Greetings Agents of Impact!
☎️ Monday’s Call: Launching and building your career in impact investing. How best to establish a career in impact investing, or at least to land a job? Community Capital Management’s Alyssa Greenspan joins Kimberlee Cornett, director of impact investments at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Aifuwa Ehigiator, investment officer at The California Endowment, Cynthia Wong, San Francisco’s director of strategic partnerships, Sherry Wang, partner at Vistria Group and other Agents of Impact to share advice and encouragement for students, recent grads, career switchers and anybody looking for pathways into impact investing, Monday, June 15, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.
- Find a job or post an opening on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub. And send your jobs and career questions in advance of The Call to [email protected].
In today’s Brief:
- Battery storage for Europe’s renewables
- Worker-owned burger stands in Texas
- Ramping up software for small businesses
- Three habits of highly effective impact reporting
Featured: Deploy!
Battery makers and investors pivot from EVs to grid storage for renewable energy in Europe. In early May, Norwegian battery cell producer Morrow Batteries filed for bankruptcy. A year earlier, it was Sweden’s Northvolt. Some 17 European battery production projects have been cancelled or delayed. Slower than expected EV sales and competition from low-cost Chinese and Korean suppliers has dimmed Europe’s hopes of building a homegrown industry to supply batteries for electric vehicles. But the economics are different in another corner of the battery market – for stationary storage systems for renewable energy from wind and solar. In Europe, billions of dollars of fresh investment are flowing to European battery makers for systems that can store excess energy and release it when intermittent sources are not producing. “If you have cheap generation, like you have in the Nordics with hydro or with wind, or in Spain with solar, if you put a battery next to it, it’s a great economic case,” Wiebe Visser of Dutch impact investing platform Carbon Equity told ImpactAlpha. “It’s not only energy independence, it’s also just pure economics.”
- BESS. The new generating capacity is creating energy imbalances and price volatility, including negative pricing when renewables are over-producing. The continent is racing to deploy utility-scale battery energy storage systems, or BESS. Battery energy storage is taking off around the world, thanks to falling battery costs and surging demand for power. In 2025, global deployment of battery storage exceeded 100 gigawatts for the first time. Average prices for battery storage systems fell by nearly one-third last year, and have continued to fall. On a “beautiful, sunny and windy” day recently in Bucharest, wind and solar generation “working at full speed,” recalls Gregory Poilasne of San Diego-based Nuvve which has more than a dozen battery energy storage projects in Austria, Romania, and Bulgaria. Electricity prices fell below zero from 11AM to 2PM. “With the balancing of the grid, plus the arbitrage…you have a value of $5,000 per megawatt per year,” Poilasne told ImpactAlpha. Under those conditions, BESS projects “can generate a lot of value for shareholders.”
- Project development. European investors including Santander, Natwest and Rabobank poured a record €8.6 billion ($10 billion) into battery storage venture investments, project finance and acquisitions last year, according to Mondo Energy. The momentum has carried on this year, with 53 new deals attracting an additional €3.1 billion ($3.6 billion) in the first quarter. Last week, Encosa, a German developer and operator of battery energy storage systems, raised Є25 million ($29 million) in a seed round led by German VC Realyze Ventures to bring energy storage to Germany’s “mittelstand” or mid-sized businesses. Dutch pension fund manager APG last fall invested €300 million ($348.6 million) in Return, an Amsterdam-based battery storage developer that connects systems across countries to manage fluctuations. In May, Carbon Equity announced a €15 million ($17.5 million) infrastructure debt fund, which will target BESS projects as well as solar parks, wind farms, and biomethane plants across Europe.
- Talent and materials. The exodus of talent from fallen battery darlings Northvolt and Morrow has created a talent pool for battery storage startups and developers. Just last month, Swedish energy firm Tavion secured SEK 76 million ($8 million) in pre-seed funding and SEK 500 million ($53 million) in debt financing from investors including its CEO, former Northvolt executive Emad Zand. Swedish venture capital funds Course Corrected and BackingMinds also invested. “Battery storage is what will make tomorrow’s power system work in practice, and that’s where we’re concentrating our efforts,” Zand said. And BESS arrays can use battery cells that are built without rare earth metals and other imported materials, reducing supply chain risks and costs and enhancing tech sovereignty. Because grid-storage batteries are not mobile, they can be bigger and heavier. Startups are using abundant materials such as iron, sodium and zinc to store energy.
- Keep reading, “Battery makers and investors pivot from EVs to grid storage for renewable energy in Europe,” by Danielle Rossingh on ImpactAlpha.
Dealflow: Ownership Economy
P. Terry’s Burger Stand converts to worker-ownership through an employee ownership trust. It was Patrick Terry’s childhood dream to own a burger stand. He and his wife Kathy opened one on a corner in Austin, Texas in 2005. Two decades later, that stand has grown into a fast-food chain with 38 locations that employ 1,800 workers in the Lone Star State. Now, it is owned by those workers. The decision to sell the company to their workers was Kathy’s dream, Patrick Terry told ImpactAlpha. “It’s been a labor of love for her. She’s been working on this for years to pick the right form of ownership.” With support from Common Trust, the Terrys set up an employee ownership trust, or EOT, that will hold the ownership shares of P. Terry’s employees. The trust will share 5% of the company’s profits with longtime employees this year. “Too often, the people who create the value are the last to share in it. We wanted to do something different,” Kathy Terry said. “We also wanted our team to feel ownership now — not someday. That’s why the profit-sharing plan matters so much to us.” P. Terry’s plans to grow the profit-sharing plan to 20% of the chain’s annual income over time.
- Cultural preservation. The firm was almost sold to a strategic buyer 10 years ago. Said Patrick Terry, “We got a wonderful offer; a very more than fair offer from a very good company.” They held on to preserve the chain’s culture and reputation for quality fast food at an affordable price. “P. Terry’s has taken a pioneering step that demonstrates that there’s another way to transition a company — one that protects its legacy, culture, and values,” said Common Trust’s Zoe Schlag, who is positioning employee ownership as “the leading strategy for businesses that want to stay independent and rooted in their communities.” P. Terry’s says its burgers have no hormones and antibiotics, its buns have no high-fructose corn syrup and its pickles are kosher. The company has donated $2.8 million to local nonprofits since 2005. “The people are really appreciative of what we do and how we do it differently than others,” Patrick Terry said. “I never imagined this. It’s wonderful to be P. Terry.”
- More.
Impact investors back Ramp’s AI-powered business finance platform in $750 million raise. Ramp, a budget-management platform used by more than 70,000 organizations, raised $750 million in primary financing as part of its Series F round. The raise included mission-driven investors such as Generation Investment Management, the sustainable-investing firm co-founded by former US Vice President Al Gore, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which manages C$279 billion (about $200 billion) on behalf of 346,000 active and retired teachers in Ontario. Ramp sells AI-enabled software that lets companies of all sizes issue corporate cards, approve and track spending, pay vendors, and automate accounting. Generation, whose previous investments include restaurant software platform Toast and payroll and HR provider Gusto, invested because of Ramp’s reach among small and mid-sized businesses, which employ roughly half of the US workforce and often struggle with cash-flow management. “Cash flow is the most common cause of small-business failure,” Generation wrote in a note announcing its investment. Ramp argues that budgeting, approvals, spend controls and accounting automation have historically required finance teams and software budgets beyond the reach of many smaller businesses. Other investors in the round included ICONIQ, GIC, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, and D.E. Shaw, among others.
- Business building. Ramp’s platform aims to make sophisticated financial management capabilities accessible to family farms, nonprofits, startups and growing businesses. The company says its median customer reduces expenses by 5% and increases revenue by 16% during its first year on the platform. “We believe one of the most reliable predictors of long-term, durable business-building is whether a company is genuinely mission-driven and values-aligned,” said Generation’s Neha Madhotra. “Ramp’s mission to save its customers time and money is not just words on a page – it is the operating model.” Ramp’s valuation has climbed from $5.8 billion in 2023 to $44 billion today, as investors see the payments provider growing into an enterprise software platform built around AI. “Finance is going through the biggest structural change since the spreadsheet,” said Ramp’s Eric Glyman. “Every company needs infrastructure to navigate an AI economy.”
- More.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- New York-based Stepful raised $55 million in Series C funding from Oak HC/FT, Citi Impact Fund, ECMC Education Impact Fund and other backers to help train healthcare workers via employer-sponsored programs. (Stepful)
- German heat pump installer Galvany clinched €10 million ($11.5 million) in seed financing, co-led by European cleantech investors SET Ventures and AENU, to expand from single-family to multifamily homes.
- Amsterdam-based Pymwymic has taken over the Triodos Food Transition Europe Fund from Triodos Investment Management, relaunching it as the Pymwymic Healthy Food Systems Growth Impact Fund Ill. (Pymwymic)
Impact Voices: Measurement and Management
Style or substance? What an AI analysis of 90 funds suggests about impact reporting. Impact funds have long struggled to produce reports that are useful to allocators and comparable across managers. Dalberg and Impact Frontiers are using AI – with humans-in-the-loop – to sift through the noise. Their analysis of 90 funds suggests that many funds are better at presenting their impact than they are at managing it. In a guest post on ImpactAlpha, Dalberg’s Kusi Hornberger shares key findings, as well as common traits shared by successful funds. One insight: Nearly a third of the funds analyzed scored almost as well as top performers on strategy and disclosure, but lagged badly on measurement and governance, earning them the label of ‘Marketer.’ “An LLM’s total lack of communal context means it cannot read between the lines or give a fund credit for unwritten, cultural conventions,” writes Hornberger. Instead, the analysis stripped away “polished SDG graphics, and aspirational intent,” exposing gaps in impact management practices. Of the funds analyzed, nearly half failed to disclose negative impacts or trade-offs. Only one in five employed independent verification.
- Three habits of effective funds. The gap between average and leading funds is narrower than one might assume. The three practices that distinguish top performers: reporting negative impacts, seeking third-party reviews and linking compensation to impact performance. Funds that disclosed setbacks and trade-offs scored roughly 15 points higher than peers, making transparency the single strongest signal in the dataset. More than 60 organizations are already using Dalberg’s IMMPactAI tool to benchmark themselves against so-called Impact Performance Reporting Norms. Hornberger cautions against treating AI as the final arbiter of quality. “An AI engine can catch missing metrics and reporting inconsistencies, but it can never perform the real-world work of building investor trust,” he writes.
- Keep reading, “Style or substance? What an AI analysis of 90 impact funds suggests about reporting,” by Dalberg’s Kusi Hornberger.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Michael Basch, co-founder of Atento Capital, joins Renaissance Philanthropy as a fellow focused on developing new philanthropic programs and funds… GreenieRE Coalition taps MIT Sloan School of Management’s Nazrin Balayeva as a summer fellow… National Equity Fund welcomes Sadie Nott as vice president and relationship manager… Andres Llado Muñiz, previously with EY’s climate change and sustainability services team, joins The Bridgespan Group as a senior associate consultant.
Triple Jump promotes Valentine Delouvrier as regional manager for Africa and the Middle East… Liberty Mutual Investments is hiring a vice president of energy and infrastructure in Boston… CalPERS is on the hunt for an associate investment manager for its sustainable investments team in Sacramento… AgDevCo Ventures is recruiting an investment manager for mezzanine agribusiness deals across East Africa, in Nairobi… The Empire State Development, New York State’s economic development agency, is seeking a senior director for its venture arm, NY Ventures.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– June 11, 2026
