Amsterdam, July 30, 2021 – ACT, the leading provider of custom market-based solutions for reducing carbon footprints, today announced a minority investment from Bridgepoint, the quoted private assets growth investor. Bridgepoint’s investment moves ACT to a new level of leadership in the environmental markets. As part of the transaction, Bridgepoint is buying out exiting investor Three Hills Capital Partners.
Founded in 2009 and with offices in Amsterdam, New York, Shanghai, and Paris, ACT helps companies and organizations around the world reduce their carbon footprints.
ACT solutions are backed up by extensive market knowledge, domain expertise, and a fast-growing portfolio of over 70 sustainability products across more than 40 countries. In addition, ACT backs high-impact climate projects that generate renewable certificates and carbon credits, helping local communities generate new revenue while conserving their essential ecosystems.
“The investment from Bridgepoint cements ACT’s global leadership and our essential role in the sustainable energy market at a time when dramatic action is required to combat climate change,” said ACT Co-founder and CEO Bram Bastiaansen. “With a partner like Bridgepoint, we can accelerate our global impact, creating new economic opportunities in local communities around the world, while ensuring today’s leading organizations can meet even the most ambitious sustainability targets.”
“The market in which ACT operates is forecast to grow rapidly driven by the need to change pace on climate change, increasing regulation, market complexity, and a growing voluntary corporate buy-in to addressing these matters. ACT is an exciting opportunity to back a true ESG-led innovator and leader in its field and to help it expand market share and pursue international growth in its core markets,” said Olivier van Riet Paap, Head of Bridgepoint’s investment activities in the Benelux region.
ACT helps clients worldwide create a sustainable future in four key areas:
- Emission Markets – Encouraging emission reduction, negative emission solutions tied to carbon removal, and cross-border carbon pricing.
- Renewables – Driving the substitution of fossil-energy based power generation with renewables.
- Energy Efficiency – Delivering improvements through state-of-the-art technologies in production processes and machinery.
- Biofuels / Biotickets – Allowing for the substitution of fossil fuels with lower or zero-carbon sources.
ACT has 280 employees, and it expects headcount to grow by 300 over the next five years.
Advisors in the transaction, which is subject to standard competition clearance and financial regulatory clearance, were Morgan Stanley and Clifford Chance (ACT) and JP Morgan and De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek (Bridgepoint).