New Delhi, May 15 -- Lightrock, a London-headquartered private equity firm and impact investor that counts WayCool, DeHaat, Shiprocket and MediBuddy among its portfolio companies in India, has launched a new strategy to invest in climate-focused businesses and marked its final close after collecting $500 million.

The new fund, Accelerate7, will back companies solving energy access and related problems in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, Lightrock said in a statement. It will invest across three areas: access to electricity, clean cooking, and enabling technologies and solutions including electric mobility and energy storage.

Lightrock says it would allocate about a third of the fund's corpus to South Asia, though it could adjust these allocations depending on market conditions, pipeline, and other factors.

The PE firm also said Accelerate7 is backed by global investors and energy conglomerates including Equinor, Shell, TotalEnergies and LGT. The PE firm has partnered with Singapore-based investment firm TRIREC for the fund.

Through Accelerate7, Lightrock will back growth-stage companies with an initial cheque size of $10 million to $50 million. So far, it has made four investments: Mumbai-headquartered rooftop solar system provider SolarSquare, Nairobi-based off-grid solar energy company Sun King, New Delhi-based electric commercial vehicles manufacturer Euler Motors, and IoT-enabled electric cookstoves provider ATEC Global, based in Victoria, Australia.

Lightrock led Euler's Series E funding round last month. Lightrock's other portfolio companies in India include Porter, Chalo, Kauvery Hospitals, Aye Finance, Scaler, and Eupheus Learning.

The fund takes the PE firm's dedicated capital to energy transition, energy access and climate investments to $2 billion.

"Across the Global South, access to reliable energy and modern cooking solutions remains one of the clearest drivers of economic opportunity and improved quality of life," said Ademidun Edosomwan, partner and head of energy access at Lightrock. "With Accelerate7, we are backing businesses that have already demonstrated strong execution and are ready to scale. Our focus is on finding proven operators with resilient business models that can deliver both meaningful impact and long-term value."

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.