ImpactAlpha Latin America

ImpactAlpha Latin America: Indigenous ownership in Latin America’s energy transition

ImpactAlpha · July 23, 2025

Saludos, Agents of Impact! 

Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:

👉 Amplify your impact. We hope you’re enjoying ImpactAlpha Latin America, our free monthly newsletter covering the region. Subscribe to ImpactAlpha to access our full suite of benefits, including our new ImpactAlpha LP / GP newsletter. Become an enterprise partner to bring ImpactAlpha to your full team. Take 75% off.

 ¡Empecemos! – Jessica Pothering

In this month’s newsletter:

  • Indigenizing Latin America’s energy transition
  • T. Rowe Price invests in smartphone finance company PayJoy’s
  • Valuing Latin America’s care economy
  • Tokenizing the Amazon nut

Meliquina models Indigenous ownership in Latin America’s energy transition. Ecuador-based solar developer Meliquina and the Indigenous Mapuche Millaqueo community in Argentina are modeling Indigenous equity and asset ownership in Latin America’s clean energy boom. Collaboration on an 18-megawatt solar project offers the community, which holds the rights to valuable land but has little financial capital to invest, an equity stake and share of future profits. Antú 1, as the project is called, is being developed on 25,000 acres of Mapuche Millaqueo land in Argentina’s Patagonia region. The community’s engagement with investors and regulators has helped derisk Antú 1 in ways that would not be possible without their involvement. “We know the local actors, politics and companies, but no one had ever proposed that we be part of development – sharing in the profits, the costs, and the decision-making,” Stella Zapata, a Mapuche leader and a key voice in the development of Antu 1, tells ImpactAlpha. “That was something totally new.”

  • Community co-design. Antú 1 – named for the Mapuche word for “sun” – has been in the works for seven years. The project is part of Meliquina’s blended-finance Community Equity Opportunity Fund, which aims to catalyze local investment and ownership of renewable energy projects in Latin America. The fund structure, supported by Climate Policy Initiative’s Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, brings in tranches of capital to match the stages of a project’s development. Donor funding defrays early project planning costs. A mix of grants and loans covers construction costs. Once sites are operational, Meliquina puts up guarantees to help communities secure debt to cover their ownership stakes. Communities and Meliquina coordinate on planning and execution. The Mapuche Millaqueo have “participated from scratch in the design” of Antú 1, says Meliquina’s Juan Dumas.
  • Indigenizing catalytic capital. Meliquina’s Community Equity Opportunity Fund builds on models elsewhere that are resetting economic agency and ownership around communities that have historically been overlooked or sidelined. In the US, Indigenous-owned Navajo Power is co-developing utility-scale solar, cutting tribal nations in on profits and governance of projects on their lands (see, “Navajo Power is building a pipeline of utility-scale solar projects to model a just climate transition“). In Canada, Indigenous First Nations and Métis communities have acquired equity in more than 200 medium- and large-scale clean energy projects. In Nepal, local communities secured the right to invest in state-run hydro projects after organizing and legal action. “The biggest barrier isn’t technical or legal – it’s mental,” says Zapata. “Developers come in expecting conflict. But when you treat communities as partners, you save time, reduce risk and build something that actually lasts.”
  • Keep reading, “Meliquina models Indigenous ownership in Latin America’s energy transition,” by Erik Stein.

Dealflow: Inclusive Fintech

T. Rowe Price backs PayJoy to expand smartphone access in emerging markets. San Francisco-based PayJoy is scaling access to smartphones and credit for underserved populations in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Nearly half of PayJoy’s users are women; many use their devices for gig work and household income. The public benefit corporation’s $250 million PayJoy Asset Fund secured a commitment from T. Rowe Price. “The mobile phone is essentially an entry ticket into our increasingly connected world. We believe PayJoy is a tech-enabled, data-driven innovation that can fuel sustainable and responsible economic growth,” said T. Rowe Price’s Samy Muaddi.

  • Digital inclusion. The PayJoy Asset Fund allows investors to co-invest in smartphone loans originated by PayJoy. Half of PayJoy’s 15 million customers are new to credit; one in three is accessing a smartphone for the first time. The fund is structured to grow to $1 billion in step with PayJoy’s expanding portfolio. “This investment will put us in a better position to expand credit to more customers across the Global South that will enhance people’s lives,” said PlayJoy’s Bill Yialamas.
  • Gift this post.

Other investment news crossing our desks:

  • Agrifood investing. Miller Center Capital’s Innovation Fund, supported Grupo Merlota and rural Mexicans with small-scale poultry farming… Symbiomics, a bio-based agricultural producer, closed a Series A round backed by Corteva… Brazil’s Mágio raised $1.6 million from impact investment firm CBKK to expand its range of Amazonian chocolate products and develop blockchain-based tracing for its supply chain… Future Cow, also in Brazil, secured early funding for its animal-free milk… The Gates Foundation invested in bio-based crop treatment developer Puna Bio.
  • Circular economy. Circulate Capital raised $75.8 million to recycle plastic in Latin America and the Caribbean. 
  • Clean energy. Argentina’s Unblock clinched $13.5 billion to use stranded energy for data centers… Mexico-based Tulum Energy raised $27 million in equity financing to build a pilot plant for producing hydrogen energy.
  • Education and skills. IMPAQTO Capital provided a revenue-based loan to Muyu Education to provide coaching and AI-enabled feedback to educators in Ecuador.
  • Financial inclusion. Spanish bank BBVA extended a $35 million credit line to Colombian fintech Addi… Chile’s Maxxa raised $10.6 million from Symbiotics to expand lending to small businesses… Vox Capital, Monashees and L4 Venture Builder invested in Brazil’s NG.Cash, which develops digital credit tools for Gen Z.   
  • Low-carbon transition. BTG Pactual secured $160 million in debt financing from Emerging Markets Global Advisory to finance water and sanitation projects in Latin America.

Impact Voices: Impact Tech

Tokenizing the Amazon: Unlocking capital to preserve forests and generate local income. Using blockchain technology, financial service providers are turning real-world things into assets that can be traded by everyday investors. The “tokenization,” of art, startups and real estate is part of the broader crypto boom. In Brazil, fintech startup ForestiFi and forest products producer Zeno Nativo are running an experiment to unlock capital for forest preservation and strengthen the livelihoods of traditional communities… by tokenizing the Amazon nut. In April, ForestiFi and Zeno Nativo successfully transformed 1,850 kilograms of Amazon nuts, aka Brazil nuts, into digital assets, raising 114,700 Brazilian reais ($21,000) in investments from 82 investors. Capital raised from the initiative is directly channeled to over 50 families in the Acará River region of Pará, the source of the tokenized nuts. 

  • From Brazil nuts to digital assets. Interest in tokenizing Brazil nuts stems from their potential to generate income for players in the sustainable supply chain. “This allows small producers, traditionally excluded from the financial system, to access resources,” says ForestiFi’s Glauco Aguiar. The startup forged a partnership with Zeno Nativo through AMAZ, an impact business accelerator in northern Brazil. “We are demonstrating that the Brazil nuts extracted annually are a legitimate asset, capable of serving as collateral for fundraising.”
  • Keep reading, “Tokenizing the Amazon: Unlocking capital to preserve forests and generate local income,” by AMAZ’s Daniela Lopes.

Putting a price on care to unlock Latin America’s ‘biggest investment opportunity’. Caregiving worldwide is typically the domain of women. The work of caregivers – for children, for the elderly, for households and communities – is often unseen and therefore undervalued by the global economy. If it were fairly valued, unpaid care work could represent 9% of global GDP, and as much as 25% in Latin America, outpacing many traditional sectors. “This is a costly oversight, and one of the region’s most overlooked investment opportunities,” write Rebecca Fries of Value for Women and Carmen Correa of Pro Mujer in a guest post. An emerging crop of companies are developing models to prove out the business and investment case for the care economy. 

  • Care innovation. In Mexico, Hipocampus partners with employers to establish workplace childcare centers. Symplifica in Colombia is bridging informal caregiving and formal labor markets by connecting thousands of care workers to education, insurance and work contracts. “These innovations offer more than investment opportunities,” write the authors. “They simultaneously close the childcare gap and advance gender equity by formalizing – and making visible and remunerated – roles that traditionally fall on women.”
  • Keep reading, “Putting a price on care to unlock Latin America’s ‘biggest investment opportunity’,” by Rebecca Fries and Carmen Correa. 

Follow the Talent

On the move

Impacta VC welcomes Victor Lau, previously with inDrive, as managing partner and CFO, and Jamie Sotomayor, previously with Worthit VC, as a venture partner. 

Step up

The Inter-American Development Bank seeks a general manager of its multilateral investment fund… Latimpacto is looking for a global markets and partnerships manager in Bogotá… BlueOrchard Finance has an opening for an origination senior investment officer in Lima… Incofin seeks a Colombia-based manager for sustainable food investments.

Meet Up

Don’t miss these upcoming impact investing events: