ImpactAlpha

The new year started with the worst-ever stock market performance ever. As January ends, rising interest rates, falling commodity prices, devalued currencies and the slowdown in China confront investors with multiple challenges that are not likely to disappear anytime soon. In that context, is impact investment a promising new approach, or a soon-to-be-forgotten afterthought? Listen to the […]

In a sign of healthy competition, not one but two private equity fund managers are gearing up to raise tens of millions of dollars apiece to bet on the recovery of coastal fishing industries and local communities in the developing world. The Sustainable Ocean Fund plans a $50 million first close later this year, and […]

UNITED NATIONS — Slushy sidewalks notwithstanding, climate leaders passed through UN security Wednesday with a spring in their step. In a reunion of sorts for the COP21 climate agreement in Paris, an all-star, all-expert cast descended on the United Nations to prod investors into urgent and aggressive action. No rush, guys.Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the […]

Experimentation and social change go hand in hand. At a time when government resources are constrained, we need to experiment with new approaches to finance and scale promising social programs. At Living Cities, we are exploring new ways to unlock private capital for social good, harnessing the collective power of 22 of the world’s largest […]

The government officials, business leaders and private investors gathered at Davos this week can continue their deal-making after the elite event ends on Convergence, a new online match-making platform to facilitate “blended financing” for developing countries. Officially launched at this week’s World Economic Forum, Convergence aims to expand investor networks, reduce search costs and streamline due diligence and […]

There’s an intriguing line in the new Credit Suisse and McKinsey & Co. report on the growing interest among institutional investors for financial products that protect ecosystems, drive sustainable commodity production or reduce carbon emissions. Among mainstream investors, the report says, “The conservation impact of a product is generally of little importance.” The report, “From […]

There’s a growing body of evidence that gender equality and women’s leadership and participation boosts the performance of companies and countries. So what do we do about it? Suzanne Biegel, who calls herself a “catalyst-at-large,” has launched Women Effect, to help entrepreneurs, investors, advisors and others figure that out together. Suzanne, a longtime angel investor, […]

Relevée is a fine jewelry design and manufacturing company that provides a pathway to complete independence for some of the world’s most vulnerable women including survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence and child marriage. Relevée was started by, and is spinning off from, the nonprofit social enterprise Made By Survivors.  As a for-profit social enterprise, […]

Companies often get fined for poor behavior. Now, some will get rewarded for behavior that serves the poor. A pilot program funded by the Swiss government will pay bonuses to Latin American businesses that can prove that they are improving the quality of life of their poor customers. The enhanced revenues should make such high-impact businesses […]

Investors can earn double-digit returns while simultaneously helping to restore and protect global seafood supply, according to first-of-its-kind market research by Encourage Capital. Investors got a sneak peek at two blueprints last autumn, as reported by Impact Alpha. Now the report is out in full, with all six blueprints for investing in profitable fisheries with social […]

Investors can earn double-digit returns while simultaneously helping to restore and protect global seafood supply, according to first-of-its-kind market research by Encourage Capital. Investors got a sneak peek at the research last autumn, as reported by Impact Alpha. Now the report is out in full and it features six blueprints for investing in profitable fisheries with social and environmental […]

Dealflow goes global this week: Abraaj Group bets big on healthcare expansion in India; Australian retirement funds attracted to affordable housing; and Big Issue Fund’s raise bodes well for UK social enterprises. Growth markets for health care. Betting on the growing demand for affordable healthcare in India, the Abraaj Group, the Dubai-based private equity firm, acquired a […]

Sourcing fresh, high-quality fish with reliability is P.T. Bali Seafood International’s business and the fish business isn’t easy in Indonesia. So processing fish closer to where fish is caught makes sense. Access to better fish and use of better technology means Bali Seafood can pay fishermen more. And more money lets the fishermen improve their fishing gear and […]

R. Buckminster Fuller was a founding father of systems thinking. You can look it up. And you can look up an index of ideas that honor such thinking in the roster of winners of the annual Fuller Challenge, the $100,000 award given by The Buckminster Fuller Institute, which is seeking to extend the vision of the 20th-century inventor […]

This week: The investment winds are blowing for both small- and large-scale wind deals; the Kresge Foundation pledges $20 million to early childhood education in Detroit early education; and mom-and-pop shops in Peru and Venezuela may have more access to working capital to expand their businesses. Big Investment in Small-Scale Wind. United Wind has received […]

Knock, knock, knock. That’s the sound of impact investing at the door of mainstream financial markets after a banner year in which the impact investing marketplace grew to $60 billion, new firms entered the arena and important policies changes removed perceived barriers to impact investment practices. Look for impact investing to accelerate in 2016. Here’s a roundup of […]

Quick quiz: Do you know what “REDD+” stands for? You will soon. Conservation finance is sure to be one of 2016’s hot topics. Already, reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (or REDD+) is gaining momentum as a result of the Paris climate accords, at which forests were an unexpected centerpiece. As our friends at […]

Climate-change deniers seem to be shifting from “It’s not real,” to “It’s too late,” as suggested by a recent Wall Street Journal editorial. But even the Journal allowed “What will help is human invention and the entrepreneurial spirit.” So can’t we all just get on with meeting the trillion-dollar challenge and seizing the opportunities for a […]

This week: “Sapphire” invests first $10 million in LatAm financial services; Leapfrog’s assets leap over $1 billion with OPIC investment; and the Calvert Foundation backs Medical Credit Fund’s strategy for financing developing-world health clinics. “Sapphire” Fund invests $10 million in LatAm financial inclusion. The new SFRE fund has made its first investments, committing just under $10 million in […]

A couple announcing the creation of a new legal structure a week after the birth of their first child usually does not draw global headlines. But the launch of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC, continues to reverberate. In this week’s Returns on Investment Podcast*, I am joined by Imogen Rose-Smith, senior writer at Institutional Investor, […]

Ben Kneppers paused as he strolled around a music festival in Santiago, Chile. In front of him was a booth where local kids could repair damaged skateboards, making them ride-able again rather than throwing them away. Kneppers, an environmental consultant originally from Massachusetts, was impressed by the project. And as an avid boarder himself, he admired […]

This week: Omidyar’s alternative to bitcoin, ImpactAssets’ new notes and a $15 million boost for a UK social enterprise that provides transit services in disadvantaged areas of London. Omidyar Backs Banks’ Alternative to Bitcom. Secure digital currency could dramatically lower the costs of financial services for the poor, making eCurrency Mint an impact investment for Omidyar Network, the […]

It’s time to start tallying up the billions that major institutional investors are betting on the low-carbon economy. New York State’s $183.5 billion Common Retirement Fund will double its $1.5 billion sustainable investment program and commit $2 billion to a new index “that will exclude or reduce investments in companies that are large contributors to […]

When Nancy Pfund‘s DBL Partners recently closed its $400 million third fund, ImpactAlpha wrote, “Want to spot the next Tesla? Watch DBL Partners.” In her podcast interview with ImpactAlpha, Pfund discusses new investments from Tanzania (Off Grid Electric) to San Francisco (Advanced Microgrid Solutions). Hint: Advanced Microgrid is the largest customer of Tesla’s new PowerPack […]

Celebrity Investors Back Pay-As-You-G0 Solar in Africa. The Kenyan pay-as-you-go solar energy venture M-Kopa has pulled in $19 million in new financing from celebrity investors. The investment was led by Generation Investment Management, an investment firm founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his partner David Blood. Sir Richard Branson and the Case Foundation […]

Bill Gates and 30 other innovators have signed up to support the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to fill a very important gap in clean energy – early commercialization. The challenge with Gates’s announcement is that while he and other are filling a real need, it is not the most pressing need and certainly not all that […]

A new crop of billionaire activists are signaling that they’re going to use all the tools at their disposal to tackle challenges from climate change to income inequality. Those tools include not only grants and advocacy, but high-impact private investments in companies, funds and high-leverage mechanisms such as loan guarantees and first-loss protections for commercial investors. The […]

Bill Gates is raising the stakes at this week’s global climate conference in Paris, with an expected announcement of a multi-billion dollar fund for clean energy research and development. According to ClimateWire, Gates and other billionaires will make the pledge as part of an effort to secure a commitment from India to carbon-reduction goals. That is a […]

The tipping point toward sustainability as a truly compelling investment thesis won’t come until pension funds and other institutional investors start to write checks of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. That day may already have come, says Dave Chen, CEO of Equilibrium Capital in Portland, Ore., which counts pension funds as investors […]

Social enterprise is flourishing throughout the Commonwealth. To document the entrepreneurs and investors who are fueling this growth, the British Council has commissioned a set of social enterprise landscape maps of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ghana The Council’s Global Social Enterprise Programme has tapped Ennovent and ANDE to map the size and scale of the social enterprise sector in India. […]

Purchasing power. Portfolio power. Philanthropic power. Political power. and ‘preneur power. Geri Stengel, president of Ventureneer, a digital media and market research company, has a good piece on Forbes.com rounding up the many ways consumers, investors, philanthropists, citizens and, yes, entrepreneurs can both harness and help the growing power of women and girls. Finance can impact issues as […]

Mid-November seems to be season for new impact funds. TOMS launches social enterprise fund. “Buy one-get one” poster child TOMS has started its own fund for social start ups. The popular canvas shoe maker seeded the fund with capital it raised by selling 50 percent of company to Bain Capital last year. Bain answered some of the […]

Impact investing talent is in demand as family offices and wealth advisors build teams to respond to their clients’ demand for impactful investment opportunities. The latest hire:  Stephanie Cohn Rupp, who will become director of impact investing for Threshold Group, a $3 billion multi-family office with offices in Seattle, Philadelphia and Gig Harbor, Wash. Rupp is […]

Erika Karp is an accidental “sustainability” investor. As managing director and head of global sector research at UBS Investment Bank, she already was used to asking executives questions about supply chains, political risk and financial controls. Those kind of questions are at the core of ESG — for environmental, social and governance –investing. “It is […]

The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation an Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town has released the third edition of its African Investing for Impact Barometer, a compelling snapshot of strategies deployed in Kenya, South Africa, and (for the first time) Nigeria, to combine financial returns with positive impact on society and the environment. These […]

There is an old Portuguese saying that you cannot expect the sun to shine on the threshing floor while it rains in the turnip fields. Some would apply the saying to impact investing to argue investments can’t simultaneously deliver market-rate returns and measurable social impact. The harder investors pursue social goals in sectors where commercial […]

I’ve been working on investing with a women and girls focus for a long time. And my husband has been working on his running for a long time. He’s an ultra-marathoner – a good one. He’s both a natural, and he works at it. What do these things have to do with each other? It’s about practising, […]

Women’s rights and empowerment are receiving renewed global policy attention: The United Nations’ 20th anniversary of the World Conference of Women and the “Sustainable Development Goals” have enshrined the global goal of gender equality. Another global trend is also capturing the spotlight: More than 2,000 individuals and 400 organizations, representing more than $2.6 trillion in assets […]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is adding talent to create innovative financing structures for what it calls a “critical juncture” for international development. Nick O’Donohoe, most recently the head of Big Society Capital in the UK, will join the world’s largest private foundation in January as senior adviser for blended finance. The new UN-backed sustainable development goals, aimed at ending poverty […]

What, where, when and how impact capital flowed this week…See more impact deals in ImpactAlpha’s DealFlow section. Send your dealflow news to info@impactalpha.com. Mexican impact fund raises via public markets. Venture capital firm IGNIA has reached a $90 million first close on its second fund with commitments from domestic pension funds. The Mexican pension funds, which were […]

As the risks of failing to invest in responses to climate change become clear, pension funds and other big private investors are taking advantage of innovative financing mechanisms to move forward with hundreds of millions of dollars to fund climate solutions. As next month’s pivotal climate conference in Paris approaches, the commitments to the new “climate funds” represent […]

From a Kampachi tuna farm in Baja California, Mexico, to a seafood distributor in Vanuatu in the south Pacific, to a Chilean company that recycles fishing gear into trendy lifestyle products, to indoor vegetables farms growing on fish waste in London, the winners of the Fish2.0 business competition showcased global innovation in sustainable seafood. “I’m impressed by the […]

It’s time to address the elephant in the board rooms of the nation’s foundations: the impact of the $650 billion in philanthropic endowments. So says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, who announced that the nation’s second-largest private foundation will put forward a specific impact investing policy for its $12 billion endowment “in the […]

What, where, when and how impact capital flowed this week…See more impact deals in ImpactAlpha’s DealFlow section. Send your dealflow news to info@impactalpha.com. Latino small businesses get a boost. The Surdna Foundation is boosting its support for Latino small businesses with a $2 million program-related investment, along with grant support. The investment is intended to accelerate lending among Latino-led […]

Growing retail demand for sustainable seafood from North America and Europe is creating economic opportunities for environment-friendly businesses closer to the fish and the men and women who catch and process them.   In the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, among the world’s richest fishing grounds, a new school of seafood companies is working to keep […]

As preservation and restoration of the oceans rises on the global agenda (see UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 14: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources”) it may be instructive to look back on the decade-long story of a private equity fund that intended to do just that. The Sea Change Investment Fund, vintage […]

It’s not surprising that impact investors believe environmental sustainability creates long-term value. That a traditional private equity investor is betting on sustainability — that’s a signal of an important market shift. That shift has occurred in aquaculture, says Francisco Saraiva Gomes, CEO of Pontos Aqua Holdings, an investment company he formed last year with Tinicum […]

To truly change the world, entrepreneurship has to include everyone. Technology pioneer Freada Kapor Klein recently told me: “We can’t close gaps to access and opportunity without having our entrepreneurs come from the communities we are trying to serve. Lived experience is essential in creating successful businesses.” Unfortunately, today, we’re leaving nearly half the entrepreneurs […]