Investment Cones

Our “investment cones” – non-intermittent energy sources and critical materials – have five things in common: sustainability, reliability, standardization, scalability and predictable long-term cash flow.

Our Investment Philosophy

We bring a manufacturing perspective to investing. Similar to manufacturing, where efficiency, 
cost control, and process optimization are crucial, we structure and manage investments for optimal value by controlling costs and maximizing returns. 

How We Invest

  • Whether it’s an energy source or critical material, we choose to invest in projects that ensure sustained resources for over 30+ years. This enables us to justify an upfront investment in CapEX, while generating predictable cash flows underpinned by long-term, fixed priced contracts.on text goes here

  • Using proven technologies mitigates the risk of deploying capital on unproven or experimental solutions that may not deliver the desired results and projected returns. This ensures that investments leads to predictable, reliable outcomes.

  • We identify long-term projects that enable long-term offtake agreements to secure capital investments which require predictable sources of revenue and have transformative effects on capital compounding with significant return on capital and free upside.

  • We look for ways to monetize investments to achieve attractive multiples and identify monetization events at scale. That also means we assess not only the profile of energy sources and materials but also the dynamics of the regulatory landscape and private sectors that rely on them short and long-term.

How We Design + Build

  • We prioritize established technologies over emerging ones, leveraging already tested solutions from one sector and applying them to another. This approach enables more precise forecasting of project volumes and minimizes the risks often associated with untested technologies.

  • Our modular designs minimize the need for site-specific variability, reduce time to completion, and lower costs.

  • In every project we take on, we identify clear opportunities to transition from site-specific processes to manufacturing scale across energy transition projects. This approach allows us to replicate successful projects efficiently and scale operations without reinventing the wheel each time.

How We Operate

  • We take a hands-on, active role in the early stages of the companies we invest in, with the goal of empowering companies’ teams to act independently as we help them grow and mature.

  • Our significant investments enable us to maintain significant control over the companies we help build and invest in, playing an active role in their operations and project execution. This level of involvement helps ensure that companies are in a strong position to deliver value to shareholders.

  • As companies mature and deploy Conifer's expertise in corporate leadership, capital allocation and project management, our involvement becomes more strategic than operational. In the long term, the goal is to scale impact by successfully developing companies and projects and then stepping back to enable companies to thrive independently, while still having access to our engineering and investing expertise.

 “Through its adaptive strategy that has allowed it to survive over hundreds of millions of years, the patient and persistent conifer teaches us that it is far better to avoid direct, head-on competition for scarce resources and, instead, to pursue the roundabout path toward an intermediate step that leads to its eventual position of advantage.”

— Mark Spitznagel, The Dao of Capital: Austrian Investing in a Distorted World