Highlands Rewilding has launched a three-month fundraising campaign.
While no funding limit has been set, it is hoped that at least £8m will be raised - £500,000 by ‘citizen rewilders’, who can crowdfund from as little as £50 - and the remainder from equity investors and financial institutions.
This second round of fundraising, which follows on from £7.5m being raised from 50 investors in January, is aimed at attracting investors into co-ownership of the business, including all of its land and buildings.
It is expected that most of its 50 original investors will re-invest, while Highlands Rewilding is also hoping it can attract debt from banks in this round, which would be a first for a for-profit rewilding project.
The project, which stretches over 2,000 acres across two estates in the Scottish Highlands - Bunloit Estate in Inverness and Beldorney Estate in Aberdeenshire - is backed by a 22-strong team led by founder and chief executive Dr Jeremy Leggett.
With community engagement, the creation of green jobs and generating profit-for-purpose at its heart, the team already work with local farmers and landowners on their existing sites.
By managing their own land for carbon and biodiversity uplift, Highlands Rewilding aims to not only provide its shareholders with ethical returns of at least 5% per annum, annualised over 10 years, but the creation of a model capable of encouraging other landowners to pivot to 'nature positive' practices.
With the funds raised, the company hopes to be able to acquire South Bunloit, Beldorney Castle and one other estate.
Additional funding would also take the team a step closer to fulfilling its long-term goals of offering corporate nature recovery retreats on each estate, along with the creation of eco-buildings, including energy affordable-housing and research stations.
Leggett explained: “We ideally want to have hundreds, if not thousands of shareholders from across the world, but especially Scotland where we will continue to work as closely as we can with local highland communities, including via joint ventures with community organisations.
“Our citizen rewilder option within the crowdfund allows for genuine co-ownership for a minimum amount of investment.”
Before starting Highlands Rewilding in the spring of 2020, Leggett founded Solarcentury, one of the world’s most respected solar energy companies.
He commented: “The solar energy revolution saw this level of investment and I think it’s possible for this to happen again in the emerging nature recovery industry - but it takes time and money.
“In our initial fundraising round, we attracted 50 founding funders, but only one financial institution, MFS Investment Management, so we hope to encourage interest from more financial institutions during this funding round.”
Leggett, a former scientific director at Greenpeace, bought the 1,200-acre Bunloit Estate near Loch Ness in 2020, following the sale of Solarcentury, which brought solar panels to the mass market.
Last year, he added the 860-acre Beldorney Estate, near Huntly, to the portfolio following a fundraise, which included Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, former SSE chief executive Ian Marchant and former Unilever chief executive Paul Polman.
Don't miss the latest headlines with our twice-daily newsletter - sign up here for free.
