are alarmed by climate change, but they don’t know specifically what they can do, or where they can invest to have a meaningful impact,” said Donnel Baird, CEO of BlocPower. “BlocPower’s Climate Impact Note allows concerned citizens to co-invest in green energy projects next to some of the world’s leading investors, to support ongoing projects within their local community, cities and state. If you’re alarmed about climate change, the Climate Impact Note gives you a way to channel your investments towards improving the environment and creating jobs.”
BlocPower has been hard at work upgrading American buildings to be cleaner, healthier, and smarter, converting them to highly efficient electric heating and cooling systems, installing solar and making other green improvements. So far, BlocPower has completed retrofits in more than 1,000 buildings in New York City and has projects underway in 24 cities, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Oakland.
The market opportunity is considerable. America’s aging buildings produce more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than the entire U.S. transportation sector. On average, 30 percent of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted at a cost of $100 billion a year. By modernizing these antiquated buildings, BlocPower has reduced building energy costs by 30 to 50 percent and reduced GHGs by 40 to 70 percent in current projects. The company believes that it can reduce U.S. GHGs by 3 to 25 percent in 5 to 10 years and recapture up to 30 percent of the wasted energy spend.
BlocPower leverages advanced technologies, innovative electrification equipment and structured finance to provide green heating and cooling to America’s aging urban buildings. As a Public Benefit Corporation, BlocPower partners with utilities, government agencies, and building owners to identify unhealthy, energy-wasting buildings to retrofit. BlocPower’s machine learning platform determines which retrofits will produce the most energy savings at scale and uses the cloud and IoT to gather data and remotely monitor energy consumption. The company partners with local contractors who are committed to hiring and training workers within the community to install state-of-the-art air source heat pumps, solar panels and batteries and other climate-friendly technologies, update existing systems with sensors to monitor energy consumption, and perform other eco-friendly upgrades, such as lead removal.
To learn more about the full terms of the offering, please visit the offering page on the Raise Green platform, read the Form C investor materials or visit BlocPower’s project website to see some of the projects planned or in progress.
About BlocPower
BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based climate technology startup that is making American cities greener, smarter and healthier. Since its founding in 2014, the company has retrofitted more than 1,000 buildings in disadvantaged communities in New York City, with projects underway in 24 cities. BlocPower uses proprietary software for analysis, leasing, project management, and monitoring of clean energy projects that save customers between 20-70 percent on annual energy costs. The company has raised $68 million from the world’s top investors including American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, AccelR8, The Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, Kapor Capital, Elemental Excelerator, CityRock Venture Partners, Hatzimemos/Libby, The Schmidt Family Foundation, Salesforce Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, MaC Venture Capital, Exelon, the New York Ventures of the Empire State Development Corporation and Echoing Green.
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Press Contacts for BlocPower
Eric Sokolsky, eric.sokolsky@sparkpr.com