Call No. 25 recap: Gender smart investing for a sustainable recovery. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women is exposing an opportunity for more investors to embrace a gender lens. Of the tens of thousands of private investment funds worldwide, less than 200 strategically center women in their investment decision-making. “COVID-19 is allowing us to pursue value creation strategies such as ‘gender smart’ investing,” International Finance Corp.’s Stephanie Von Friedeburg said on ImpactAlpha’s Call No. 25 last week. “There has never been a more opportune time.” Hundreds of Agents of Impact ‘zoomed’ into The Call, where Von Friedeburg and more than a dozen guests offered up examples of how to center women across organizational structures, investment decision-making and portfolio management.
ZenBusiness raises $55 million to help micro-entrepreneurs grow their businesses. The economic shock of the COVID pandemic has devastated small businesses – and driven many others to open one for the first time. Austin-based online platform ZenBusiness helps businesses with fewer than 10 people launch and scale. The company says it has doubled customer acquisition since the onset of the pandemic; roughly nine in 10 of the company’s 80,000 clients are first-time entrepreneurs. Recovery from the economic shocks of COVID-19, is “going to come down to small business formation and growth,” said Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, a ZenBusiness investor.
Why impact investors should double down on democracy funding. The historic voter turnout witnessed in this year’s U.S. presidential election was fueled by organizations that helped activate historically under-represented communities, effective state-based organizing, and a surge of innovation applied to the infrastructure of democracy and movement building. Also key: rapid, risk-tolerant funding to support those efforts, says Sarah Williams of Propel Capital. “To create lasting change, impact investors should think of political funding as a key component of a diversified portfolio of investing,” she writes in a guest post on ImpactAlpha.
Short takes. Here are a few of the reports crossing our desks this week:
Spring Lane Capital and Energy and Environment Investment join the Impact Capital Managers network… The Katapult Accelerator is hiring a senior investment professional in Oslo… Octopus is seeking a fund product manager in London (see, “Impact signals for venture capitalists”).
RSVP today. What: The Call No. 25: Gender-smart investing for a sustainable recovery Join SME.NG’s Thelma Ekiyor, Trade Depot’s Onyekachi Izukanne, Development Partners International’s Takudzwa Mutasa, …
The people and principles needed to solve the challenges of financing solar power for frontline health clinics were represented on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 1 – What got us here won’t get us where we need to go. Guidelines that govern global finance need to …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 27 – Investors have been talking about systemic risks at least since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. More recently, climate …
It’s long past time to get political. Impact investing, with appeal on both the left and the right, has generally steered clear of …
“It’s a great time for new entrants, but for those of us who’ve been doing this for a while it is equally urgent to raise our game right and to not get complacent,” said Margot Brandenburg of the Ford Foundation.
ImpactAlpha, Jun 24 – The action in climate action is shifting to infrastructure. Driven by falling price curves for renewables, mispriced risk, and …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 4 – A disruptive technology has to be 10 times better than what it’s replacing. Tech venture capitalists aim to recoup …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 30 – The first annual assessments of impact investors are coming in under the International Finance Corporation’s Operating Principles for Impact …
ImpactAlpha, February 5 – Small and growing businesses are the pillars of local economies, in both developed and developing economies. Startups are engines …
ImpactAlpha, April 14 – Don’t refer to conventional finance as ‘mainstream,’ ImpactAlpha’s David Bank said on The Call earlier this month. Call it ‘legacy …
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – The early days of impact investing were all about proving that you didn’t have to sacrifice financial returns to do …
Host Monique Aiken recaps this week’s Agents of Impact Call on gender-smart investing and we go to South Africa to follow up with Secha Capital’s Kuhle Mnisi and Wukina’s Maureen Sibanda, this week’s Agents of Impact.
Host Brian Walsh and roundtable regulars Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank explore what the presidential transition in the U.S. means for impact investing.
Concerns about the resiliency of the food supply chain went from conceptual to concrete when the COVID crisis shut down railroads and stranded …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 21 – When the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the world economy this spring, Emmanuel Lagarrigue worried the momentum toward a …
Sharing wealth with hourly employees has not been a major part of the private-equity playbook, which has more often called for layoffs, plant …
ImpactAlpha, July 16,2020 –– If you’re rich, and you get your capital back with perhaps a little extra for inflation and expenses, you’ll …
When the coronavirus busted out as a global crisis in March, private equity funds, banks and other commercial investors largely pulled out of …
LeapFrog Investments goes into this recession with capital on hand, the fortuitous result of having raised more than $700 million for its third …
Power is the thread that connects the surge in gender-based violence during the COVID crisis with violence against people of color, including by …
ImpactAlpha, May 9 – A parade of philanthropic foundations will report this week on their journeys toward aligning their assets with their missions, as …
The future of work is here. With unemployment soaring and many jobs never coming back, long-forecast shifts in employment patterns that might have …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 30 – The first annual assessments of impact investors are coming in under the International Finance Corporation’s Operating Principles for Impact …
The post-mortem on this election is far from over, but as the news of the past few weeks has unfolded, we are seeing …
That the network of trade associations and advocacy groups blocking meaningful action on climate change was bankrolled by fossil fuel interests comes not …
Impact measurement and management isn’t just magical thinking. With enough effort and skill, the practice produces value and insights for investors, which can …
For the first time in two decades, global extreme poverty is expected to rise. According to The World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic will …
If you are an investor interested in learning more about how to invest in climate justice solutions, join us on December 3rd for …
Impact investors may be missing an opportunity to restore sustainable emerging market growth and earn commercial returns by providing desperately needed restructuring support …
As we move beyond a difficult election cycle, it is time to focus on an ambitious community investment agenda that has a meaningful …
One of the key features of the Operating Principles for Impact Management is that they require signatories to publicly disclose how their impact …
Flexible investment structures that prioritize employees and customers alongside entrepreneurs and investors are proving useful in helping companies preserve good jobs through the …
The spread of COVID-19 and the economic devastation in its wake have shown just how necessary for-profit approaches are to serving the poor …
As the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread around the world in early 2020, gloomy predictions about the coronavirus’s effects on Africa also made …
ImpactAlpha, October 29 – The clunky term “non-bank financial intermediaries” identifies a varied group of lenders only by what they are not. These …
ImpactAlpha, November 20 – Follow the women… to catalyze an economic recovery and unlock trillions in new consumer spending power. Tech-enabled startups are …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 13 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline on the snappy Agents of Impact section on the new ImpactAlpha.com …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 30 – Two years ago, ImpactAlpha recognized Kesha Cash as an Agent of Impact for her cutting-edge investment thesis: the billion-dollar …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 16 – The world’s most populous Black nation is standing up to police brutality. The demand of protesters in Nigeria: #ENDSARS …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 9 – Anne Price is the first woman and the first non-lawyer to lead the 51-year-old organization that works at the …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 2 – Global efforts to turn back the tide of biodiversity loss may be missing the trees for the forest. The …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 25 – The advantages of women’s participation and leadership in business and society have become conventional wisdom. That’s in no small …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 18 – Oil giant BP this this week called Peak Oil. Ubben, a veteran hedge fund manager, is calling Peak Finance. …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 11 – The co-founder and managing director of SJF Ventures still had half of the firm’s $125 million fourth fund when …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 4 – Months before the COVID crisis, Bafford told an interviewer that what she most liked about structuring deals and syndicating …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 28 – When the lineup of the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court on Wednesday, the players didn’t realize they’d …
More than 320 million tons of plastic is produced annually, much of which ends up in oceans or landfill. Production is expected to …
The six-month old green cleaning product startup raised the seed funds in a round led by Henkel Ventures, the investment arm of the …