ImpactAlpha is excited to again be a media sponsor of SOCAP, the annual gathering of the Social Capital Markets community. For the eighth year in a row, SOCAP15 will convene leading impact investors, world-class entrepreneurs, and innovative cross-sector practitioners for three full days of networking and engaging content. Last year’s sold out-event gathered more than 2,200 […]
RSF’s New Funds for Soil Health, Biodynamic Ag, Fair Trade and Women-Led Businesses
Philanthropic funders are working to close the funding gap for social startups with a new mix of flexible investment tools. RSF Social Finance, for example, plans to launch four new funds focused on fair trade, biodynamics, soil health, and women. The new funds are modeled after RSF’s Local Initiatives Fund, which was launched in 2012 to […]
East Africa: An Impact Investing Hot Spot, Dominated by Development Banks
Entrepreneurship was top of President Obama’s agenda during his recent trip to East Africa. But as he noted in his keynote address at the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, “This is still a neglected market, and accessing capital for entrepreneurs here is still too hard.” One group trying to change that: impact investors. A new report […]
VilCap Investments: New $13.2M Fund Doubles Down on Peer-Selected Investments
Village Capital has relied on peer selection to build one of the most productive accelerator programs in the impact investing marketplace. In six years, “Vilcap” has launched more than 35 accelerator programs on five continents, investing $2 million in 55 early-stage companies. Entrepreneurs chose every investment. Now Ross Baird, Village Capital’s executive director, is taking peer selection to the big, […]
How Much Would You Pay for a Can of Tuna?
For decades, the five-ounce can of tuna fish has been the 99¢ pantry essential that U.S. families turned to for a quick sandwich or last-minute meal. Now, a new crew of tuna distributors, including Wild Planet, American Tuna and Ocean Naturals, is breaking the price barrier with brands that promise both sustainability and flavor. That […]
As Maine’s Waters Warm, a Seafood Investor Fosters Climate Resiliency
An invasion of green crabs. Plummeting populations of northern shrimp and cod. Shifting seasons for lobster, the anchor of Maine’s $585 million fishing economy. Stretching from Cape Cod to southern Nova Scotia, the Gulf of Maine is among the fastest-warming oceans in the world, a living laboratory for the effects of climate change on marine […]
User-Generated Conference: Some of Our Picks for SOCAP15
ImpactAlpha is excited to again be a media sponsor of SOCAP, the annual gathering of the Social Capital Markets community. SOCAP 15 kicks off a little later than usual, and runs October 6-9 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. We’re particularly looking forward to the 30 sessions that emerged from SOCAP Open — the […]
eMoneyPool: Bringing #Fintech to a Centuries-Old Savings Tool
A cundina in Mexico. A chit fund in India. A sou sou in West African and Caribbean nations. Informal savings pools, around for centuries, are still the preferred savings tool of billions of low-income people around the world. Savings circles are common in another country with a large unbanked population as well — the United States. Phoenix-based […]
Behind the Impact Benchmark: Q & A with GIIN and Cambridge Associates
Impact investors are a tough crowd. For years, proponents have called for more data on impact fund performance and comparable returns to give investors better visibility into the real results of investments intended to generate social and environmental as well as financial benefits. But no sooner had the Global Impact Investing Network and Cambridge Associates released […]
Lending for African Farming: Financing the Other 90 Percent of Smallholder Agriculture
Social lenders such as Root Capital have pioneered financing for smallholder producers of export crops like coffee, cocoa, and tea. Now, Root is seeking to help build agricultural businesses that serve local staple crop markets as well — a financing market that may be 10 times as big. Root, together with Germany’s KfW Development Bank and agriculture […]
Who’s the Next Impact Target After Goldman Sachs Snaps Up Imprint Capital?
Goldman Sachs’ move to buy San Francisco-based Imprint Capital has the small community of impact investment asset managers and dealmakers buzzing about who might next be asked to dance by a Wall Street suitor Goldman’s move to buy, rather than build, its impact investing capacity for high-net-worth and institutional clients may prod other wealth-management giants […]
The Prison Reform #Fail That Shocked the Social-Impact Bond Market
Green bonds have grown into a more than $40 billion annual market, while social-impact bonds have had trouble getting out of the starting gate. It doesn’t help when early and high-profile offerings not only fail to deliver returns to investors, but fail to deliver the social impact that the bonds were designed to finance in the first […]
New Impact Benchmark from Cambridge Associates: Market-Rate Returns (Almost)
Down goes another obstacle to the growth of impact investing. The new Impact Investing Benchmark, from Cambridge Associates and the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), showed that a group of more than 50 impact investing funds delivered returns nearly as strong as a set of comparable funds with no measured social impact. Some subsets even […]
DBL Partners, Investor in Tesla and Solar City, Closes 3rd Fund at $400 Million
Want to spot the next Tesla? Watch DBL Partners. The “double bottom line” venture capital firm has closed DBL Partners III, its third fund, with $400 million in capital. The portfolios of DBL’s previous funds include some of the most successful social ventures to date, including Tesla Motors, Solar City, Revolution Foods and Ecologic. “The size of this […]
Chia Ting Ting: The Business Force Behind Malaysia’s Digital News Leader
Chia Ting Ting, the top advertising executive at Malaysia’s largest online news portal, appreciates something that many press advocates overlook: independent journalism requires financial independence as well. When Malaysiakini does a story on modern day slavery in Malaysia, for example, its newsroom is rightfully praised. Rarely acknowledged, however, are the behind-the-scenes staff that create the […]
Mayvenn Raises $10 Million from Andreessen Horowitz, Celebrities and Impact Investors to Streamline Hair Market
The U.S. market for hair, as in hair extensions and wigs, is a $5 billion a year industry. Mayvenn, an e-commerce startup based in Oakland, Calif., aims to put the hair experts — stylists — at the center of it. The company has closed a $10 million Series A round from an unlikely mix of mainstream, […]
Investors Target Growing Demand for Healthy, Sustainable, Tasty Fish
The hook is baited, and private-equity and venture-capital fund managers are reeling in capital to finance next-generation fish-farming enterprises across the country and around the world. Several dedicated funds are targeting aquaculture investments specifically. At the same time, many broader venture capital and private-equity funds, focused on food and agriculture and even technology, are adding […]
Unreasonable Institute Report Highlights Mosaic, MANA, Solidarium
MANA Nutrition delivers 500,000 packets of calorie-enriched peanut butter to malnutritioned children every day. Solidarium has equipped 25,000 artisans in Brazil to connect with buyers and corporate distributors. And Mosaic, the solar project financing platform, has raised a whopping $41 million. Those are some of the highlights of the new impact report from the Unreasonable Institute, a leading early-stage […]
How to Get a Sneak Peak at Sustainable Seafood Investments: Fish 2.0 Seeks Judges
Fish 2.0, the sustainable seafood business competition, is seeking judges and advisors to help identify the standout ventures that will present their business plans to investors and industry leaders at the final event at Stanford University in November. Judges and advisors, who must have five or more years of business or investment experience, get an […]
Now We Know Why She Swallowed a Fly: These Insects Feed Fish That Feed People
The idea of roasted, pulverized black soldier fly larvae may not make your mouth water. But farmed fish and other livestock are starting to feast on feed made from these fast-growing maggots, which means you’ll likely be eating more of them as well, at least indirectly. It gets even better: the black soldier fly larvae […]
‘Blue Economy’ Highlights from the World Ocean Summit
The Economist’s World Ocean Summit last week in Cascais, Portugal highlighted ‘blue economy’ opportunities for jobs, economic growth and investments in healthy ocean and coastal environments. We’ve pulled together some of the thinking driving the conversation in Portugal: Marine Protected Areas: Smart Investments in Ocean Health. A healthy ocean is a natural economic engine and an asset to […]
Funds, Funds and More Funds: Obvious Ventures, Intel Capital, The Impact Investment Fund
Obvious Ventures closes $123 million fund for “world positive” companies. Twitter co-founder Ev Williams’ new venture capital firm Obvious Ventures confirmed the close of its first impact investing fund. The fund raised $123,456,789 for what it calls “world positive” venture capital. “It’s the idea that world positive businesses have advantages in the market and can outperform their more traditional peers,” the firm states […]
Real Deal No. 3: Getting Impact Investments Done (Buyer’s Remorse or Investor’s Delight?)
For some early-stage ventures, a small loan at the right time is more valuable than a large investment (which may take months). In the third and final installment of The Real Deal: Getting Impact Investments Done, David Bank of ImpactAlpha hosted Joe Demin and Rachel Connors of Yellow Leaf Hammocks, a social enterprise that creates livelihoods and social justice […]
Ecotrust Forest: Making the Math Work for Sustainable Timber in the Northwest
Ecotrust Forest Management has gone where most other sustainable timber funds fear to tread: the Pacific Northwest. The Portland-based investment manager has successfully closed a $52 million fund for the purchase and sustainable management of northwest forests with an approach it says can both benefit local communities and the environment and deliver market-rate returns for investors. The […]
Standardizing Technology to Trace Sources of Seafood
Tracing seafood back to its source has turned out to be a maddeningly complex challenge, with conflicting technology, standards and even definitions. The lack of transparency has made it impossible to identify illegal and unreported fish and has made it difficult for sustainable suppliers from being able to charge premium prices. The Global Food Traceability […]
Getting to 100% Mission-Aligned Assets: Lessons From F.B. Heron
The F.B. Heron Foundation has a goal to mission-align 100 percent of its $300 million in assets by 2017. Two years out, Heron’s president, Clara Miller, and vice president, Toni Johnson shared some of what they’re learning in the process in “Mission-Aligned Investing: More Complex Than It Seems,” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The takeaway: Easier […]
Real Deal No. 2: Getting Impact Investments Done (Coming to Terms)
The second episode of Impact Alpha’s three-part Real Deal webinar series, “Getting Impact Investments Done – Coming to Terms,” explored how investors and entrepreneurs can work together to create simple, efficient financing agreements that meet the needs and interests of both parties. Listen to the replay of the 30-minute show. Joining David Bank, editor of […]
Acelero Learning: Flexible Financing to Give Low-Income Kids a Head Start
When we last left Acelero Learning, the pioneering early childhood education provider was struggling to repay its early impact investors after the company’s Head Start programs generated impressive academic gains but modest returns. A year later, those investors are staying in and Acelero has $30,000 each month to spend on expanding its services for low-income […]
Getting Impact Investments Done: The Four-Hour Due Diligence
Catch the second episode of ImpactAlpha’s #RealDeal video series about getting impact investments done, this Wednesday, June 3 at 9 am PT/noon ET. Our featured entrepreneur is Shelley Saxena, an Atlanta tech entrepreneur who returned to his the founder of SevaMob, a mobile health services and micro-insurance startup in India. In the half-hour show, we’ll […]
M-KOPA Solar Demonstrates Pay-As-You-Go Financing
Nairobi-based M-KOPA Solar announced it has connected more than 200,000 homes to solar power in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, an indicator that pay-as-you-go financing may be a powerful way to accelerate adoption of off-grid solar energy in East Africa and elsewhere. M-KOPA has been credited for unlocking not only solar financing, but for demonstrating that asset-based lending […]
Mabel Cáceres: Giving Peruvians a Voice with Independent Journalism and Media
Mabel Cáceres was through with Peru’s president interfering with her reporting. So she launched her news business. Seeking to hold onto and extend his power, President Alberto Fujimori’s administration was dedicated to manipulating the press. A broad government campaign – including death threats, abductions and libel suits – intimidated many in the media into self-censorship and […]
Solar Lanterns Scale Up as D.light Reaches 10 million Units
Solar-lantern producer d.light said it has sold its 10 millionth unit, and that its off-grid electricity now reaches 50 million people in 62 countries. D.light is backed by the Sand Hill Road venture capital firm DFJ, as well as impact investors including Acumen Fund, Omidyar Network, and Gray Ghost Ventures. It raised $11 million in its […]
Unitus Impact Invests to Improve Lives of Asian Factory Workers
Workers in Asian factories are rarely the subject of good news. Unitus Impact is trying to change that with investments that go the source of most of the controversy: corporate supply chains. The impact venture capital firm’s Livelihood Impact Fund made two investments in companies that leverage the supplier networks of multinational companies to improve the […]
Here Comes Crowdtrading: Robin Hood Raises $50 million
Move over crowdfunding. Robin Hood is taking its zero-fee stock trading platform global with $50 million in follow-on funding. Robin Hood is opening the stock market floodgates to the “crowd,” and particularly to the Millennial generation that has little patience for $7.99 fees adn $500 minimums. US Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth reported that “two-thirds of (high-net-worth) millennials already employ […]
Eyes on the Horizon: ImpactAlpha’s Cliff Notes to the GIIN-JPMorgan Annual Impact Report
Latin America and energy are hot. Microfinance? Not. As for social impact bonds, it’s too early to tell. We read Eyes on the Horizon, the fifth annual state-of-the-impact-market report from the Global Impact Investing Network and JP Morgan, so you don’t have to. The bottom line: More investors, more assets, flat commitments. Investors are pleased with their current […]
British Invasion: Bridges Ventures Invests in Springboard Education in America
The U.K.-based private equity impact investment manager Bridges Ventures is investing in Springboard Education in America, its first U.S. deal after opening an office here last year. Bridges, a pioneer impact investor on the U.K. scene, was founded in 2002 and now has more than $800 million under management. Its founding chairman, and current advisory board chair, Sir […]
Tech Moguls Bet on AltSchool to Transform Education
AltSchool has a big new vision for schools and now it has $100 million to roll it out. The financing comes from Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Andreesen Horowitz, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network and others, another sign of the surge of tech investors into education. Ed-Surge reported that $1.36 billion went into new ed-tech companies in […]
Making Nature Pay: Bankers Work to Finance Conservation at Scale
Restoring forests, wetlands and wildlife habitat is exciting. Leave it to the bankers to make financing such environmental projects downright boring. As climate concerns and other environmental anxieties mount, Wall Street and global bankers are hammering the complexities of conservation into the kind of mature, repeatable financial products bankers sell every day. That the payments […]
Eyes on the Horizon: Impact Report Shows $60 Billion in Assets, but Where’s the Growth?
The results are in from impact investing’s annual report, and while they show clear progress, they raise a serious question: why can’t impact fund managers put more capital to work, even after they’ve raised it? The headline number for the fifth annual report from the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and J.P. Morgan: global impact […]
Eyes on the Horizon: Impact Report Shows $60 Billion in Assets, but Where’s the Growth?
The results are in from impact investing’s annual report, and while they show clear progress, they raise a worrying question: why can’t impact fund managers put more capital to work, even after they’ve raised it? The headline number for the fifth annual report from the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and J.P. Morgan: global impact […]
Goldman’s Big Bet on Bitcoin (and Circle Internet Financial)
Think bitcoin is a trending fad? Banks and institutional investors don’t. Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital Partners announced a $50 million investment in Circle Internet Financial yesterday, one of the largest investments yet into the bitcoin space. That kind of interest may be why Richard Branson will be inviting an elite few to his island […]
The Women Effect in Independent Media: Tough Entrepreneurs in Tough Environments
(Editor’s note: The Women Effect in Independent Media series highlights women in media building commercially viable, independent, news businesses in environments hostile to the press. Released in recognition of World Press Freedom Day, ImpactAlpha and the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) will present the series in three parts. The first installment, published today, explores how Natasa Tesanovic’s radio […]
Natasa Tesanovic: Building a Radio Business to Help Rebuild Bosnia and Herzegovina
For the last two decades Natasa Tesanovic’s radio station has challenged a nation to face its violent past and reconcile issues that would otherwise tear it apart. Her independent media outfit has succeeded in a patriarchal society, accustomed to partisan news, for two main reasons: a well-run business and courageous, professional journalists—most of whom happen […]
Warby Parker Raises $100 Million for Bricks and Mortar Expansion
Neal Blumenthal, CEO of Warby Parker, has long said that calling the designer eyewear company an “e-commerce brand was too narrow a definition.” He demonstrated that this week, raising $100 million to expand the company’s physical locations. The financing valued the company at a cool $1.2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. The growth […]
Indian Jobs Marketplace Babajob Attracts Follow-On Funding
Babajob, an India-based, informal employment platform, has raised second-round funding from Seek Ltd., one of the largest global employment marketplaces. Babajob, founded in 2007, connects workers to jobs as delivery staff, office helpers, drivers, cooks, maids, security guards, and more. Seek, based in Australia, joins initial investors Khosla Impact and Gray Ghost Ventures, which invested in 2012. […]
USDA: Investments in Agriculture and Forestry Yield Climate Solutions
Farmland may be even more important than factories when it comes to finding solutions to climate change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, with public and private partners, last week announced actions to help the agriculture sector mitigate its carbon emissions and adapt to the long-term effects of climate change. The expected impact: a reduction of two […]
Here’s How to Take the First Steps Toward Impact Investing
Written by Don Shaffer of RSF Social Finance for ImpactAlpha. The movement toward investing in what’s good instead of just screening out what’s bad is growing, spurred by a new generation of investors. Millennials are questioning conventional systems and approaches across the board, from food to education to finance. That’s leading many to start aligning […]
ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace tie the knot
Editorial leadership and open data around impact investing go together like, well, ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace. And, in fact, our teams have been working together for more than a year to build out our complementary offerings. The time has come to go legit. We are very pleased to announce that ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace have officially merged as ImpactAlpha Inc., a for-profit […]
Bamboo Finance Raises $31 Million for “Next Generation” Microfinance
Bamboo Finance is doubling down on microfinance. Backed by a decade of experience and an appetite from mainstream investors, the private equity firm specializing in business models that benefit low-income communities announced a first close of $31 million for its Bamboo Financial Inclusion Fund II. The close attracted institutional investors including Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA-CREF) and AXA-IM. […]
Tending the Ocean, Not Just the Seafood: Valuing Ecosystem Services in New Zealand
The Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, also known as New Zealand. The Māori also are the owners of Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd., one of the country’s largest seafood companies and a major supplier of pāua, or abalone. That makes Aotearoa Fisheries an excellent candidate for a new approach […]
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