DevEngine, a clean energy project incubator, has launched with $20 million in funding from Spring Lane Capital, the company tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters:

The number of small, distributed energy projects is growing quickly and developers face challenges completing their first projects.

Zoom in:

DevEngine is focused on working with developers on early stage projects with established technologies, like community solar, EV fleet charging depots, anaerobic digesters projects and microgrids.

  1. Spring Lane Capital is also focused on funding distributed clean energy projects, but tends to invest when project developers are at a more advanced stage.
  2. DevEngine CEO Tim Callahan described DevEngine as "going after the technologies that work now but in new and innovative business models, with high quality developers."

How it works:

The $20 million from Spring Lane Capital is flexible funding that can be used to both help deploy projects and run DevEngine operations, said DevEngine Chairman Jason Scott, who is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Spring Lane.

  1. Spring Lane Capital has an initiative called Developer U, which is a workshop that teaches entrepreneurs how to use the principles of project development and financing.

Big picture:

More investors, like Spring Lane and Generate Capital, are seeing opportunity in backing sustainable infrastructure developers.

  1. As climate entrepreneurs build companies they're realizing that there's a growing need to learn the skills of developing projects like getting permits, and securing offtake agreements.
  2. Incentives from the IRA are also providing support for projects like EV chargers and community solar.

What's next:

DevEngine plans to back its first two projects in the first half of this year.