Featured: GP Profile

G is for growth after $1 billion raise for Lukas Walton-backed S2G Investments. Venture capital firms are placing increasingly large bets on pre-revenue startups. Infrastructure and private equity buyout funds are looking to take control of mature assets they can wring for cash flow. S2G Investments is charting a “third way.” To maximize both impact and returns, the firm is seeking to write large checks to profitable companies that still need capital to expand manufacturing, grow operations or pursue acquisitions. With its $1 billion Solutions Fund I, closed last month, S2G has the wherewithal to write those checks. The Chicago-based firm, founded by Walmart heir Lukas Walton with $100 million in 2014, now has $2.8 billion in assets under management. S2G – the moniker stands for “seed to growth” – typically take minority stakes of roughly $25 million to $100 million. “These companies often already have the impact,” S2G’s Sanjeev Krishnan tells ImpactAlpha. “They already have the customers. They already have the revenue. What they need is capital to scale.”

🟢 Live on Edge: Builders Vision

Dive deeper on ImpactAlpha Edge. You can see S2G Investments’ profile on Edge and explore ImpactAlpha’s coverage of the other funds backed by Builders Vision, including Mad Capital’s Perennial Fund II, Fractal’s Agriculture Regenerative Management Fund and Energize Capital’s Fund III.

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Dealflow: Future of Work

Achieve Partners backs Alchemy to fill the entry-level void. Artificial intelligence is rapidly eroding the entry-level jobs college graduates have long relied on to start their careers. Internships, an earlier entry point, are becoming an operational burden for businesses in the US. “Nearly all young Americans will require an apprenticeship or, at a minimum, an in-field, paid internship to successfully launch careers,” said Ryan Craig of Achieve Partners, which invests in workforce development and education solutions to drive economic mobility (see Achieve’s profile on ImpactAlpha Edge). Achieve is backing Charleston, SC-based Alchemy to handle recruiting, matching, supervision, payroll and compliance for internships so employers don’t have to. “We need intermediaries to do the heavy lifting of setting up and running these programs for employers,” Craig said. “Alchemy is the first company to crack the internship code for businesses, and we’re excited to help build the internship infrastructure America desperately needs.”

Signals: Impact LP

Canada’s Inspirit Foundation says its 100% impact portfolio outperforms benchmarks. A decade ago, the board of Toronto-based Inspirit Foundation committed 100% of its portfolio, in public and private holdings, to impact. In 10 Years Later, a report released today, the foundation says the bet has paid off. Inspirit says its fully impact-aligned, $33 million portfolio has outperformed a benchmark composed of traditional public and private market indexes over the past decade, despite experiencing greater volatility. "We made the commitment before we had a detailed plan to move forward, but we were very confident in our hypothesis," Jory Cohen, who has managed Inspirit's private investments in-house for the past decade, told ImpactAlpha. "Our hypothesis was that if we invested with the lens for impact, we'd increase the probabilities of higher returns, especially over the long term.”

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Joanna Reiss is moving on from Apollo Global Management after almost six years with the firm. She helped launch Apollo Impact Mission, the firm’s impact strategy (see, “Ownership, collinearity and KPIs: Apollo’s Impact strategy turns five”)… John Pion is stepping down as director of impact investments at Social Finance… Enduring Planet promotes Daim Ashraf and Ramsha Rizvi to vice president. The firm raised a $12 million second climate fund last week.