Kachuwa makes four new impact investments
Our cooperative recently made the following four impact investments:
1. Clean Energy Credit Union: supporting clean energy projects throughout the USA.
Kachuwa is participating in a $7.9M pool of loans that Clean Energy Credit Union provided to 194 homeowners throughout the USA to finance their solar electric and geothermal heat pump projects. Kachuwa invested $750K which represents just under 10% of the loan pool. Clean Energy CU is an online-only, nonprofit cooperative that focuses exclusively on clean energy lending. Led by Terri Mickelsen, a Hispanic woman, Clean Energy CU is a low-income designated credit union that received its federal charter in 2017. This is Kachuwa’s second loan participation with Clean Energy CU.
2. Coakley Home and Hardware: supporting employee-ownership in rural New York
Kachuwa is participating in a $2.5M loan from the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast (“CFNE”) – a Kachuwa investee – to help finance the conversion of Coakley Home and Hardware into an employee-owned cooperative. Kachuwa is funding $500K, or 20%, of the five-year loan. Family-owned since 1902, Coakley operates two hardware stores in rural upstate New York: its headquarters in Canton, a village of approximately 7,000 people near the Canadian border, and a second location in Saranac Lake, a village with approximately 5,000 people in the Tri-Lakes region. Third-generation owner, Bill Coakley, is selling the 124-year-old business to its employees and will remain involved for a multi-year transition period. He is being succeeded by two co-CEOs who both began at Coakley in entry-level roles and later became store managers. The conversion will preserve predominantly rural, blue-collar jobs while giving employees a stake in the future of the company. Coakley’s primary supplier, Ace Hardware, is itself a purchasing cooperative – another fun connection for this project to the cooperative economy.
3. Flywheel Renewables: affordable solar for low-income households in Washington D.C.
Kachuwa purchased $107K in solar investment tax credits associated with nine residential solar projects developed by Flywheel Renewables in the Washington, D.C., area. The nine projects collectively represent 94.14 kilowatts of generating capacity and serve single-family homes whose residents qualify as low-income households under the District’s Solar for All program. Flywheel owns the projects and provides electricity to residents through low- to zero-cost power purchase agreements, made possible by program grants and revenue from Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. Founded in 2014, Flywheel is majority owned and led by Jessica Pitts. This is Kachuwa’s third consecutive year of purchasing solar investment tax credits from Flywheel, thereby supporting their development of more solar projects and helping to reduce the utility bills of low-income D.C. residents.
4. Neopenda: expanding access to newborn care technology
Kachuwa invested $50K in Neopenda through a convertible note. Co-founded and led by Sona Shah, a woman of color, Neopenda is a medical-device company working to improve health outcomes through innovative technology designed for emerging markets and other settings where health care facilities face infrastructure and staffing constraints. Its first product, neoGuard, is a wireless vital-signs monitor for neonatal patients in overcrowded, understaffed facilities. By enabling one nurse to simultaneously monitor up to 15 newborns through a shared bedside display, neoGuard can help clinicians identify distress sooner and extend care capacity where it is urgently needed. An estimated 2.6 million newborns die each year, with approximately 80% of those deaths resulting from treatable causes that health care providers may be able to address if warning signs are recognized in time.
