Cycle Capital is closing a new $145-million cleantech fund, complete with a $10-million kicker from Export Development Canada, the Ottawa-based crown corporation owned by the government of Canada.

The Montreal-based cleantech fund will use the new cash to invest mostly in North America with a particular emphasis on Canadian companies, reports The Logic.

“We support the talent of our cleantech entrepreneurs so that they can scale on and contribute to fight climate change,” said Cycle Captal’s founder, Andrée-Lise Méthot. “We are proud to welcome EDC as new LP… to support even more portfolio companies including a lot of female-led businesses.“

Méthot similarly told The Logic it will target firms with “very deep intellectual property” that can reach international markets. “You want to have a financial impact, but we want to have impact in general, including CO2 reduction,” Méthot told the website.

EDC, Cycle Capital’s new partner, is a financially independent crown corporation. It raises funds by charging fees for its services and interest on its loans, as well as issuing debt in capital markets. Its mandate is to support and develop trade between Canada and other countries, and help Canada’s competitiveness in the international marketplace.

Among its many international investments, EDC committed $870 million in financing in latin america, including a record $455 million in Peru to help fund a new mining trade creation facility with Minsur.

Jennifer Cooke, the manager of Export Development Canada’s Women in Trade initiative added that the new fund will “encourage greater representation on both sides of the investor/entrepreneur table.” EDC’s Women in Trade initiative offers $100 million in total growth capital to women-owned or led companies.

The pair of organizations have already partnered on three cleantech investments in 2020 through EDC’s matching program

The first close of the fund happened in February 2019, when Cycle Capital announced its Fund IV worth $109 million in public and private money. The Government of Québec chipped in, via Investissement Quebec, with $50 million. Other investors included Teralys Capital, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Fondaction, Suez, Hydro-Québec, Innergex Renewable Energy, the McConnell Foundation, Rio Tinto, Vancity Credit Union, and Trottier Family Foundation.

Then in June 2019, the federal government committed $50 million to be split between Cycle Capital, Renewal4 and ArcTern Ventures II.

Cycle Capital invests in tech sectors such as energy storage and efficiency, green chemistry, clean transportation and smart city technologies, Green IoT, Big Data & AI and agtech.

Moreover, via its website, Cycle Capital writes it is “convinced that diversity and inclusion are the drivers of better performances.”