Convergence Member Spotlight of Prime Coalition

By Sijia Yi

Prime Coalition is a unique non-profit that provides catalytic capital to address early-stage funding gaps faced by innovative climate technology solutions.

Prime was founded to address financing gaps that might otherwise prevent market-driven solutions with gigaton scale potential for greenhouse gas emission reduction from achieving meaningful scale. At the earliest stages of company formation, many ventures struggle to attract funding from returns-first investors in the venture capital space for a variety of reasons: their technologies were seen as too risky, too early, too capital intensive, the exit potential too unclear, the timeline too long, etc. In response, Prime looked to harness the tremendous appetite for impact among charitable asset owners that were ready and willing to go beyond grantmaking alone to support these high impact climate technology solutions, using the tools of catalytic capital (recoverable grants and program-related investments) in blended finance transactions.

Since 2014, Prime has facilitated investments with over 230 philanthropic entities and mobilized over $200 million towards sustainable, effective, and scalable solutions to climate change.

We spoke to Maggie Cutts, Director of Partnerships at Prime Coalition, about the forward-looking impact methodology Prime developed, how their team manages the risks inherent in supporting early-stage ventures, their plans to expand into project finance, and much more.

To continue reading, please visit Convergence.