The Brief: Building an inclusive market for ‘entrepreneurship through acquisition’

Greetings Agents of Impact!

🔌 PluggedIn: Building inclusive markets for clean energy with Harrison Wallace. On the next PluggedIn, host Sherrell Dorsey will speak with Harrison Wallace of the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund about strategies for equitable climate investing. Plug in Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP now.

In today’s Brief:

• Building an inclusive market for ‘entrepreneurship through acquisition’ 
• An employee-owner shares how an ESOP changed her life
• Delivering better Medicaid services
• Corporate executives quietly push ahead on diversity

Featured: Ownership Economy

Broadening opportunity in the fast-growing market for ‘entrepreneurship through acquisition.’ One of the quickest paths to entrepreneurship is to acquire an existing business. An ecosystem is rising around the idea, known as “entrepreneurship through acquisition,” or ETA, to help would-be entrepreneurs source, vet, purchase and manage businesses. Search funds, an investor-backed model that enables entrepreneurs to gain up to a 30% stake, have surged in popularity. More than 700 search funds have launched globally since they were started at Stanford University in the 1980s. Fueled by a wave of retiring business owners, some $682 million in ETA capital has been deployed in the US and Canada between 2022 and 2023 alone. But too often, ETAs benefit the well-connected few: just 17% of search fund entrepreneurs in 2023 were women and only 8% identified as Black. “ETA is a fast-growing, under-the-radar investment opportunity that a lot of us have our eye on,” says Julie Menter of Transform Finance, which is out with a guide for investors seeking to add an impact lens to the ETA market. “As it scales, it really matters for investors to think about their roles in shaping what it becomes.”

• Impact lens. “Social ETAs,” Transform Finance argues, broaden access to diverse entrepreneurs, grow employee ownership, embed better practices and anchor businesses in communities. Village Search Partners is among the first search funds to focus on female entrepreneurs. It also offers a support community of female operators, executives and mentors. In Canada, Regenerative Capital Group also takes a gender-lens approach to ETAs and also focuses on shared business ownership and environmental stewardship. Boston’s ten-year old Search Fund Accelerator trains and supports diverse cohorts of entrepreneurs to become equity-owning CEOs.
  
• Generational opportunity. New Majority Capital, based in Rhode Island, trains, finances and provides back-office support to underrepresented founders to acquire businesses (see, “Through small business acquisitions, New Majority aims to create ownership access for underrepresented entrepreneurs”). Capital to meet demand remains a challenge. New Majority, which has raised from the Skoll and Philadelphia foundations, has scaled back the target size of its private equity fund from $50 million to $15 million. With the surge in retiring business owners, New Majority’s Havell Rodrigues told ImpactAlpha last year that “this is a one-time opportunity to take an existing, good cash flow-generating business, treat it as an asset, and help transition ownership of that asset to an underrepresented entrepreneur.”
  
• Keep reading, “Broadening opportunity in the fast-growing market for ‘entrepreneurship through acquisition,” by Roodgally Senatus.

This Labor Day, let’s give more workers stakes in the companies they help build. Laura Delgado’s first job was as a low-wage fast food worker. “When I got pregnant with my son, there was no paid maternity leave, forcing me to rely on family members to scrape by,” she recalls in a personal essay on ImpactAlpha. When a friend told Delgado a job had opened up as a packer at the employee-owned aircraft parts supplier where the friend worked, Delgado jumped at the opportunity. Through participation in Proponent’s employee stock ownership program, or ESOP, she found stability, financial security and a sense of purpose. 

• Employee-owner. Over the years, Delgado’s ESOP statements have grown into meaningful wealth, allowing her to support her son, advance her career to supervisor, and plan confidently for the future. Delgado is expecting her second child at the end of the year. “When I pause to think just how different my life and future are as an employee-owner compared to my first pregnancy when I was a fast-food worker, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” she writes. Delgado calls for this Labor Day to be about more than symbolic gestures. “As we honor workers, let’s commit to sharing with them more of the wealth they help create.”
   
• Read her full post.

Dealflow: Investing in Health

Nest Health raises $12.5 million to expand healthcare access for vulnerable families in the US. As secretary of Louisiana’s health department from 2016 to 2020, Rebekah Gee led the expansion of Medicaid to bring coverage to more than 500,000 low-income Louisianans. (Some 1.4 million Louisianans rely on it today.) With many of those benefits at risk, Gee is now tackling nationwide healthcare vulnerability from her perch as founder of Nest Health. The New Orleans-based company partners with health insurers that have Medicaid contracts with state governments to offer in-home and virtual care for families. It offers primary, maternal and mental healthcare; social services, like help securing housing and utilities; and helps families navigate Medicaid enrollment to reduce churn. “The health of children and families in the US lags behind our peer countries,” Gee told ImpactAlpha. “Our family-based model meets people where they are with radical accessibility, bringing comprehensive care into the home for the whole family.” Nest’s focus is preventative care. “Early intervention is critical to improving generational health outcomes,” said Gee.

• Value-based care. Nest secured Series A equity funding from 8VC, Blue Venture Fund,  Amboy Street Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Health 2047 and others. The funding will support the expansion of its insurer partnerships in Louisiana, Arizona and other states. With AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana, Nest says it has lowered costs for the insurer by reducing emergency room visits and doubling vaccination rates. Such partnerships, said Gee, have “demonstrated measurable improvements in preventive care, vaccination rates, postpartum follow-up, and overall family health.”
  
• Gift this post. 

Investors tackle financial inclusion in India through micro-business credit, green loans and mortgages. It’s been a busy week for impact investors committed to financial inclusion in India. A new credit fund launched to help small businesses finance green upgrades. And two companies are expanding into harder-to-reach and informal communities with business and home loans. First up: Hyderabad-based CredRight secured $10 million in Series B equity to extend lending services to India’s smallest business owners in mid-sized towns and small cities. The company already has a customer base of more than 20,000 micro-business owners. Its app allows business owners to apply for a collateral-free loan from anywhere, but it also runs a network of more than 100 branches. The funding round will support its growth in cities with 10,000 to 50,000 residents. Abler Nordic, a public-private impact fund manager that focuses on financial inclusion, led the investment round. The Dell Foundation and Unleash Capital also participated.

• Access to credit. Private credit fund manager Avana Companies secured a license to begin green lending for small businesses in India, including clean energy upgrades. The Arizona-based firm made its first $1.5 million in loans through its LendThrive Finance group and plans to grow the business line to $25 million over three years. Separately, Pune-based Altum Credo secured new equity financing from British International Investment. Altum Credo provides home construction loans and mortgages to India’s first-time home buyers, focusing primarily on lower-income households and women borrowers in small cities and towns.
  
• Check it out.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

• Macquarie Asset Management raised $405 million for Vertelo, a business it launched in India last year to help fleet owners switch to electric vehicles. The funding round includes $200 million in concessional capital from the Green Climate Fund. Macquarie Green Energy Transition Solutions Fund, Allianz Global Investors, and pension fund manager Australian Ethical also invested. (Macquarie Asset Management)
  
• Finnfund provided $4 million in debt to Poa Internet to deliver affordable broadband access to under-connected communities in Kenya. (Finnfund)
  
• Boston-based Eyebot raised a $20 million Series A equity round for its vision test kiosks that can be set up in malls, grocery stores and on university campuses to make vision screening more accessible. The round was backed by General Catalyst, AlleyCorp, Baukunst, Village Global and Ubiquity Ventures. (Eyebot)

Impact Voices: Inclusive Economy

Workplace diversity still drives outperformance – and executives know it. Corporate America may be rebranding DEI, but it’s not retreating. That’s according to analysis from Whistle Stop Capital’s Jaylen Spann and As You Sow’s Olivia Knight, who find that what may look like a “rolling back” of diversity programs may be a natural maturation of strategies. As You Sow and Whistle Stop have tracked corporate diversity data and racial equity actions since 2019 and analyzed disclosures from 3,000 public companies They find a strong correlation between management diversity and financial outperformance. “Company leaders have told us that they continue to invest in diverse talent pipelines and inclusive workplace systems because they recognize the value it brings to their ability to grow, innovate and attract the best talent,” write Spann and Knight in a guest post. While public DEI announcements are down 13% since 2024, the decrease has more to do with diversity programs being folded into broader HR functions, they say. “Corporate leadership teams are changing their approaches as they learn what was effective and what was not in the earlier years of their programs.”

• Shareholder engagement. Investors are providing a clear diversity mandate. At Apple, Costco, John Deere and other publicly traded companies, shareholder resolutions to dismantle DEI programs have been rejected by more than 98% of voters (see, “From Tesla to Target, shareholders and customers stake out the business case for diversity and inclusion”). While there may be political reasons to de-emphasize diversity – at least publicly – “political bullying does not remove the underlying, long-term benefits of having skilled, innovative, loyal and collaborative employees,” write Spann and Knight. “DEI isn’t disappearing so much as shedding its activist origins to become another tool in the corporate toolkit.”
  
• Keep reading, “Workplace diversity still drives outperformance – and executives know it,” by Jaylen Spann and Olivia Knight.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Impact Capital Managers promotes Garrett Jaso to communications and policy director… Kate Cochran and Cody Sims join Anderson Venture Impact Partners as instructors… Aurum Impact welcomes Lucia Buser as an impact investing intern… Banyan Infrastructure adds Rob Glen, previously with Acanthus Climate Ventures, as senior director of business development for funds and developers.

Colorado Health Foundation is recruiting a senior officer of impact investing… Legal & General seeks a head of strategic asset allocation… Builders Vision has an opening for a data and applications manager in Chicago… Accion Impact Management is on the hunt for a senior ESG and risk associate… The NFL seeks a UK-based social impact manager.

👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

Thank you for your impact!

– Aug. 28, 2025