Law360 – PE Firms Plug $300M Into Digital Infrastructure Developer
By Jade Martinez-Pogue
July 17, 2024
Digital infrastructure site developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure on Wednesday announced that it has received more than $300 million in commitments from private equity shops NGP and Sandbrook Capital. Cloverleaf is a recently formed company that develops large-scale digital infrastructure sites powered by low-carbon electricity, according to a statement.
The company collaborates with regional utilities and data center operators in the U.S. to provide clean electricity through strategic investments in transmission, grid interconnection, land, onsite power generation and electricity storage, the statement said.
“The rapid growth in demand for electricity to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence poses a major climate risk if fueled by high-emission fossil fuels. However, it’s also a major opportunity to catalyze the modernization of the U.S. grid and the transition to a smarter and more sustainable electricity system through a novel approach to development,” Cloverleaf CEO David Berry said. “Cloverleaf is committed to making this vision a reality with the support of leading climate investors like Sandbrook and NGP.”
The company’s management team, which includes a group of executives with backgrounds from independent power developer companies and major data center operators such as Pattern Energy, ConnectGen and Microsoft, also contributed to the funding round, the statement said.
Stamford, Connecticut-based Sandbrook Capital is a private investment firm that partners with companies that “are essential to transforming” the global energy infrastructure environment, according to the statement.
“The sustainable development of digital infrastructure at scale is fundamentally a technical power problem,” Sandbrook partner Alfredo Marti said. “We have witnessed members of the Cloverleaf team effectively address this challenge for many years through a blend of creativity, specialized engineering, a partnership mindset, and astute capital deployment.”
Cloverleaf’s other private equity investor, NGP, was founded in 1988 and focuses on investing in “innovation and empowering energy entrepreneurs” in the natural resources and energy transition sectors, the statement said.
“Having backed hundreds of energy companies in the U.S. over more than 30 years, we believe the opportunity set for clean-powered digital infrastructure development is as compelling as anything we’ve seen before, and the convergence of exceptional talent from both the power and digital sectors at Cloverleaf is truly extraordinary,” NGP partner Sam Stoutner said.
Legal counsel information for the firms advising the parties was not immediately available Wednesday.