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Greetings Agents of Impact! In today’s Brief: Featured: Impact LP Rey Ramsey on moving from false choices to authentic leadership for AI and …
Rey Ramsey on moving from false choices to authentic leadership for AI and impact investing (podcast). Rey Ramsey has spent his career refusing the options he's been handed. Instead, he's expanded the range of available choices – in housing, technology, philanthropy and now, impact investing, as president of the $483 million Nathan Cummings Foundation. In his latest book, "The tyranny of false choices,” Ramsey plays out his underlying logic: that the either/or framing that dominates public debate, and private decision-making, is manufactured, agenda-laden and often worth rejecting in favor of what he calls "authentic decision making". The operative words, he says, "and what I say is an antidote to making these inauthentic and false choices, is liberation of thought. Liberate your thought from all the biases [and] the algorithms, which are feeding you what you already believe.” Ramsey joins David Bank on the latest Agents of Impact podcast to talk about his book, AI governance, and the political pressures facing foundations today. Nathan Cummings has continued to describe its mission as advancing racial, economic and environmental justice, while ensuring its practices comply with nonprofit and civil rights law. “Let's continue to do the right thing,” he says. “If we're doing proper diligence and analysis with our work, why would we have anything to be worried about?”
Gaussion lands $28 million to speed battery charging and boost performance. Batteries are a vital commodity powering everything from electric vehicles to drones and satellites. But as anyone with a smartphone knows, batteries have a limited life and degrade over time. London-based Gaussion spun out of the University College London in 2022 to advance its magnetic technology that makes lithium batteries charge faster while prolonging their useful life. Gaussion raised £21 million ($28 million) in a round led by UK-based investors AlbionVC and BGF. US-based deep tech investor Future Ventures, mobility-focused Autotech Ventures, the UCL Technology Fund, and DN Capital participated. “The battery decides whether the giant computers behind AI can keep running, whether a drone can stay in the sky, and whether a satellite survives out in space,” said Gaussion’s Tom Heenan. “Every battery faces a physics ceiling, and we move that ceiling.”
Building the toolkit for impact-first investing. A resurgence in impact-first investing means more investors are thinking about how and where their capital can be most purposeful. It can also be lonely, uncharted work. An interactive tool for the impact-first curious aims to reduce the guesswork. The aptly-named "impact-first finance tool" from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and the Social Finance Institute allows investors to simulate different portfolio allocations to better understand how they affect financial and impact returns. It attempts to "turn an abstract guessing game into economic scenario modeling," explain Chicago Booth's Robert Gertner and Social Finance's Tracy Palandjian in a guest post. "If there is an investible solution to a given challenge, then what is the effect of moving some capital into that solution?" A foundation that shifted even 10% of its $100 million endowment to impact-first investments, for example, would deliver greater overall impact than a traditional grants-plus-investments strategy. "The IFI tool can help make conversations about impact and return clearer," the authors write, and chart "whether the right type of capital is being used."
Enterprise Community Partners promotes Ayonna Blue Donald to vice president and market leader for the Midwest region… Pymwymic welcomes Josep Segarra, previously with SG Advisory, as an investment manager… GLIN Impact adds Yutaka Ishikawa, formerly with McKinsey & Co., as an associate… Olivia Matta, a USC Marshall School of Business MBA student, will join Supply Change Capital as a summer fellow.
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Rey Ramsey has spent his career refusing the options he’s been handed. Instead, he’s expanded the range of available choices, in housing, technology, …
Host Joy Anderson welcomes her brother, the philosopher Joel Anderson, to discuss how AI is changing the way we work. While AI can …
A growing chorus of stakeholders is calling for “broad-based ownership” of AI. But what does that mean in practice? And what would move …
Recently, Alphabet announced the ubiquitous Google search bar will be completely powered by artificial intelligence. This comes as the parent company of Google …
Detroit, Mich. – Detroit is shedding its underdog stance for a more inclusive pitch: the Motor City as an AI-era launchpad where tech innovation …
African startups are joining the AI race, on their own terms. From Nairobi to Lagos to Johannesburg, local entrepreneurs are building on open …
No rule or regulator required Anthropic to pause the release of its new Mythos model. The San Francisco-based AI company voluntarily limited its …
Refiant AI’s plan for curbing AI data centers’ surging energy demands isn’t more energy production, it’s shrinking AI models’ energy needs. The US …
“AI is more suited to ‘move slow to move fast’ than ‘move fast and break things’.“ A New York-based partner at a billion-dollar-plus …
Inside the big business of impact investing.
Rey Ramsey has spent his career refusing the options he’s been handed. Instead, he’s expanded the range of available choices, in housing, technology, …
Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor Jessica Pothering. Up this week: How a new playbook for shared prosperity is …
You could forgive foundations for nervously watching the stock market as a tech sell-off gained traction this week. The unlikely focus of their …
Three years ago, the Canadian government set aside $755 million to jumpstart the country’s social finance market (see, “Canada’s Social Finance Fund aims …
Private equity fundraising and deals are still in a slump and valuations are under pressure. But at the annual SuperReturn conference in Berlin, …
Plastics are so 1950s. “Everyone’s coming to the idea that we need to rethink the traditional polymer and plastic economy, which developed in …
With their supply chains, their manufacturing and their operations, family business leaders in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and other economic hubs in Asia …
Venture capital firms are placing increasingly large bets on pre-revenue startups. Infrastructure and private equity buyout funds are looking to take control of …
A decade ago, the board of Toronto-based Inspirit Foundation committed 100% of its portfolio, in public and private holdings, to impact. In 10 …
Provocative opinions and insightful analysis from the community
For decades, philanthropic investors have largely used two wallets for their capital: grants to support social causes, and investments designed to generate market-rate …
The old model for global health – whether you loved it, hated it, or both – is over. Full stop. As foreign aid …
For decades, millions of American families, disproportionately Black, Latino and immigrant households, have been locked out of homeownership — not just because they …
When we announced in August 2024 that Colorful Capital would stop our forward progress, we said almost nothing publicly, declining comment. We didn’t …
Africa is a compelling investment destination with a young population, vast natural resources, and fast-growing consumer markets. But investors often don’t engage. Ask …
Diasporan remittances to Nigeria are at an all-time high, an impressive feat, and an important one in the context of drastic cuts to …
For years, the climate investment conversation was framed around the energy transition. That was the right framing for a long time. It helped …
The US is facing a reproductive and maternal health crisis that practitioners on the ground navigate daily. As CEO of Rhia Ventures, I …
A senior partner at a mid-market private equity firm recently told me they had stopped reading the ESG sections of their portfolio companies’ …
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