Seth Bannon, Fifty Years: Big swings at big challenges (podcast). Back in 1931, Winston Churchill predicted we’d grow real meat without the animals. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued its first approval for climate-friendly cultivated meat to Upside Foods. In his prescient essay, “Fifty Years Hence,” Churchill also predicted synthetic biology, nuclear power, satellite telephony and genetic engineering. But the pace of technological change was advancing so rapidly, he warned, that technologists could be accelerating in the wrong direction. Seven years ago, Seth Bannon and his partner Ela Madej launched the venture capital firm Fifty Years to try to get tech back on track. “We only want to back founders that are taking incredibly big swings and incredibly risky paths but ones that might fundamentally push the world forward if they succeed,” Bannon told ImpactAlpha’s David Bank in an Agents of Impact podcast.The San Francisco firm raised a $90 million third fund last year. Fifty Years’ big swings include chemical decarbonization firm Solugen, now valued at more than $2 billion, and satellite internet company Astranis, valued at $1.4 billion. Upside Foods, the lab-grown meat producer whose cultivated chicken was green lit by the FDA, is valued at over $1 billion (for background, see “Fifty Years’ bets on ‘deep tech’”). Bannon says a focus on hard-to-solve, long-term challenges like climate, disease and connectivity could help VCs rebound from short-term, get-rich-quick schemes like “crypto, jet packs and delivery apps.” At the same time, impact investors could accelerate transformational change with bigger, riskier bets on deep technologies like clean hydrogen and carbon-negative chemicals. Fifty Years’ thesis is that founders building companies to address the world's biggest problems “have systemic advantages that will help them outcompete companies that aren't,” Bannon says. “That thesis has been proved out.” – Dennis Price
Deal spotlight: TPG Rise’s $7.3 billion climate plan takes shape. Jim Coulter has gotten climate religion. Since taking the helm of TPG’s impact-focused Rise fund last year, Coulter has completed his transformation from buyout buccaneer to climate apostle (see, “The education of Jim Coulter”). This week, Rise Climate stood up Rubicon Carbon, a marketplace for buying and selling carbon offsets, with $300 million and a pair of former Bank of America heavyweights. Rubicon will source carbon offsetting projects from Anew Climate, itself a TPG-led rollup of Element Markets and Bluesource. That sets up a powerful flywheel for carbon offsets, which are projected to reach $50 billion by 2030 as corporations scramble to meet net zero goals. TPG has also taken a $1 billion stake, with Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, in an electric vehicle spin-off of India’s Tata Motors. Climate-tech, Coulter told analysts last month, is “one of the real bright spots” in a complicated investment landscape. Policy tailwinds in the U.S. and Europe and this year’s extreme weather around the globe have highlighted an historic “imbalance between the amount of specialized capital needed and the amount of specialized capital that's been formed,” he says. TPG’s Rise Climate fund clinched $7.3 billion in commitments in April to look for “the “Googles of the climate revolution.” The firm is already looking to raise climate-adjacent funds next year and a follow-on to its climate flagship fund in 2024. Says Coulter, “There's lots of opportunities between now and then.”
Gary Community Ventures’ chief investment officer Santhosh Ramdosswill replace Mike Johnston as president and CEO… Victoria de Castro, ex- of World Benchmarking Alliance, joins The Predistribution Initiative as an associate director… Kate Turner is promoted to global head of responsible investment at First Sentier Investors, succeeding Will Oulton, who will retire at the end of the year.
In New York
ImpactAlpha, September 30 – Capital to support women’s economic growth and financial inclusion is flowing – finally! – in many advanced economies. In emerging …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 19 – Investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and world leaders have descended on New York for Climate Week, the annual gathering alongside the …
ImpactAlpha, June 27 – ImpactAlpha’s spring season of Agents of Impact Calls spanned a period of tumult in the financial markets: instability in …
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – Just as investment in financial inclusion in Africa was really ramping up, a market downturn threatens to slow progress. Or …
ImpactAlpha, May 13 – One defining outcome of the pandemic: a boom in entrepreneurship. A record five million businesses were started in the …
ImpactAlpha, April 22 – The Ukraine crisis risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 1 – High-impact investments in fragile countries invariably entail political risk. And impact investments in a free press, humanitarian tech, financial inclusion …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 11 – It’s one thing for a corporation to set environmental or social goals. It’s another to shift executives, employees and supply …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 25 – Bottom-up policies for access to capital in divested communities. Top-down strategies to reshape capitalism to work for all stakeholders. “We …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 11 – ”$100 a ton?” exclaimed CDP’s Paula DiPerna on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact Call this week. “I should be popping champagne.” …
‘Tis the season for our lookaheads to 2022 and, thanks to ImpactAlpha subscribers, we are able to make the roundups freely available. So …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 3 – The New Capitalism Project has over the past two years dissected the failings of the current system and crafted a …
Host Brian Walsh catches up with Common Trust’s Zoe Schlag, who is taking aim at U.S. wealth gaps by helping employees become owners …
Between the true believers in investing for impact and those that, for whatever reason, have their heels dug in, there are the “quietly …
Amy Cortese catches up with FullCycle’s Stephan Nicoleau who is at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to talk methane, governance and catalytic …
Host Brian Walsh is joined by Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, to chat about how climate …
Jon Hale, director of sustainability research at Morningstar, joins host Monique Aiken to talk about what is at stake for impact investors in …
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 31 – The municipal bond market has been called the original impact investment asset class, a source of capital for water, housing, …
Host Brian Walsh has the headlines and Amy Cortese chats with Oxford’s Bob Eccles about why the distinction between ESG and impact in …
Host Monique Aiken is live and in person with Rodney Foxworth, CEO of Common Future, and ImpactAlpha’s David Bank at SOCAP22 in San …
Host Brian Walsh is joined by Acumen’s Daniel Waldron to discuss lessons from the nonprofit investor’s two decades of deploying “patient capital” in …
ImpactAlpha’s David Bank catches up with Zach Stein, CEO of Carbon Collective, to talk about how average investors with 401(k) retirement accounts can …
On this week’s podcast, Dennis Price joins host Brian Walsh to talk about new opportunities in “refugee lens investing,” and Brian shares takeaways …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 27 – On this week’s podcast, Monique Aiken has the headlines and ImpactAlpha’s Dennis Price chats with Havell Rodrigues of New Majority …
One hundred million. That’s the number of people globally who never recovered from the Coronavirus. COVID Long Haulers, as we are known, experience …
Editor’s note: This article is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with J&J Impact Ventures, ImpactAlpha is exploring the …
In some ways, a quarter of a century is a long time to be at the forefront of social entrepreneurship. But in other …
“E,” for environmental, gets most of the love in ESG investing. Investments in the “S” and “G,” for social and governance, particularly in …
The Sustainable Development Goals need rescuing, a global sustainable investors group warned recently. The SDGs are a collection of 17 interlinked goals ranging …
Editor’s Note: The Social Impact Advantage, the new book from Tynesia Boyea-Robinson of CapEQ, walks readers through a step-by-step process for what it …
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP27) that began a few days ago will allow the world to …
Innovative financial services and blockchain/Web3 solutions are a passport to greater climate resilience, writes Scott Onder, Mercy Corps’ chief investment officer
ImpactAlpha, November 3 – On a panel I recently moderated at the GIIN Investor Forum, I baited the participants with a statement that I …
The Inflation Reduction Act is a historic investment in marginalized communities on the frontlines of climate change. However, the bill also links renewable …
The Land of ESG is embroiled in a two-front war. Identifying the combatants and their arguments may help practitioners keep track of the …
Terms like “small” and “local” have become shorthand for “ethical” – a way for consumers and businesses to signal virtue. Meanwhile, having large …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 4 – Barbados is an island nation of just 166 square miles and less than 300,000 inhabitants. But its leader, Mia …
Blake Jones is “a cooperative geek.” After co-founding four co-op enterprises, including Namaste Solar and Clean Energy Credit Union, he has brought the …
ImpactAlpha, October 7 – Regina Kline has seen the state of labor and employment for disabled Americans up close, as a lawyer representing workers …
ImpactAlpha, September 23 – Women are hot… investments. So declared ImpactAlpha back in 2014, when we used quote marks for investors unfamiliar with “gender …
Within the next few weeks, if everything goes according to plan, the first customers will make deposits in New Hampshire-based Walden Mutual Bank, …
ImpactAlpha, August 5 – In the roller coaster climate bill negotiations with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, Brandon Dennison brought something to the table …
ImpactAlpha, Jul. 29 – Patagonia vests and khakis ain’t gonna cut it, says Taj Eldridge. To spread the word on climate action, the PhD …
ImpactAlpha, Jul. 8 – Amy Bell’s early work as a financier and advisor to impact funds and social enterprises helped establish the nascent field …
If the rise of a Black former maid to vice president was once unthinkable in Colombia, so too was the idea that the …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 10 – Payday loans. Car loans. Student loans. “One way to describe our economy is that it’s about draining every ounce of …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 7 – Where you stand on the incipient tech slowdown may depend on where you sit. Investors and executives in climate …
ImpactAlpha, May 27 – Five years ago, Olu Oyinsan felt an urgent pull back to his native Nigeria while working in the early-stage practice …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 16 – Billions of dollars in venture capital are pouring into climate tech. And hundreds of organizations, initiatives, coalitions and conferences are …
The power of impact investing comes from the fact that it’s more than just an approach or a screen (or an asset class!) — it’s …