The Brief

The Brief: Shaping the algorithm for ‘good AI’

ImpactAlpha · February 17, 2026

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • LPs and GPs investing in “good AI” 
  • Financing renewable energy in Europe
  • Goldman Sachs Alternatives invests in healthy youth
  • Working capital for an enduring planet (podcast)

Investing across the technology stack to orchestrate ‘good AI.’ Deploying AI for good is nice, but not enough. Impact investors and others are mobilizing capital to build “good AI” into the technology itself. This month’s sudden acceleration in public awareness of the impending AI disruptions to work, careers, stock markets and much more has added urgency to investors’ efforts to shape the entire “stack” underlying artificial intelligence. Call it “impact in the loop.” “The question for investors right now is whether we will fund an AI economy designed merely to maximize profits for a few, or one built to reinforce human ingenuity, agency, creativity and the public good,” says Katy Knight of Siegel Family Endowment, a New York-based foundation with more than $500 million in assets. Siegel backs organizations shaping the impact of technology on society and is supporting ImpactAlpha’s beat coverage of good AI, Shaping the Algorithm. “Good AI isn’t just a set of principles,” Knight tells ImpactAlpha. “It requires capital, infrastructure and governance that ensure people and communities have real power in how these systems shape their lives.” Knight will join tomorrow’s Agents of Impact Call to sketch out emerging investment strategies for AI infrastructure that is optimized for public benefit and positive social outcomes (there’s still time to RSVP!).

  • Investing in infrastructure. The India AI Impact Summit, happening this week in New Delhi, is a showcase for the market demand for more responsible, ethical and impactful AI. It isn’t about investing with AI, but “investing in the AI stack itself,” says Paul Fehlinger of Project Liberty Institute, who will also join the Call. Most obvious is AI safety, which includes assurance, guardrails and governance. Beneath that is a complex layer of “orchestration,” the central nervous system that coordinates AI models, data and systems into a cohesive workflow. “We have a narrow window to shape how AI infrastructure gets built,” Omidyar Network’s Govind Shivkumar tells ImpactAlpha. “Impact investors need to stop playing at the application layer and start engaging across the full stack – from energy to compute to the token.” He continues, “If you want better outcomes for society, you have to help build the infrastructure, not just ride on top of it.”
  • Project Alexandria. Omidyar Network seeks to demonstrate the investment thesis with a spinoff investment fund, Project Alexandria. Omidyar’s Mike Kubzansky in 2024 coordinated the $7.5 million investment, with Ford Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation, in Anthropic, now the rising challenger to OpenAI for AI market share (see, “With stakes in Anthropic, impact investors seek a seat at the AI table”). Kubzansky has been mobilizing other investors for Project Alexandria, which aims to anchor companies in AI infrastructure, assurance and alignment to create guardrails and much-needed competition and energy efficiency in the market. It will also have a policy arm to represent the voice of investors in discussions about AI governance and regulation. “AI is arguably the most powerful force transforming capital markets in the next decade,” says Omidyar Network’s Chris Jurgens, who will join Wednesday’s Call. “If we don’t have a holistic approach to thinking about risk and impact around that, what are we doing?”
  • Fund strategies. Project Liberty, with Reframe Venture and Impact VC, is surveying VCs to map who is actually investing “in AI,” not just “with AI.” Three-year-old Mozilla Ventures, the investing arm of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, has backed “trustworthy AI” companies including Adaption Labs, Credo AI and Fiddler AI (Mozilla Ventures’ Mohamed Nanabhay will join the Call). San Francisco-based Juniper Ventures has made more than a dozen early-stage investments in “founders making AI secure and beneficial for humanity.” And investment manager Ex/ante, which spun out of Schmidt Futures in 2023 with backing from Eric Schmidt, Union Square Ventures and Ford Foundation, is investing in “agentic technology” that supports human agency by increasing privacy, security and information integrity.

Dealflow: Energy Transition

ETIC Partners lands €70 million for renewable energy project financing in Europe. Paris-based Energy Transition International Capital Partners is responding to the need for renewable energy project financing in southern, eastern and central Europe. Its focus: higher-risk junior debt for “small and mid-sized independent actors who play the leading role in Europe’s transition to sovereign and green energy,” said ETIC’s Simon Quiret. The firm closed on €70 million ($83 million) for its second energy transition fund, toward a goal of €150 million. Commitments include €20 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. ETIC addresses “a financing gap [that] remains relatively underserved in the EBRD’s countries,” said the bank’s Karsten Sinner. French insurance company MAIF reupped for ETIC’s second fund.

  • Impact incentives. ETIC’s second fund is cutting checks of €5 million to €25 million for solar, onshore wind and energy storage projects. It has already committed half of the capital raised for projects in France, Italy, Romania and Hungary with a combined generation capacity of 330 megawatts. ETIC allocates a portion of its take of portfolio returns, and 5% of its operating margins, to an endowment fund investing in essential goods and services in emerging markets. 

Goldman Sachs Alternatives acquires LearnWell to scale up school-based behavioral health services. Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ Horizon Inclusive Growth fund acquired Massachusetts-based LearnWell, which is addressing unmet mental health and behavioral healthcare needs that contribute to school absenteeism and emergency room visits (for background see, “Startups seek social connections – human and artificial – to bring services to youths in need”). Since 1995, LearnWell has partnered with more than 7,000 school districts in the US to deliver its services to over 50,000 K-12 students. LearnWell also partners with hospitals and treatment centers to improve students’ recovery outcomes. “We need to provide equitable access to care and equitable access to education for everyone, whether they’re in their school setting or whether they’ve been hospitalized,” LearnWell’s Kathleen Egger told ImpactAlpha.

  • Inclusion strategy. Goldman acquired LearnWell through the sustainable investing division of its $600 billion global alternatives investment strategy. The Horizon Inclusive Growth fund targets growth equity investments in healthcare, education, workforce development and financial inclusion. Goldman has also invested in evolvedMD, which trains, hires and manages behavioral health providers in five states. “When you look at the data outlining what is happening in American public schools, you cannot miss nor run away from the fact that youth mental health overall is in crisis, especially since the pandemic,” Goldman’s  Greg Shell Shell said.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • TLG Capital provided a $10 million, seven-year loan to Kandara, a company in Conakry, Guinea that is building a 20-story commercial property. The loan was made with a guarantee from NSIA Banque Cote d’Ivoire (learn more about TLG’s strategy). (TLG Capital)
  • British International Investment injected 900 million rupees ($9.9 million) in UC Impower, a small business finance fund manager incubated by Unitus Capital. Caspian, the Dell Foundation, LifeBank Microfinance Foundation and Sorenson Impact are also UC Impower investors. (UC Impower)
  • Bangalore-based Theia Ventures and Eximius Ventures participated in a $1 million pre-seed round for EarthSync, a software maker that simulates and optimizes renewable energy management for commercial and industrial users and independent power producers. (Theia Ventures)
  • Impacta VC invested $300,000 in Colombia-based fintech venture Quipu, which helps banks, cooperatives and other financial services companies adopt alternative credit scoring approaches and reach more underbanked customers. (Impacta VC)
  • Dutch development bank FMO led a $150 million syndicated debt round for XacBank to support green and small business lending in Mongolia. Swiss impact investor responsAbility invested through its climate finance strategy. (responsAbility)

Podcast: Agents of Impact

Enduring Planet’s loans help climate startups overcome the chicken-or-egg dilemma. In a volatile moment for climate tech, founders are struggling to survive long enough to deliver. “It’s definitely a funky time out there,” Dimitry Gershenson of Enduring Planet says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast, citing federal policy reversals and the broader fundraising doldrums. But, he adds, climate entrepreneurs are unusually resilient. “People are so committed to the mission that they find creative and innovative ways to survive despite market challenges.” One of those ways is to borrow against contracts already in hand. Washington, DC-based Enduring Planet offers working capital loans to climate tech startups that need upfront cash to fulfill contractual obligations. “They have this sort of chicken-or-egg feature where they need to accomplish a milestone, but they need the capital to do that before they can unlock it,” says Enduring Planet co-founder Erin Davis.

  • Climate credit. Many climate startups are not yet profitable, Gershenson says, putting them outside standard bank credit requirements. Institutional climate lenders tend to focus on larger deals, leaving a financing gap for companies in need of smaller loans. For companies waiting on milestone-based payments, long wait times for working capital can mean missing payroll or shelving a project altogether. “We can usually get to a term sheet within a week,” Gershenson says, and fund a loan less than a month later. Enduring Planet provides a first-loss guarantee. To reduce perceived climate policy risk, the firm secured a guarantee from the Community Investment Guarantee Pool that backstops investor principal up to 10% at the end of the fund’s life. The firm’s pilot fund was $5 million; it’s targeting $20 million for its second fund. “Even when we’re managing a billion-dollar pool of capital, we’ll still make $100,000 loans,” Gershenson says. “The folks who will need to borrow $10, $20 or $30 million tomorrow are the folks who need $100,000 today.”
  • Keep reading and listen in. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:

Jamey Spencer and Kurt Braitberg join Builders Vision as managing directors, heading private markets and public markets respectively… Accion is recruiting a senior associate in Kenya for data analytics and customer insights… Kenya-based clean cookstove maker Burn Manufacturing is looking for a corporate affairs officer… Unilever is hiring a senior sustainability manager for climate and nature standards in London. 

Brookfield has an opening for an associate in London… NatureMetrics is on the lookout for a conservation account manager in London… Energy Impact Partners seeks an associate to join its decarbonization frontier fund in New York… Zell Family Office is hiring a senior director of purpose and social impact in Chicago… CrossBoundary Group is hiring a senior associate for natural capital in francophone Africa.

LightPost Capital’s Jenna Nicholas is hosting a virtual launch for her new book, “The Enlightened Bottom Line,” today at 12pm ET / 9am PT (see, “A spiritual lens for investors and business leaders”). 

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Feb. 17, 2026