The U.S. Energy Efficient Lighting Fund is a product of the intersection between Anka’s work with sustainable and energy efficient technologies and its focus on partnering with municipal, state and corporate entities to develop win-win solutions for them and the communities they serve. Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest among public and corporate organizations in the adoption of energy efficient and sustainable technologies. Through its interaction with public officials on sustainable issues, Anka realized that financial constraints and lack of familiarity with LED technology is impeding the adoption process despite the strong interest in such technology. In response, Anka has been developing  turn key solutions that address these shortcomings. The Program is specifically designed to make it compelling to adopt LED technology from a financial, political, sustainable, and ease of process standpoint. Anka has received overwhelming preliminary feedback on the Program and believes it will significantly hasten the adoption of LED street lighting as the initial product offering and create the foundation to accelerate other LED general lighting applications through a similar program. 


History:

Building the National Homebuilder Mainstream GreenHome, a high profile, award winning, first in southeast LEED Platinum demonsration home, which included over 100 government, nonprofit and technology partners and the first national launch of residential LED's by the largest residential lighting in the U.S., taught Anka that lighting technology is improving at a pace not seen in the industry since the invention of the Edison bulb. Anka principals attempted to integrate LED street and parking lighting into some of their large real estate developments at Cherokee Investment Partners, but upfront costs prevented the at-that-time novel concept from gaining traction.  When Anka was later spun-out and Anka's sustainable venture platform established, one of the first portfolio companies to invest in was a joint venture with an LED street light fixture manufacturer.  Subsequently, Anka saw the need to expand a financing solution for all quality LED fixture transactions and the growing demand for such product among Anka's municipal, corporate and university relationships, Anka formed the U.S. Energy Efficient Lighting Fund and serves today as its administrator.
Mission:

To match specialized, customized financing vehicles with a best-in-class offering of LED products to accelerate the replacement of the world’s existing lights with safe, long-lasting, energy-efficient, low-maintenance, high quality LED lighting. Anka Principals have worked closely with states, cities, counties, towns and other governmental agencies to combine federal and state subsidy programs with private capital to fund important municipal redevelopment projects.  Municipalities and other governments who need to make decisions about LED lighting retrofits are often understaffed and do not have the expertise and manpower to optimize financing packages for projects.  An important component in the roll-out of U.S. distribution program will be to understand how the retrofit program will impact each city’s budget.  For some cities, it will be advantageous to fund the retrofit program directly, whereas for others it will be advantageous to access financing programs available through public and private sources.  Such potential financing options include issuance of tax exempt bonds, tax exempt leasing and non-recourse debt/equity structures focused solely on energy and maintenance savings.  Anka understands these different capital options and will work closely with municipalities to design purchase programs that are most efficient and appropriate for their situation.
About Us:

Anka Funds is an investment firm headquartered in Raleigh, NC focused on niche, underserved opportunities that produce strong returns and have a positive social or environmental impact. The Anka team has collectively worked on well over $10 billion of transactions and has a long history working alongside mayors and other officials on projects that incorporate sustainable elements and has deep, formalized relationships with various organizations of government officials. Over the past year, Anka has been developing a customized financing and sales program for the roll-out of LED street-lights to municipalities, corporations and other entities.  It is currently supporting a program to sell and finance one manufacturer’s LED lights in Mexico, with 500,000 lights in the pipeline, and is developing a program to accelerate the sale of LED lights in the United States, Latin America and across the globe.  Anka has expanded the existing Anka program to include other, best-in-class manufacturers that utilize the OEM’s chip.  Anka has introduced this program informally to mayors of cities in the United States in 2009 and received interest from over 50 participants.  With the additional technical expertise, expanded infrastructure and support from the OEM-Chip Company Partnership, Anka will in 2010 be able to formalize its program with a significant number of U.S. cities.  Anka has received a recent request from a small U.S. city to test lights in the next weeks to become what they believe will be the first fully LED lit US city in the nation.