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The President of EBRD Suma Chakrabarti signed the agreement on Friday during a signature ceremony held at the Estonian Ministry of Finance in Tallinn. With a 20 million euro equity commitment EBRD becomes the second anchor investor of the fund together with European Investment Bank (EIB) that contributed the same amount of investment last year. Other investors include the pensions funds of Swedbank, LHV, SEB and Citadele with 52.6 million euros.

"The fund will address the scarcity of infrastructure equity funding in the region and promote the private financing of crucial infrastructure in all three Baltic states. With the fund's strong commitment to the climate change mitigation, the bank's support of the Baltcap Infrastructure Fund sets an important milestone in EBRD's promotion of green agenda in the private equity industry," Chakrabarti said.

The Estonian Finance Minister Toomas Toniste said this is the first infrastructure fund in the Baltics with the goal to catalyze private investors to finance infrastructure projects. "The fund's investment strategy addresses the rising investment needs in the region in transport, energy efficiency, and renewable energy sectors. Last year, the new Estonian regulation for a new type of fund in the form of a limited partnership came into effect. This fund regime has been designed along the lines of the best qualities of limited partnership structures of various countries. We are glad more and more regional venture capital fund managers, including Baltcap, are using the new Estonian limited partnership type of fund," the minister said.

"For us it was imperative to attract EBRD as one of the anchor investors of the fund, especially because of their institutional expertise and commitment to the growth of the Baltic region. We are humbled with the trust of our investors that put us in a unique position to provide unmatched long-term financing solutions for sustainable homeland infrastructure development," Sarunas Stepukonis, partner at the Baltcap Infrastructure Fund, said.

Launched in July 2017, the Baltcap Infrastructure Fund is a Baltic fund with the largest total volume that has been financed by local pension funds. The fund has been established for 20 years and is to group together an estimated 480 million euros' worth of infrastructure investments. The aim is to make altogether 10-14 investments in the Baltic states in transport, energy and social infrastructure projects.

This means possible investments in public-private partnership projects in road construction, airports, ports, railways, renewable energy projects, energy efficiency projects or municipal infrastructure projects like schools and kindergartens.

Since the start of operation, the fund invested 16 million euros into a 48 MW biomass plant in Vilnius, Lithuania. The plant will be built and become operational by the beginning of 2019. According to estimations, the plant will generate nearly 10 percent of Vilnius' heat demand. Last year the fund also acquired 75 percent of Anaerobic Holding's shares for 9.45 million euros. Anaerobic Holding owns and operates three biogas plants in Latvia with a total installed capacity of 4.9 MW.

The Baltcap Infrastructure Fund fills an important capital accessibility gap for infrastructure projects in the Baltics. Developing the infrastructure is one of the main priorities of the region in order to improve competitiveness and independence. In the next five years, the Baltic states will be faced with a 6 billion euro deficit in developing infrastructure projects, which is estimated to deepen after the end of the European Union 2014-2020 funding program. There is a significant deficit of production capacity and efficiency in the physical infrastructure, like electric energy, heating, railways, roads, port and airports.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is owned by 66 countries from five continents, as well as the European Union and the European Investment Bank. Of the EBRD's portfolio, 70 percent is in private sector projects, while 30 percent is funding public services. EBRD makes the region more attractive to other investors by reducing the risks of private investors. With every euro invested, the bank will raise approximately 2 euros from other sources. EBRD has invested approximately 70 billion euros since 1991.

Baltcap is the largest buy-out, growth capital and private equity infrastructure investor in the Baltic states. Baltcap has a strong presence in all three Baltic countries with local offices and an experienced team. Since 1995, Baltcap has been managing several private equity funds with total capital of over 370 million euros and has made more than 75 investments.