Waste-to-energy business Monsal has secured up to £14 million from investment firm FourWinds Capital Management.

Waste-to-energy business Monsal has secured up to £14 million from investment firm FourWinds Capital Management.

FourWinds will invest an initial £4 million from its Waste Resources Fund (WRF), taking equity in Monsal alongside the company’s management team and Matrix Private Equity Partners, which backed the original buy-out of the business in 2007 for a minority stake.

East Midlands-based Monsal will use this initial funding to expand its anaerobic digestion business in the UK, which involves breaking down organic matter to produce biogas that can be used to power generators.

The balance of £10 million will be deployed in financing a new business, provided that certain conditions are met. The new venture will ‘focus on identifying and developing partnerships and funding infrastructure projects in the rapidly growing bio-energy and biogas sector’, according to FourWinds.

Aidan Cumiskey, MD of Monsal, claims, ‘There is no other competitor in the market able to fully capitalise on the opportunity to build and operate the estimated 200 food waste [anaerobic digestion] plants that are expected to be developed by 2020.’

Monsal’s shareholders were advised by the Manchester office of European investment bank Altium Capital.