Agri.capital investment

Ludgate Environmental Fund (

), the AIM-listed company that invests in cleantech and environmental companies, has announced a €3m investment in

, a German developer, owner and operator of biogas plants.

The funding will be structured as eight per cent preferred stock with detachable warrants and is part of a €10m (£9m) investment round into agri.capital with Valiance Special Situations Fund.

Headquarted in Münster, agri.capital’s core competencies are planning, building, financing and operating decentralised plants for the production of regenerative energy from biomass.

The company primarily uses manure and various crop silages as feedstock to produce biogas.

This is then burned onsite to create electricity or cleaned to biomethane for use in the German natural gas network.

According to a study conducted for the Leipzig Institute for Energy and Environment, the natural gas supply of the EU and Turkey could be replaced by biomethane by 2020 without impact on agricultural self-sufficiency.

Nick Pople, LEF's investment adviser, said: ‘Agri.capital uses proven technology, has high and predictable cash flows and can rapidly roll-out fixed-price plants.

‘The company has secured locked-in feedstock contracts and plants have stable revenue streams.

'By combining construction, facility and resource management, financing, logistics and contracting operations in-house, agri.capital is able to efficiently provide reliable, renewable baseload power and heat to the German market.’