Energy efficiency investments lift Blue Hill (Philadelphia)

Like many firms, Blue Hill Partners is feeling the effects of the economy. Unlike many firms, the effects it’s feeling are good ones.

The Chestnut Hill-based green-tech investment firm is:

1. 1. Seeing its portfolio companies add jobs in Pennsylvania and elsewhere;
2. 2. Expanding its building, which houses a community of green-tech companies, including those in its portfolio;
3. 3. And working with the Pennsylvania Treasury Department to set up an initiative to help colleges and universities in Pennsylvania conserve energy.

"We’re having the best year for ourselves and our companies," said Joyce Ferris, Blue Hill’s managing partner.

The reason, Ferris said, is that Blue Hill invests in companies that, through technology, products and services, enable their customers to become more energy efficient.

With everyone looking to save money everywhere, projects and products that reduce energy costs are very appealing, and so Blue Hill’s companies — and, therefore, Blue Hill — are doing well.

"It’s almost like the recession is a driver for us," she said.

Blue Hill has invested in six companies, two of which it has sold its stakes in. The remaining four, including one in which it just invested, have created 11 jobs in Pennsylvania this year and Ferris expects them and Blue Hill to create 18 to 20 more, including another dozen in Blue Hill’s building, in the next six months.

Blue Hill’s most recent investment was in Performance Systems Development, which is based in Ithaca, N.Y., and has an office in Meadville, Pa.

PSD provides software, training, engineering and consulting to organizations that help make buildings more energy efficient. The company used Blue Hill’s investment, the size of which wasn’t disclosed, to open an office in Blue Hill’s building and hire Pauline Warren, whom it named vice president of enterprise sales, to run it.

PSD’s business has been helped by the large amount of stimulus dollars devoted to making buildings more energy efficient, Ferris said.

The company has "signed an enormous amount of business" in the two months since Blue Hill invested in it, she said.

The other Blue Hill portfolio companies with offices in its building are Aircuity Inc., a Newton, Mass.-based maker of systems that improve the energy efficiency and air quality of buildings; and Princeton Energy Systems, which describes itself as "an energy and sustainability engineering, consulting and planning firm."

Read the full story in the Philadelphia Business Journal.