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Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

sparkfund.co

21–30 of 40 posts

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#21
This is really, really cool and equally impressive. I can't imagine the amount of legwork that was involved with legislation and groundwork getting all parties involved interested.

I don't see it stated anywhere so I'm assuming you are running this as a for-profit? Are you going to disclose your take?

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#23
post #14

Do investors have to reside in the US? If so, please state this clearly on your sign-up page rather than ambiguously (by only allowing the input of US addresses).

Unfortunately for now you do have to be a US resident due to SEC regulations. I'll definitely add something to make that clear. Thanks for the suggestion!

I don't know what I'm talking about, but it may be possible for Canadian and Mexican investors to participate due to NAFTA. I understand there's something in there about investment.

Something to look into anyway.

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#24

Whats the approximate return you expect investors to receive ?

We're building our project pipeline to be able to offer efficiency note with 2 to 5 year tenors (durations) and interest rates between 5% and 10%, depending on the credit risk and payback period of the project.

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#25
post #21

This is really, really cool and equally impressive. I can't imagine the amount of legwork that was involved with legislation and groundwork getting all parties involved interested. I don't see it stated anywhere so I'm assuming you are running this as a for-profit? Are you going to disclose your take?

Thanks! We're incredibly excited to be in full launch mode, and can't wait to have our beta platform and pilot projects available over the coming months.

We are a for-profit, and believe that building a strong, scalable financial model is what it takes to transform a sector and fix what we see as a market that is structurally underserved by credit markets (small and medium scale energy efficiency projects).

We will be disclosing Spark's take through the investor disclosure documents. Each project will include a detail prospectus for each project that will lay out credit risk decisions, upfront schedule of lease repayments and investor yield (the delta of which is Spark's revenue).

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I'm impressed. Before you replied, I would have guessed you found a loophole to avoid SEC regulation. I haven't read enough to judge how beneficial the particular loans you broker are, but I think that just showing that it's possible to crowdsource investment this way is a great achievement.

We've worked really hard to make sure it's a significant benefit to everyone involved. Investors can expected yields between 4-10% with durations between 1-10 years. While borrows save money even in month 1. They only pay back a portion of the savings they earn from their reduced energy bill. In as little as 1 year they'll be keeping all the savings.

What if the pricing tiers for energy change, and reduce the savings (either by reducing the cost for the original configuration more than the new one, or increasing the cost for the new configuration more than the old one)?

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#27
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for now you do have to be a US resident due to SEC regulations. I'll definitely add something to make that clear. Thanks for the suggestion!

Great. This is a really cool idea and I hope you get enough traction in the US to eventually be able to move into other jurisdictions.

Thanks!

We hope so too!

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#28
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for now you do have to be a US resident due to SEC regulations. I'll definitely add something to make that clear. Thanks for the suggestion!

I don't know what I'm talking about, but it may be possible for Canadian and Mexican investors to participate due to NAFTA. I understand there's something in there about investment. Something to look into anyway.

That would be awesome!

I'll definitely have the more legalese fluent members of our team check it out.

Re: Show HN: I quit my job to help communities fund energy efficiency upgrades

#30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what I'm talking about, but it may be possible for Canadian and Mexican investors to participate due to NAFTA. I understand there's something in there about investment. Something to look into anyway.

That would be awesome! I'll definitely have the more legalese fluent members of our team check it out.

Cool. I fully expect that their response will be "haha that a-priori dude is an idiot".
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