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☎️ The 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? A growing number of wealthy family offices are adopting impact-first investment strategies, with all the complexity that entails. Trimtab Impact’s Caleb Ballou, Spring Point Partners’ Margot Kane, Ceniarth’s Greg Neichin, A to Z Impact’s Alex Evangelides and other Agents of Impact will explore strategies for outperformance – on impact, this Thursday, Oct. 23, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.
In today’s Brief:
- At the World Bank, climate is out and youth jobs are in
- Designing EV motors without rare earth minerals
- Another run at affordable housing in Silicon Valley
- UN Development Programme pivots to systems change
Featured: Investing in Youth
Jobs, jobs, jobs: At the World Bank, Ajay Banga confronts youth uprisings around the globe. Climate change and gender issues are taking a back seat at the World Bank, in favor of an economic agenda spurred by a global youth uprising that is shaking governments from Nepal to Madagascar to Peru. The new talking points were on display at last week’s World Bank meetings in Washington, DC, which took place among shut down federal buildings. Protesters mostly stayed away, perhaps saving their energy for the US’s own “No Kings” demonstrations. “The energy of these young people to me, that’s what will define this century,” World Bank president Ajay Banga told a gathering of civil society organizations at the start of the meetings. “If we match it with the right investments, I think we can unlock a tremendous engine of growth.” Failing to act, he added, “will fuel instability, fuel unrest and fuel mass migration.”
- Political pressure. The subtext to the World Bank’s shift is a US administration that is aggressively imposing its agenda on global as well as domestic institutions. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent decried “mission creep” at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Last week, he told the bank to eliminate its 2023 goal of directing 45% of its funding to climate projects. The US is also pushing for a “full energy mix” that includes fossil fuels and nuclear power. With climate action out of favor with the Trump administration, Banga may be trying to slip financing for climate projects into emerging markets as an engine of employment. “It’s just jobs, jobs, jobs,” said one participant. Banga singled out agriculture as a key sector that can create jobs as well as food security. The bank announced its AgriConnect initiative to boost the livelihoods of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers. Banga also said the bank would double its funding for agribusinesses to $9 billion a year by 2030 and mobilize $5 billion from other funders.
- Gen Z revolt. Banga’s comments came as youth uprisings are sweeping the globe, fueled by frustration with economic inequality, water and energy shortages, corruption, and a sense that aging leaders are out of touch with the needs of today’s youth. An anime-style Jolly Roger pirate flag from the “One Piece” series of comic books has become the unofficial banner across national boundaries. Weeks of Gen Z protests in Madagascar led last week to the toppling of the country’s president, Andry Rajoelina, in a military coup. Youth protests led to the resignation of Nepal’s prime minister in September. Banga’s focus on jobs was mostly well received. “Whether through energy, culture and music, or investing in job-creating industries resilient to AI, there seemed to be something that resonated with everyone,” Michael Sheldrick of Global Citizen told ImpactAlpha. “The bank’s climate and gender work is still ongoing and underway,” added one practitioner, albeit in a quieter way. As French development minister Eleonore Caroit put it, “It has to be jobs on a livable planet. Otherwise, why even think of jobs?”
- Keep reading, “Jobs, jobs, jobs: At the World Bank, Ajay Banga faces youth uprisings around the globe,” by Amy Cortese.
Dealflow: Low-Carbon Transition
Chara Technologies raises $6 million for ‘rare-earth free’ EV motors. The Bangalore-based company is one of a number of deep tech companies redesigning motors to avoid the need for rare-earth magnets. Most vehicles and heavy machinery today, including electric vehicles and renewable energy systems, are produced with ultra-powerful magnets made from so-called “rare earth” elements. Mining them can be environmentally harmful, and the global supply is dominated by China. Chara has designed about a half-dozen “synchronous reluctance motors” without rare-earth magnets that have the potential to be high-efficiency and lower cost. Its designs work in two-, three- and four-wheel EVs. The company’s Series A round was backed by Arkam Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners and IIMA Ventures. Kalaari Capital, a Chara seed investor, reupped in the new round.
- Indian motor makers. Chara says its motors have a 30% lower carbon footprint than motors that use rare-earth magnets. They can also be up to 50% more energy efficient and 40% cheaper. With the Indian government’s push for EV adoption, and a surge of automakers jumping into EV manufacturing, Chara is racing competitors like ABB India, Ola Electric, Simple Energy and Sterling Gtake to design more sustainable and cost-efficient motors.
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Silicon Valley investors back $200 million fund for affordable housing in the Bay Area. The Building Impact Initiative fund will offer developers loans to create and preserve 7,400 affordable homes in 14 counties in the greater San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento areas over 10 years. More than a dozen investors, many with headquarters in the area, have committed to the fund, including Apple, Wells Fargo, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, and the Packard, Silicon Valley Community, Grove and San Francisco foundations. Housing Trust Silicon Valley, a community development finance institution, is managing the fund. Tech giants including Apple, Google and Amazon pledged billions of dollars five years ago to spur affordable housing in their backyards, but many of those projects have been slow to materialize.
- Transit-oriented development. Affordable housing developers in the Bay Area have struggled to build new units due to strict zoning regulations and lengthy permitting processes. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have driven up the cost of construction materials like steel and lumber. Building Impact Initiative will focus on transit-oriented housing near employment hubs and support developers building environmentally sustainable housing.
- Catalytic capital. Housing Trust has invested more than $690 million since 2000 to create close to 30,000 homes for working families, seniors and people with special needs in the Bay Area. The CDFI says its low-interest loans have helped developers leverage $9 billion in additional capital. Housing Trust has also provided over $64 million in downpayment assistance loans to low- and moderate-income homebuyers in the region.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- University of Oxford spinout Wild Bioscience closed a €51 million ($59.5 million) Series A round to use AI to guide climate-resilient crop breeding. It was backed by the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford Science Enterprises, Braavos Capital and the University of Oxford. (Tech Funding News)
- Dallas-based Triplemoon raised $3.5 million to work with pediatric care providers, including those that accept Medicaid, to embed children’s mental health services into their practices. (Dallas Innovates)
- Bangalore-based Pidilite Ventures raised $4 million for its line of math and science-based children’s toys. (YourStory)
- Airbound, also based in Bangalore, raised $8.7 million for its unmanned delivery drones. The company is testing its drones with healthcare provider Narayana Health to deliver medical tests, diagnostics and supplies to places lacking adequate logistics infrastructure. (Airbound)
- Sonic Fire Tech in Cleveland, Ohio, raised $3.5 million from Khosla Ventures, Third Sphere, AirAngels and a group of angel investors to experiment with using sound in wildfire prevention. (Sonic Fire Tech)
Signals: Sustainable Development
UNDP seeks to do more with less as SDG progress lags. The decade since the adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals has seen meaningful progress in health, energy access and digital inclusion. HIV infections have fallen nearly 40%. Electricity now reaches 92% of people globally. Internet connectivity has doubled to 68%. Those gains are the exceptions. With five years to go, the world is far off track to meet the SDGs. Just 18% of the 169 targets are on pace; an equal number have slid backward since 2015. Nearly half show insufficient progress. The UN Development Programme’s core funding is also down by 40%, from $967 million in 2010 to $581 million last year. The funding crunch is projected to continue under the Trump administration, which has proposed cutting most US voluntary contributions to UN agencies in its 2026 budget request. The UNDP is being forced to rethink how to sustain impact with less flexible resources. “We’re less [focused] around the transactions and more around the systemic change that we need to put in place,” says Tom Beloe, who took the helm of UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub last year.
- Rewiring systems. The UNDP is focusing on the plumbing. It’s rewiring how finance ministries, central banks, corporations and investors allocate capital by changing existing budgets or building platforms that pull bigger pools of capital into sustainable deals. In Thailand, UNDP worked with the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission to force alignment between its $559 billion stock exchange and SDG targets through a new sustainability reporting regime. In Bangladesh, climate budgeting baked into national accounts unlocked $1.4 billion from the International Monetary Fund. In India’s Haryana state, UNDP supported budget tools that earmark about $3 billion annually for SDG-related programs. And in Cabo Verde, an open-data portal now tracks budgets, revenues and debt against SDG targets. Between 2022 and 2024, the agency helped steer $870 billion toward projects that advance the SDGs, according to a recent report.
- Digital transformation. UNDP’s action plan makes digital and AI transformation one of three focus areas, alongside sustainable finance and gender equality. Through its DigitalX initiative, UNDP helped roll out nonprofit GiveDirectly’s MobileAid program in Bangladesh, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The system mines mobile phone data to pinpoint vulnerable households and routes direct cash transfers their way. The model, first stress-tested in Togo, is proving that machine learning can stretch thin social safety nets. The agency’s Digital Cooperation Fund pools international funding for cross-border work on AI governance, digital rights and shared infrastructure. The SDG AI Lab builds reusable AI tools that governments can deploy off-the-shelf, cutting development costs and building capacity to work with tech companies.
- Keep reading, “UNDP seeks to do more with less as SDG progress lags,” by Erik Stein.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Amy Skoczlas Cole is named director of NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business. She will replace founding director Tensie Whelan, who is stepping down at the end of the year… Oakland Thrive welcomes Camille Walker Banks, formerly with BUILD Institute, as CEO… Suma Capital taps Nicolo Balice, previously with Ancala Partners, as an investment director… Watchen Harris Bruce, Baltimore Community Lending’s president and CEO, will retire at the beginning of 2026. The CDFI is looking for a replacement.
Reinvestment Fund has an opening for a credit officer in Philadelphia… EY is recruiting a senior manager of climate risk modeling in Houston… Rabobank is on the hunt for an assistant portfolio manager in New York… Aurum Impact is looking for an impact investing associate and analyst in Munich… Visa seeks an Europe-focused social impact and sustainability director.
At the Opportunity Finance Network’s conference this week, Pacific Community Ventures will host a roundtable discussion on its acquisition of Radiant Data to bring AI tools to CDFIs and mission-driven investors (see, “PCV acquires Radiant Data to bring equitable AI to mission-based lending”).
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Oct. 20, 2025
