Greetings Agents of Impact!
In today’s Brief:
- Eric Ries on why good companies go bad
- Mixing battery tech for scale
- Sustainable M&A in India
- Calvert Impact’s ownership strategy
Featured: Corporate Governance
From lean startups to spiritual holding companies: The education of Eric Ries (podcast). When Eric Ries published “The Lean Startup” in 2011, he handed Silicon Valley a new bible. Entrepreneurs and investors embraced the gospel of minimum viable products, rapid experimentation and “failing fast.” With the Long Term Stock Exchange, an alternative exchange he launched in 2016 to counter “the epidemic of short-term thinking,” he delved into corporate governance, fiduciary duty and the incentives embedded in modern finance (including a proposal, since embraced by the Trump administration, to shift from quarterly corporate earnings to semi-annual reporting). Now, Ries is wrestling with a question that many startup founders have come to face: how to keep companies from losing their souls once money, scale and power arrive. He explores these themes in his new book, “Incorruptible: Why good companies go bad and how great companies stay great,” out this month. “There’s a throughline in all of my work, which is really about how to build great organizations,” Ries says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. “How do we create innovation that can work in any kind of environment, no matter how much uncertainty?”
- Spiritual holdcos. “Incorruptible” argues that many corporate failures flow from flawed structure and governance systems. Companies become vulnerable to corruption when legal and financial structures let them profit even when they betray their missions, and when conventional accounting systems ignore externalities, deferred liabilities and social harm. Ries’ solution is what he calls the “spiritual holding company,” a catchall term for governance structures that preserve a company’s mission across generations and protect it from short-term financial pressures. The idea draws on models such as Patagonia’s perpetual purpose trust, Novo Nordisk’s industrial foundation, the John Lewis Partnership’s employee-ownership trust, and many consumer and producer co-ops. “Companies that have this structure are much more likely to live to year 50 than companies with a conventional structure,” Ries says. The models, familiar to some, might well be the new new thing in Silicon Valley.
- Lean AI startup. Anthropic is a live case study in responsible governance. Ries played a small role in helping the AI startup design its long-term benefit trust – a two-tiered structure in which a perpetual purpose trust with independent trustees has the power to appoint directors to the for-profit board. Getting it implemented took two years, starting well before the company became a trillion-dollar success. “They took the need to protect the mission really seriously,” he says of the founders. Anthropic has taken principled stands, such as insisting that the Pentagon not use its technology for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, a position that angered the Trump administration and landed the startup on a blacklist (see, “In a dangerous world, impact investors look for the alpha in responsible AI”). Anthropic is “under an unprecedented amount of pressure for a private company,” says Reis. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
- Keep reading and listen to, “From lean startups to spiritual holding companies: The education of Eric Ries (podcast),” by Amy Cortese and Isaac Silk. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
Dealflow: Energy Transition
Scalvy and Gridscape partner to build mixed-battery systems in California. Factory operators, universities, fire departments and other organizations are installing on-site energy systems to cut energy bills and maintain backup power. Austin-based distributed power company Scalvy and minigrid developer Gridscape are teaming up to develop combined lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery systems for such commercial and industrial energy users. Sodium-ion batteries can offer high power density, while lithium-ion can store more energy, says Scalvy’s Mohamed Badawy. The partners secured backing from the California Energy Commission to validate the technology, with the goal of rolling out their battery systems for customers, starting in California. The CEC contract covers development, certification and deployment at two sites.
- Independent control. Scalvy and Gridscape are tackling a common challenge with battery storage systems: When battery cells weaken, performance of the entire system is compromised because the cells all use a central inverter. Scalvy places small power controllers within each module, giving each battery pack independent control. That allows the partners’ mixed-battery systems to maximize the advantages of the different battery chemistries. Scalvy in March raised $14 million from Silicon Badia, Azolla Ventures, Climate Capital and others.
- Tech validation. Battery developers and utilities are searching for alternatives to conventional lithium-ion systems amid tariffs, supply chain complexities and growing domestic energy needs. “Declining costs and a smaller system footprint are critical for scaling energy storage deployments,” said Gridscape’s Vipul Gore. “We are advancing a new generation of modular, multi-chemistry systems that can accelerate adoption.”
- Check it out.
Wingreens acquires Safe Harvest to nurture sustainable food and women’s livelihoods in India. Gurgaon-based Wingreens World produces healthy packaged juices and foods for online sales to Indian consumers. The company’s roots are in an agribusiness called the Women’s Initiative Network that started more than a decade ago to source spices and produce from female farmers. The latest milestones in Wingreens’ evolution include closing its 1.2 billion rupee ($12.5 million) Series D equity round, and acquiring Bangalore-based Safe Harvest, which has for 17 years worked with women’s farming cooperatives to source pesticide-free foods. The acquisition was reportedly completed in a 100% share-swap deal. Investors in Wingreens’ Series D round include Ashish Kacholia, a successful 1990s stock trader, and social enterprise-focused VC firm Alchemy Fund.
- Gender smart. Wingreens’ Arjun Srivastava touted Wingreens’ and Safe Harvest’s mission alignment. “What Safe Harvest has built is not just a food brand. It is a movement powered by thousands of farmers, mostly women, who chose the harder path of returning to natural farming, restoring soils, protecting water, and growing food with integrity,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “That kind of work requires courage, conviction and years of unwavering commitment.”
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Crew Carbon, a Brooklyn-based startup that helps wastewater treatment facilities with carbon removal, raised $25 million from Burnt Island Ventures, AP Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Builders Vision and other backers. (Crew Carbon)
- Araya Sie Fund, a joint venture fund by Araya Ventures and Sie Ventures, secured £7.5 million ($10 million) to invest in women-led healthcare, climate, fintech, deeptech and AI startups in Europe. (Sie Ventures)
- UK-based Greenpixie scored £4.7 million ($6.3 million) to help companies measure and reduce carbon emissions from cloud computing and AI infrastructure. (Tech.eu)
Signals: Ownership Economy
Calvert Impact goes deep on wealth-building with investments in employee and community ownership. Calvert Impact has long backed, or created, strategies that expand economic opportunity in underinvested communities. Ownership is what makes that opportunity stick, says Catherine Godschalk, the nonprofit investment firm’s chief investment officer. “Building an ownership economy is near and dear to who we are and what we are trying to do.” Calvert has raised $40 million for a sidecar facility to provide senior debt for employee-led buyouts financed by Apis & Heritage Capital, which earlier this year sailed through its $250 million target for its second employee ownership fund. The Calvert was drawn to Apis & Heritage’s thesis that financing the ownership transition of small and mid-sized businesses to low-income workers could build wealth. “We thought about how we could improve the velocity of their growth, and more efficiently mobilize their LP commitments through the fund,” Godschalk tells ImpactAlpha. The senior debt allows Apis & Heritage to bring larger businesses into employee ownership. The firm’s second fund aims to create at least 3,000 new worker-owners over five years.
- Real estate ownership. Calvert Impact has also deployed $5 million to Community Vision’s loan fund, which raised $145 million to expand community real estate ownership to counter gentrification (see, “Community Vision’s ownership strategy for combating displacement of small businesses and nonprofits in California”). The fund offers financing and advisory services to nonprofits and social enterprises to preserve, develop and purchase affordable housing, land and commercial and mixed-use assets co-owned and governed by the communities where they operate. “Nonprofits need spaces, [but] it’s not necessarily easy for them to own real estate,” Godschalk says. “Community Vision is doing a lot of really important work to help nonprofits understand what’s involved in that. Controlling your space is really valuable.”
- Resident-owned communities. Calvert’s investments in Apis & Heritage and Community Vision reflect a growing conviction among impact investors that ownership is the missing ingredient in wealth-building strategies for low-income and working-class communities. “Given where we are in terms of inequality, the silver tsunami and all of these forces, we need more capital flowing in ways that expand ownership opportunities and community wealth,” Godschalk says. She recently joined the board of ROC USA, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit in Calvert’s portfolio that helps low-income residents acquire the land under their mobile homes and form cooperatives to govern it, preserving long-term affordability.
- Keep reading, “Calvert Impact goes deep on wealth building with investments in employee and community ownership,” by Roodgally Senatus.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
2X Global taps Nasri Adam, previously with the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance, as managing director of programs… Ryan Levinson joins Ignite Capital, Innovation Works’ fund management affiliate, as part-time fund advisor… Sustainable Capital Advisors welcomes Nicole Rocque, a Harvard Kennedy School student, as a research fellow… The Skillman Foundation taps Kenneth Frierson, previously with the Ruth Mott Foundation, as director of ground building.
LISC Bay Area appoints Sasha Werblin as deputy director… Ted Kowalsky will head CohnReznick’s new public finance and sustainability practice, focused on helping sustainability-driven clients with fundraising and sustainability goals… The Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund seeks a senior associate and an operations associate in New York… PepsiCo is hiring a sustainability investment manager in upstate New York.
Democracy Fund is looking for a senior program officer in Washington, DC… Nuveen has an opening for a clean energy infrastructure investment associate in London… Also in London, General Atlantic is recruiting a sustainability senior associate… FMO is on the hunt for an associate in the Netherlands.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– May 19, 2026
