ImpactAlpha Latin America: Finding impact and climate alpha in Brazil

Dennis Price · January 29, 2025

Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil | Photo credit: Luis War

Saludos, Agents of Impact! Welcome to January’s ImpactAlpha Latin America. Happening today: “Unlocking impact – and climate – alpha in Brazil.” Join The Call to explore the growing impact investing ecosystem in Latin America’s largest market (see preview below), today at 1pm ET. Still time to RSVP.

As always, special thanks to our ImpactAlpha Latin America partners – FLII, New Ventures, Alterna, Latimpacto, Aliança pelo Impacto, Pro Mujer, Impaqto and GSG NAB Chile. They help keep us, and you, connected to the people and places driving impact in Latin America.

¡Empecemos! – Dennis Price

In this month’s newsletter:

Impact and climate alpha in Brazil
Plastic recycling in Mexico
Flexible finance for climate resilience

Featured: COP Watch

Brazil’s impact and climate investment ecosystem gets ready for COP30. Latin America’s largest country is in the climate hot seat this year. The Amazon city of Belém will host the COP30 climate summit in November just as the US is set to exit from the Paris climate accord. Brazil is seizing leadership not only on climate, but in impact investing more broadly, with a new National Impact Economy Strategy, or Enimpacto. “We’re in a very exciting moment,” says Giselle Vianna, who coordinates the strategy at the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Commerce. The policy, launched in 2017, aims to boost impact investing in the country from $11 billion to $120 billion over 10 years with blended finance, investment incentives and more inclusive procurement. “It has crossed many different governments from different ideologies, so it’s resilient.” A sign of the opportunity: The small, underdeveloped state of Rio Grande do Norte in northeast Brazil has emerged as the early leader in implementing local impact economy laws. Nine other states, including Ceará, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro have begun to introduce laws. Later this year, Enimpacto will launch a national database of impact companies that drives public policies and helps attract private investment. Says Vianna, “This is the moment that we want to consolidate this expansion.”

From ESG to impact. “We have to be very creative about where we look for solutions,” adds Fabio Alperowitch of Fama Re.Capital, a São Paulo-based impact asset manager that has managed an ESG Equities Fund for 30 years. “We have to be very creative where we look for solutions.” In 2023, Fama launched the LatAm Climate Turnaround Fund to push high-emitting companies to decarbonize. The separate Fama Gaia Socio-Bioeconomy Fund makesaffordable loans to small regenerative agriculture businesses and cooperatives. Fama is set to launch a gender equality fund to lend to women entrepreneurs. To mainstream impact “we need to offer funds with market-rate returns,” says Alperowitch. “My intention is to change the whole system, so we can compete against traditional products by offering comparable returns.” Of note: The climate turnaround fund is finding more traction with limited partners in the Middle East and Asia than in the US and Europe.
Family affair. Brazilian families are “motivated by the impact,” says Wright Capital’s Fernanda Camargo, who manages the wealth of over 40 Brazilian families. She has created three in-house funds-of-funds, each roughly $30 to $40 million, to cut the transaction costs of investing in smaller funds. Wright is standing up another fund to focus on nature-based solutions, regenerative agriculture and climate tech. “We have an infinite amount of opportunities in the bioeconomy,” Camargo told ImpactAlpha. Camargo’s clients have invested with Brazilian impact fund managers, including Vox Capital, MOV Investimentos, Positive Ventures, Rise Ventures, GEF Climate Solutions, Yunus Negocios Sociais and Estímulo. More.
Inclusive economy. Building a more inclusive market is key to growing Brazil’s economy. Once again this May, thousands of visitors will descend on Parque Ibirapuera in São Paulo for the Feira Preta festival, the largest Black cultural and entrepreneurship event in Latin America. Founder Adriana Barbosa will lay out the case for investments in Brazil’s African descendents. Over two decades, she has grown Feira Preta into a platform that has helped plug more than 10,000 Black and Indigenous creative entrepreneurs into the Brazilian economy. It’s “an economically active population,” says Barbosa. More.
Keep reading, “Brazil’s impact and climate investment ecosystem gets ready for COP30.” And join Giselle Vianna, Fabio Alperowitch, Fernanda Camargo, Adriana Barbosa and Ricardo Ramos of Aliança pelo Impacto, in conversation with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank and Dennis Price, on today’s Call, “Unlocking impact – and climate – alpha in Brazil,” in partnership with at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 3pm São Paulo. Still time to RSVP.

Agent of Impact: Julia Santander

Julia Santander, EcoEnterprises Fund: Flexible finance for climate resilience (video). Latin America has long been a testing ground for new climate finance opportunities. Brazil has a raft of creative restoration, mitigation and adaptation efforts ready to be catalyzed and scaled in the region. Women-led EcoEnterprises Fund in Colombia has for 25 years provided flexible financing to companies and organizations strengthening communities’ financial and climate resilience while taking care of the natural landscapes. “We started out working with startups. We were one of the first brave enough to give that a try,” recalls managing director Julia Santander. Now: “We see a tremendous pipeline of investment opportunities in Latin America, with companies that are ready to scale up, to professionalize, be more ambitious, both about their operational and commercial goals and becoming real leaders in a change process in the region.”

Investor evolution. Latin America hosts some of the most biodiverse, and climate vulnerable, territories on the planet. Commercial and institutional investors with little understanding of how to profitably and sustainably invest in natural ecosystems are learning quickly. Investors in EcoEnterprises’ first fund were largely international impact-first, socially-focused investors that were attracted to the firm’s livelihoods mission. Climate is now “dominating the conversation,” Santander told ImpactAlpha in an interview at last year’s GIIN Investor Forum in Amsterdam, where she was looking for investors for the firm’s fourth fund. More financially-focused investors are showing interest, as are the region’s own LPs. “Our impact strategy is more meaningful than ever,” she said, “with more attention being paid to biodiversity, climate and rural communities overall.”
Keep reading and watch the video interview.

Dealflow: Circular Economy

Exclusive: Circulate Capital expands in Latin America with investment in Mexican recycling. The Singapore-based impact investment firm took a stake in Omnigreen, a plastics recycling company based in Rio Blanco, Veracruz. The company is combating plastic pollution by collecting flexible plastics, like plastic bags, shrink wrap, bottles and food containers that would otherwise end up in the trash. Omnigreen converts the waste into resins for use in new flexible plastic products, furniture and materials for construction and agriculture equipment. Omnigreen is aiming to recycle more than 300,000 tons of waste in the next 10 years and create at least 100 jobs.

Circular blueprint. The deal gives Circulate Capital, a plastic-focused circular economy investor, a foothold in Mexico, the third market in its dedicated Latin America investment strategy launched last year (see, “Circulate Capital brings growth capital to plastics recycling in Latin America”). In Asia, Circulate has since 2018 invested in opportunities to curb and remediate plastic pollution and to improve local livelihoods. A key part of its strategy is engaging and deploying capital from large corporate users of plastics, like PepsiCo, Unilever, Danone and Mondelez International. Circulate founder Rob Kaplan calls Latin America “a circular economy blueprint for the world.” The firm has raised $70 million for its dedicated Latin America fund (see, The Liist).
PET projects. Circulate also made a second investment in Colombia, taking a stake in Ambiental de Plasticos Recyclapet, which produces recycled PET pellets for use in synthetic textiles and bottles. The company is buoyed by policy tailwinds: the Colombian government has mandated that 90% of water bottles and 60% of other beverage containers be made using recycled PET by 2040. Circulate last July invested in Polyrec – its first deal in Latin America. It also owns a stake in Brazil-based recycling company Cirklo.
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NEW: Family office Ceniarth led a $10 million investment into Deetken Impact’s Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund, a fund launched in 2016 to invest at the intersection of women’s empowerment and climate resilience. An unnamed donor-advised fund also participated. (Deetken Impact)

Dealflow overflow. More investment news crossing our desks:

Climate + gender. Regenera Ventures secured $9.3 million for regenerative farming in Mexico… EcoEnterprises Fund and Circulate Capital were part of the latest round of investments from climate and gender-focused investor Heading for Change.
Cross-regional impact.Brazilian digital bank Nubank led a $250 million funding round for Singapore-based Tyme Group, a digital bank for small- and mid-sized businesses in Asia and Africa… Mexico City-based Sistema.bio scooped up $7.8 million from African venture fund Novastar for its renewable energy and regenerative agtech… World Vision’s VisionFund raised $10 million through a bond issuance to extend credit to women and other underbanked groups in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Financial inclusion. FinMaq raised $29 million in debt and equity to provide equipment financing to Colombia’s small businesses… Citi provided a $10 million loan to Paraguay’s Banco Familiar to on-lend to small businesses in the country.
Fund milestones. Impaqto Capital closed its first fund to invest in Andean impact startups… The European Investment Bank and Allianz raised €450 million toward a €500 million goal for their Emerging Markets Climate Action Fund, which invests in climate adaptation and mitigation funds working in Asia, Africa and Latin America (see related, “How commercial investors are streamlining blended fund structures”).

Get in the Game

🏃🏽‍♀️ On the Move

The Rockefeller Foundation welcomes Lyana Latorre as vice president of program strategy for the Latin America and Caribbean region… BNP Paribas’ Vanessa Dager succeeds Ana Demel as chair of the board directors of Pro Mujer… Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter will focus on her role as founding general partner of IMPAQTO Capital, following her exit as executive director of content at SOCAP Global.

💼 Step Up

ResponsAbility is recruiting a senior investment officer of climate finance for Latin America… CrossBoundary is hiring a Latin America and Caribbean-focused investment advisor… Incofin Investment Management seeks a legal counsel representative in Colombia… AlphaMundi Group has an opening for a Latin America-focused investment analyst… Symbiotics is looking for a Latin America and Caribbean investment analyst in Mexico City… Ambire, a sustainability-focused consulting firm, has an opening for a sustainable finance associate consultant in Bogotá.