ImpactAlpha Open

Cautious optimism around Venezuela + working capital for emerging managers

Dennis Price · January 13, 2026

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

🎉 Stay ahead of the curve in 2026 with an ImpactAlpha subscription. Subscribe today. 

🗣️ Agents of Impact Call: The real returns of impact-first fund managers.Deep impact can come from unlikely bets. Fund managers able to support early stage, novel solutions in tough markets with fit-for-purpose capital and necessary support can deliver their investors big wins. Impact-first managers may (or may not) generate market-rate returns – or even impact alpha – but their first priority is addressing the problem to be solved. On this month’s Agents of Impact Call, Open Road Impact’s Caroline Bressan, Rhia Ventures’ Erika Seth Davies, Global Partnerships’ Tara Murphy Forde, Echoing Green Signal Fund’s Daniel Tellalian, Acre Capital’s Hussein Sefian and other impact-first fund managers will explore the true costs – and returns – of impact-first investing, Wednesday, Jan. 21, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today. 

In this week’s Open:

  • Like Venezuela, Latin American impact investors start to map a way forward
  • Working capital for emerging managers
  • Podcasts: Robert Raben on Agents of Impact + This Week in Impact
  • Flutterwave’s “payments superhighway” in Africa

Let’s dig in. – Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • Now what? Like Venezuela, Latin American fund managers start to map a way forward. Across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and elsewhere, the diaspora of Venezuelan entrepreneurs has helped build investment networks to improve conditions for farmers, urban residents and natural ecosystems. They’re eager to do the same for their own country. “We think about the possibility of returning and applying everything we have learned and built over the years,” says Adriana Mata of Agile Impacts. Keep reading.
  • Working capital is the missing link for next-gen managers. Long before a new fund manager begins earning fees, the costs of doing business pile up. “For nascent GPs who do not have personal wealth or deep-pocketed partners, accessing finance to cover costs during their first few months of fundraising is a significant barrier,” write Catalyze’s Regina Green and Spring Point Partners’ Sabrina Bainbridge in a guest post. Learn more.
  • Insurance for Good’s Carolyn Kousky discusses innovations in ‘risk transfer’ for climate-vulnerable communities. Climate change-related disasters are pushing the US insurance market to its breaking point. Some insurers in disaster-prone states have folded or left, leaving homeowners with unaffordable insurance options or state-run “insurance of last resort” programs. “We are going to face an uninsurable future if we don’t invest in lowering the losses from climate impacts,“ Carolyn Kousky of Insurance for Good tells ImpactAlpha in a Q&A. Hear her out.

Sponsored: JPMorganChase

How impact credit can unlock growth for small businesses in the ‘missing middle’ 

“What does it take to turn promising small businesses into engines of opportunity for communities?” ask JPMorganChase’s Diana Kolar Leach and Annie Spencer in a post on ImpactAlpha. Their answer: Impact-oriented private credit. Businesses in the “missing middle” – too big for early-stage support but not yet a fit for banks or venture capital – can use impact credit to accelerate their revenues, and in turn, create jobs, build wealth and strengthen local economies. “Impact credit offers flexible, patient capital tailored to the needs of these businesses,” write Leach and Spencer. For the fund managers who provide such impact credit, philanthropic capital can help strengthen and de-risk the impact credit ecosystem, “lowering costs, reducing risk and increasing the chances of success and capacity to support small businesses.”

Agents of Impact

🏃 On the move

  • Joanna Cohen joined Builders Vision from MacArthur Foundation as the family office’s head of impact management and measurement.
  • Joshua Miguel Jongewaard became director of investments for Working Capital for Community Needs. 
  • Harry Davies, previously with the Catalytic Capital Consortium, joined Livelihood Impact Fund as impact investing director.

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Impact investors chart a path for Latin America after the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; why working capital is essential for next-gen fund managers; and, how some insurers are adapting parametric and community insurance models for the increasing risks of climate change.

😎 Agents of Impact: The arc of business and finance bends toward diversity, with Robert Raben 

Polling suggests that support for “diversity, equity and inclusion” actually increased in 2025 – aided, ironically, by the ferocious backlash against DEI unleashed by the Trump administration. “Support for DEI has gone up 40% because it’s now branded, and the people who supported it all along now know what they’re supporting,” Robert Raben, a longtime DEI advocate and strategy consultant, says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. As for the opponents, he says, “You have to ask, Why do they fight so hard? And they fight so hard because it’s working.”

The Week’s Spotlight

💸 Flutterwave and Mono’s vision for an African ‘payments superhighway’ 

It’s been nearly 20 years since the introduction of mobile money in Africa changed how people trade, transact and use financial services. The traditional banking system hasn’t kept pace with the financial needs and habits of both people and businesses. To enlist banks in the continent’s economic growth agenda, African fintechs are building the connective tissue linking mobile money, digital payments, e-wallets and traditional savings and credit accounts. Last week, the Nigerian digital payments giant Flutterwave, acquired Mono, also based in Nigeria, which enables bank-to-bank transactions, identity verification and data sharing. “Our goal is to make open banking a true reality, establishing consent-based verification, payment and trust as the new standard across the continent,” said Mono’s Abdulhamid Hassan. The deal, said Flutterwave’s Olugbenga Agboola, “contributes to building what I call Africa’s ‘payments superhighway.’”

The Year’s Lookaheads

🎆 ImpactAlpha looks ahead to 2026 across priority beats

The resurgence of impact first investing. Innovative fundraising solutions for LPs and GPs. Ownership, wealth building and fair gain-sharing. ImpactAlpha will be tracking these trends, and many more, throughout 2026. Be sure to check out all of our lookaheads. Some highlights: 

  • Investing in shared prosperity. Affordability is only the beginning. Expanding access to ownership and other wealth-building opportunities is likely to be high on the agenda in 2026. Look for shared prosperity that comes with innovation and economic growth to become an urgent policy priority and a compelling investment opportunity. Read on.
  • Local ‘pathways to growth’. Retreat, retrenchment and recalibration were the three Rs of development finance in 2025. 2026 may well be the year of revival for development growth capital, as local pension funds, insurers and wealthy families and individuals step up to strengthen local financing ecosystems and local businesses. Learn more.
  • LP stands for ‘leadership potential.’ While others beat a retreat from climate and diversity commitments, some family offices, pension funds and foundations are standing firm. In the coming year, LPs may replace asset managers that have abdicated corporate stewardship duties. Others will boldly back diversity initiatives and raise climate ambitions. Some are declaring their purpose as “impact first.” Keep reading.

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • Impact Capital Managers seeks a programs and operations associate in New York City.
  • BlueMark is looking for an impact investing senior analyst in London.
  • Blue Forest is hiring an investment associate in Sacramento, CA for a remote role.

🤝 Meet up

🎉 Stay ahead of the curve in 2026 with an ImpactAlpha subscription. Subscribe today. 

Bring your team onto ImpactAlpha. Save with substantial group discounts. Start here.

Lead the conversation. Sponsor a beat, newsletters or calls with ImpactAlpha. Get in touch.