The Week in impact investing: Relative impunity 

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

☎️ Next week’s Call: The surprising resurgence of impact-first investing. What does it take to seek the highest risk-adjusted impact possible, rather than the highest risk-adjusted financial returns? Trimtab Impact’s Caleb Ballou, Ceniarth’s Greg Neichin, Spring Point Partners’ Margot Kane and A to Z Impact’s Alex Evangelides and other Agents of Impact will explore strategies for outperformance – on impact, Thursday, Oct. 23, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.

In today’s Brief:

• Roundup: Exercising the freedom to invest
• Podcast: David Bank, Lucy Ngige and Brian Walsh on This Week in Impact
• Spotlight: Katapult Ocean’s dive into the blue economy

🗣Freedom economy. Another day, another billionaire bending the knee to President Donald Trump. More unusual than Salesforce’s Marc Benioff welcoming National Guard troops to San Francisco, however, was the semi-public pushback that Benioff received from fellow tech billionaire Ron Conway, an early backer of Google and PayPal. In an email to Benioff, Conway resigned from the board of the Salesforce Foundation, decried Benioff’s call for “an unwanted invasion” and criticized his “willful ignorance and detachment” from the impacts of ICE immigration raids. “I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired,” Conway lamented.

Conway, of course, has always felt free to speak his mind. But compared to, say, major universities or law firms, wealthy individuals and private investors enjoy relative impunity to pursue their own strategies and set their own objectives, as Adasina Social Capital’s Rachel Robasciotti, a founder of Freedom Economy, presciently advised on an Agents of Impact Call last year. They can choose, for example, to put their capital fully at risk, without tax breaks, for low single-digit returns, in pursuit of the highest possible impact, rather than the highest financial returns. That’s the “unapologetically impact-first” pitch that Trimtab Impact, an impact holding company and public benefit corporation, makes to wealthy families, as I reported this week. Trimtab investor Steven Bonsey told me he’s surprised how many of his peers insist on “market-rate” returns for their impact investments. “What on earth for?”

LP, as we have said, could stand for “leadership potential” as well as “limited partner.” As Trimtab’s Caleb Ballou writes, “We need trust, community, courage – and we need it from asset owners, because asset managers are struggling to get there fast enough on their own” (hear more from Ballou on next week’s Agents of Impact Call). Shahzad Memon of APG, which manages the assets of the Dutch pension fund APB, made the point at the GIIN Impact Forum in Berlin last week, as Dennis Price and Lucy Ngige reported. “We take our marching orders” from the pension fund, Memon said, “and they want us to actively go and invest in impact.” Roodgally Senatus spoke with real estate developer Jonathan Rose, who is pursuing his values as well as returns in projects such as Sendero Verde in New York City’s East Harlem. “For me, the building of communities and the building of affordable housing – those are the vehicles to achieve the goals of racial justice, social equity and healing the environment,” Rose said.

Such investments are not political in the narrow sense. But they do reflect a growing desire to invest in shared prosperity and reduce toxic and artificial divisions, as ImpactAlpha’s team has sensed on our fall tour, which next week takes us to Aspen Ideas: Economy in Newark, Opportunity Finance Network in Washington, DC, and then to San Francisco for SOCAP25. “If you’re wringing your hands and upset about all the ways that Trump is looking to gut clean energy, CDFIs, affordable housing, and you haven’t doubled down in your investments – stop complaining,” Candide’s Morgan Simon said. “If you’ve been wondering when was the time to step up, here we are.” Financial advisors can use AI to help clients do so, CapShift’s Adam Rein wrote for ImpactAlpha’s Advisors’ Corner. Multidimensional, AI-driven “purpose mapping” can help clients “move beyond basic risk/return/liquidity to understand specific issues, communities and legacy,” he said. It still takes human courage, however, to assert the freedom to invest. – David Bank

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank and reporter Lucy Ngige. Up this week: How a unique structure allows Trimtab Impact to bring impact-first investing to wealthy families; the “community of opportunity” that is emerging at Sendero Verde affordable housing development in East Harlem; and a vibe check from this year’s GIIN Impact Forum in Berlin.

• Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

The Week’s Deal Spotlight

With a new cohort, Katapult Ocean dives deeper into the ‘blue economy.’ “Life below water,” Sustainable Development Goal No. 14, has for a decade been one of the most underinvested SDGs. This year, there’s a notable uptick in marine projects, deals and funds, according to Tharald Nustad of the Oslo-based Katapult Group. From a handful of ocean impact funds a decade ago, there are now dozens – including Katapult Ocean, an accelerator and VC investor in tech startups improving ocean and marine ecosystem health that Nustad launched in 2018. From Oslo, Singapore and Cape Town, the firm has supported more than 90 startups in Europe, Asia and Africa with seed investments and hands-on support. Its eighth cohort includes 13 companies, including US-based Soarce, which makes nanofibers from seaweed for use in industrial materials. Abu Dhabi-based Archireef manufactures clay tiles to support coral reef restoration. Tanzania’s Healthy Seaweed Co. produces seaweed-based foods and additives. The group is Katapult Ocean’s most technically advanced and commercially mature, Nustad said. “We’re building the market.”

• Blue finance. Sources of capital for startups and projects in the “blue economy” are growing and diversifying. Katapult Ocean last month teamed up with Singapore-based Octave Capital, the in-house impact fund of Tsao Pao Chee Group, on a $75 million Asia-focused ocean fund. T. Rowe Price and the International Finance Corp. raised $200 million for a new Emerging Markets Blue Economy Bond Strategy to invest in corporate bonds supporting water security and marine conservation. In August, Norway-based Bluefront Equity closed its second sustainable seafood fund at $100 million. Other investment vehicles include Pegasus Capital’s Global Fund for Coral Reefs and UBS and Rockefeller Asset Management’s Ocean Engagement Fund.
  
• Financial products. Katapult’s report, “Making waves in the regenerative and sustainable ocean economy,” produced with Lukas Walton’s Builders Vision, details dozens of ventures, funds and investment vehicles for ocean-oriented investors. Builders Vision’s ocean portfolio includes startups like Bahamas-based coral farm Coral Vita, funds like Bluefront Equity’s, and a “debt for nature” swap to support marine conservation in the Bahamas. “There are a lot of opportunities that are just win-win,” Nustad said.
  
• Share this post, and catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting. 

The Week’s Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share more than a dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.

Impact Capital Managers recruited Ellie Rodgers, formerly with 60 Decibels, as senior manager of impact management and research… Clean Energy Ventures welcomed four new university fellows: Harvard Business School’s Elinore Beitler and Sankalp Shanker, Boston University’s Naved Anwar, and MIT’s Sofia Karagianni… Collide Capital added Stephanie Simon, previously with Practical Venture Capital, as director of platform, and Andrew Peng, formerly with Alpaca VC, as a principal.

SVX welcomed Mizan Hemani, former investment analyst at Boann Social Impact, as an advisory services analyst; Salina Tellis, previously with National Bank Financial, as an advisory analyst intern; and Sophia White as a funds and communications intern… Enterprise Community Partners tapped Janis Bowdler, former counselor for racial equity at the US Department of the Treasury, as president of solutions… Align Impact co-founder Jennifer Kenning stepped down and Matthew Weatherly-White stepped up as CEO… Community Vision added Anita Kumar of the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative to its board of directors. 

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– Oct. 17, 2025