ImpactAlpha Open

The private equity buzz at SuperReturn in Berlin + Catalytic capital for local news publishers

Dennis Price · June 23, 2026

Credit: Associated Press

Greetings Agents of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open, a free weekly sampling of the top news and views from ImpactAlpha.

In this week’s Open:

The private equity buzz at SuperReturn in Berlin
Catalytic capital for local news publishers
The Call: Architecting a career in impact investing
Spotlight: A Juneteenth call to action

Let’s dig in. – Dennis Price

Must-Reads on ImpactAlpha

At SuperReturn in Berlin, asset-light is out, HALO is in as private equity titans focus on AI, energy and defense. The mood at private equity’s annual gathering in Berlin was ebullient despite a fundraising slump and historic global challenges: 5,000 fund managers and LPs were buzzing about the coming AI supercycle and the massive physical infrastructure it demands, report Amy Cortese and Danielle Rossingh. “We are in a global industrial renaissance,” declared Apollo’s Scott Kleinman. Read the full dispatch.
Local news publishers seek impact financing for ‘civic infrastructure.’ As the demise of local news continues, nonprofit newsrooms are getting creative to continue their vital missions, moving beyond grants and into loans, revenue-based financing and equity-type investments. Early movers like Colorado’s Gates Family Foundation, Invest Appalachia, and URL Media are already proving out the model, reports David Bank. See how impact finance could save local news.
Asia’s family businesses drive impact in their operations as well as their investments. Asia’s leading family businesses aren’t waiting for a separate impact investing strategy. They’re embedding it into their core operations. At the SFi Impact Summit in Hong Kong, executives from Singapore to Seoul described using supply chains, manufacturing, and insurance underwriting as levers for social and environmental impact alongside their investment portfolios, I reported with Jessica Pothering. Learn how Asia’s family businesses are redefining impact.

Sponsored by Maycomb Capital

Supporting better postsecondary outcomes. For high schoolers, access to college and career advising can mean a successful transition to postsecondary pathways. Maycomb Capital (Edge) made a $10 million loan to Commit Dallas, which works in partnership with Education is Freedom to expand access to college and career advising for Dallas County students. Advisors help students explore postsecondary programs based on personal interests, apply for financial aid, and sign up for standardized tests, among other services.

Texas is supporting these approaches. In 2019, legislators set aside over $1 billion in annual incentive payments for districts that demonstrate improved postsecondary outcomes. Maycomb’s loan finances high touch advising, which in turn helps districts earn more. Read more.

Agents of Impacts

🏃 On the move

Jennifer Acker Ayer stepped down as co-head of impact strategy and wealth management at AITi Tiedemann Global.

Don Hinkle-Brown, who is transitioning out of his role as CEO of Reinvestment Fund, launched a new consulting firm called Emergent Impacts.

Mathilde Reynes, former investment officer with Proparco, joined Meliquina as a senior finance associate.

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor Amy Cortese. Up this week: At SuperReturn in Berlin, asset-light is out and HALO is in, as private equity titans focus on AI, energy and defense; a look at public and private approaches to sharing the AI wealth; and, Realize Capital Partners’ fund-of-funds’ $277 million for Canada’s impact fund managers.

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

🦸‍♀️Agents of Impact: Archipelago Ventures brings a collective approach to backing circular materials

“Everyone’s coming [around] to the idea that we need to rethink the traditional polymer and plastic economy,” Archipelago Ventures’ Lucy Mortimer tells ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. The UK-based firm invests in materials innovation, from new chemistries that can replace fossil fuel inputs, to AI-enabled recycling systems. Archipelago is also innovating to raise its first fund, bringing prospective limited partners together in a collective diligence process.

Learn more.

📯Criterion Institute: Grace, hospitality and who we talk to.

Host Joy Anderson welcomes her brother, the philosopher Joel Anderson, to discuss how AI is changing the way we work. As agents are rapidly adopted to do the work of entire teams, the Andersons explore the unintended consequences of turning to machines instead of people.

Tune in.

The Week’s Call

Impact experts ‘words of wisdom’ on landing an impact career

Kimberlee Cornett’s inbox has in recent weeks been flooded with messages from recent university and graduate school graduates hoping to get career advice from the director of impact investments for the $14 billion Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. On last week’s Agents of Impact Call, Cornett and ImpactAlpha’s David Bank assembled impact practitioners working in asset management, philanthropy and the public sector to offer practical tips and personal insights on building a career in impact investing.

Keep reading and watch the replay.

The Week’s Spotlight

A Juneteenth challenge: Political freedom requires economic freedom, too

Juneteenth – which marks the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved people that they had been freed… two years prior – is often described as a celebration of freedom. And it is. “But freedom was not the end of the journey. The harder challenge was transforming legal freedom into economic freedom,” writes Candide Group’s George Ashton in a guest post. Ashton urges impact investors to “lock in” on the challenge. “That is the real meaning of Juneteenth: not just the memory of freedom delayed, but the ongoing obligation to make that freedom substantive,” he says. “Let’s get to work.”