Impact Investing News

Full Harvest, in San Francisco, has raised $2 million to support online sales of “ugly” produce—the goods grocers consider unfit for supermarket sales. The funding round was led by Wireframe Ventures and backed by BBG Ventures, Early Impact Ventures, Impact Engine, VC Radicle, and several angel investors. Founder Christine Mosley, formerly with fresh juice company Organic […]

Vermont Works has raised $50 million for the state’s economic and job growth. Vermont Works is targeting the state’s growth-stage companies. “When companies are out for growth-stage capital, that’s when the availability of capital in Vermont tends to stumble,” Robert Zulkoski, a co-founder of thefund, said in an interview. The new fund has made four investments, […]

Generate Capital has launched a $250 million financing facility for solar+storage projects. The advent of cost-effective batteries for electricity storage is making the numbers work for an increasing number of commercial and industrial solar installations (see “Energy storage takes shape with financing for Southern California battery installations”). Also helpful: rebates for such projects from the state […]

The response to our call last week to ‘name your favorite impact investor’ demonstrated the breadth of the talent pool under the big tent of impact investing. Many respondents ducked the question because they couldn’t pick a single favorite; only a few nominees were named more than once. The responses spanned asset classes and geographies […]

Economic inequality creates social and political unrest. It also creates long-term systemic risk for investors. How can available investment strategies address inequities based on age, race, gender and geography? Learn about investing to address income inequality in a complimentary one-hour webinar on April 18th at noon ET. Hosted by Phil Kirshman, Cornerstone Capital’s investment chief, […]

The economic platform of the Movement for Black Lives includes demands for progressive tax policy, job creation, environmental restoration and the reallocation of federal, state and local budgets from incarceration to education, employment and restorative justice. The broad set of principles reimagines black communities’ relationship with land and economic development and argues for systemic policy […]

At last week’s Skoll World Forum in Oxford, England, the music icon doubled down on his diss of impact investing as an excuse “for good people to do bad deals” (see video). If we want to really have an impact, “we can’t be hippy-ish about this. This isn’t camp,” he said in an interview with […]

After a long march toward mainstream acceptance, many in impact investing are claiming victory. The industry is garnering attention at major publications like The Economist, and recently celebrated the emergence of a star-studded $2 billion fund. Meanwhile, studies have proliferated supporting the idea that you can earn market rate returns while making a meaningful difference in the […]

Good Finance, which guides charities and social enterprises through the social investment process, launches a new website today. This is the second phase of a year-long collaboration between key social investment sector partners including Big Society Capital, Access, DCMS, NCVO, Social Enterprise UK and Matter & Co. The project is the result of user-focused design […]

The Good Capital Project will convene for the first time this June in New York City. This new SOCAP initiative will bring together a cross-sector collection of experts, practitioners, industry leaders and other stakeholders to drive greater collaboration and accelerate capital flows into purpose driven investments. In the months leading up that event we will […]

A team of MBA students from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management that proposed a low-interest loan fund for India’s 400,000 low-fee private schools took first place in last week’s Kellogg Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge. Now in its seventh year, the tone at the finals in New York suggested the tide is shifting towards […]

RSF is a nonprofit financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. In service of their mission to educate, support and inspire the next generation of integrated capital practitioners and catalyze the flow of money to support healthy, regenerative economies in all communities, they have created the RSF Integrative Capital […]

The Ford Foundation, one of world’s largest charitable foundations, has announced that it will invest up to $1 billion of its $12 billion endowment in Mission Related Investments (MRIs). Billed by the New York based philanthropy as ‘the largest commitment of its kind by a private foundation’, its executives hope it ‘sends a signal to […]

Canadian nonprofit Convergence launched its long-awaited Investment Network this morning, promising to link private, public, and philanthropic investors with blended-finance opportunities in emerging markets. Making blended-finance deals happen isn’t easy, says Peter Stoute-King, the investment network’s managing director, but such deals are key to closing the $2.5 trillion annual gap in funding needed to achieve the […]

Carbon Tracker is a nonprofit financial think tank that aims to align global capital markets with the climate goals set out in the Paris agreement, limiting global warming by transitioning the world away from fossil fuels. The initiative’s work is based on a stark reality: To keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius and (hopefully) avoid the harshest […]

IndexAmericas, a new benchmark from the Inter-American Development Bank and S-Network, was released yesterday in Buenos Aires. Formally named the IDB-IIC Latin America Corporate Sustainability Index, it recognizes companies in Latin America and the Caribbean based on performance against 172 environmental, social and governance indicators selected by the IDB, including 15 specific to the region. […]

The IFC’s first “Social Bond” has raised $500 million for women-led companies and low-income communities. The issue was the first since International Finance Corp. merged its Banking on Women and Inclusive Business bond programs, which had raised a combined $564 million since 2013. The IFC, part of the World Bank, will use the latest proceeds to […]

Editor’s note: Throughout 2017, NextBillion is organizing content around a monthly theme, dedicating special attention to a specific sector alongside our broader coverage. This post is part of our focus on the environment for the month of March. Consumer demand is a force that changes the world. With each purchase, we shape and sometimes even revolutionize the world we live […]

It’s getting a little easier being green. Lloyds Bank’s Green Lending Initiative offers real estate owners lower-cost capital to make energy-efficiency upgrades. Bridges Ventures secured the first such discount for an existing loan. Lloyds is cutting Bridges’ interest rate by 0.2 percent in exchange for Bridges’ commitment to energy upgrades across its Flexspace chain of […]

Rising global demand for water and the decline in reliable supplies means higher prices. That should drive a growing market in water efficiency, as farms, cities and industry value their water properly. And as public policy does the same, conservation efforts that restore degraded watersheds should also become investable. That’s the argument in a new […]

Impact investing asset managers manage some $35.5 billion in assets, up 18 percent in the last two years. That may sound like a lot, but in a $70 trillion capital market, it’s a rounding error. Meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, for example, requires as much as $5 to $7 trillion each year in public […]

Toniic, a nonprofit global impact investor network, has launched T100, a groundbreaking new report on the state of impact investing. The report shows that 100% values alignment with capital is possible, investments can realize impact across all asset classes, and the range of impact investments is much wider than previously understood. Furthermore, T100 underscores the […]

MCE Social Capital (MCE), a nonprofit impact investing firm, was founded in 2006 on the belief that loan guarantees – an ancient finance mechanism – can uniquely unlock private sector capital for the more than 2 billion people in the world who lack access to formal financial services, and for the hundreds of thousands of […]

Andrew Kuper, CEO of Leapfrog Investments, has taken impact investors to task for not being ambitious enough about transformative social impact for hundreds of millions or billions of people (his talk at last month’s Economist conference is worth a look). Now, Leapfrog has reported its 2016 performance. The firm says its portfolio companies provide financial […]

SOCAP is excited to announce a new initiative, The Good Capital Project, launching June 19th, 2017 at an event in New York City. The Good Capital Project (GCP) is an integral step in evolving impact investment from an emerging industry into mainstream practice. Through a new design thinking process, we will convene all constituents to […]

HowGood has raised $4.2 million for sustainable retail ratings. The Brooklyn-based startup offers consumers a sustainability and responsibility guide for 200,000 food, drink, personal care items and home goods. HowGood’s data on environmental, health and trade impacts includes packaging chemicals and labor practices. A rating is available with a mobile barcode scan. The Series A […]

Traditionally, foundations have kept their investment sides separate from their giving sides. In 2012 the F.B. Heron Foundation set a goal to invest 100 percent of the foundation’s $250 million in assets to fight poverty by the end of 2017. CEO Clara Miller says Heron hit its target last year and “became one staff, working […]

Every day is International Women’s Day in impact investing. Solutions in every domain, from climate to food to education to broad economic inclusion, depend on women’s leadership and equal participation. The remarkable progress of women over the last century sets up a truly huge opportunity in this century to drive progress for all. Women’s leadership […]

International Women’s Day is over. The International Year of Mansplaining continues. Sad! The Brief Quiz can bring us together. Let’s see where your Impact IQ got you this week. Get ImpactAlpha’s daily newsletter, The Brief. 1. Together with BNP Paribas, the World Bank issued its first Sustainable Development Goals-linked bond. How is it different from green […]