Evora taps investors to capitalise on demand for ESG advice

The fast-growing climate consultant and data cruncher for real estate investors such as Hines and M&G will use a fresh cash injection to scale its Siera software product and expand its reach globally.

The British company gained substantial yet undisclosed backing from international investors in a funding round led by Bridges Fund Management, a specialist sustainable and impact investor.

Founded in 2011, Evora helps real estate companies with their ESG strategies, sustainable finance and climate risk management and disclosure, both through advisory services and use of Siera.

Siera currently holds ESG data for 8,000 major buildings globally.

The equity investment round will enable Evora to expand its offering to support clients globally, while further developing its tech platform.

The investment includes support from MSCI and Farview Equity which, along with Bridges, will each take a seat on the Evora board. The “mission-critical decision-support tools” and market access provided by the consortium will help the business’s growth and maximise the value of its ESG and climate solutions to the global real asset investment community, Evora said in a statement on Monday.

Evora, founded 11 years ago by Chris Bennett, Paul Sutcliffe and Ed Gabbitas, has rapidly grown over the past two years following the addition of key senior hires and as demand for action on sustainable finance and climate risk has risen up the agenda of corporations generally. The company has more than 200 staff, having grown rapidly from 65 people two years ago.

“When we founded this business over a decade ago,” said Bennett, “people didn’t want to talk about climate risk or sustainability. It was a real battle to even get a meeting. Now, we are experiencing huge demand for our services globally as the world has woken up to the risks of climate change.

“Our client base is made up of leading asset managers and owners, and they have been asking us to support them globally. This funding enhances our ability to support them and to improve our technology and advisory services globally.

“We wanted investors who were aligned with our vision. We had a lot of options, but Bridges really stood out for its commitment to sustainability and impact investing, as well as being a B Corp.

“Working with MSCI will broaden our ability to drive positive impact, helping our clients with their sustainable development goals while widening our global reach. Farview’s experience of growing enterprise technology companies will transform our Siera software and support its international growth.”

Emma Thorne, partner at Bridges, said: “Real estate is a significant contributor to global carbon emissions, so Evora’s tools and services can play an important role in reducing emissions and building a more sustainable economy. We think there’s a significant commercial and impact opportunity here. So, we’re excited to partner with this excellent team and help the business scale, drawing on Bridges’ 20 years’ experience of helping ambitious companies to accelerate their growth and achieve more impact.”

René Veerman, head of real assets, MSCI, added: “High quality data is an essential part of commercial real asset investors’ ability to develop effective strategies, built upon the in-depth evaluation of portfolio and asset climate risk. The combination of Evora’s tools for climate data management and advisory services, together with MSCI’s robust climate risk models and indexes, will help to improve the flow of critical decision data and accelerate the adoption of climate standards and thereby to strengthen the global real asset investment process. MSCI is committed to providing critical decision support tools that help investment managers to build better portfolios and, in this collaboration with Evora, we will better serve the evolving needs of our shared and new clients.”

Polestar Corporate Finance advised Evora Global for this transaction.