ImpactAlpha

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 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. […]