Greetings, Agents of Impact!
Welcome to this week’s ImpactAlpha LP/GP, where we take you inside the real business of impact investing and the dynamic relationships between owners, managers and intermediaries of impact capital.
☎️ Agents of Impact Call: Tackling advisor roadblocks. Clients want to do more with their money. Advisors want to do more with their clients. Financial advisors who engage with clients about their values and offer credible impact strategies can deepen their relationships and prepare for generational shifts. Join CapShift’s Liz Sessler, ImpactPHL’s Cory Donovan, Westfuller’s Randall Strickland and Glenmede’s Mark Hays, in conversation with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank, Thursday Dec. 11, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.
In this week’s newsletter:
- New Mexico leverages sovereign wealth fund to attract climate projects
- Sovereign wealth funds investing in climate and infrastructure
- Expanding insurance access in Africa
- PosiGen’s solar bankruptcy puts Brookfield in the hot seat
Featured: LP Snapshot
How New Mexico’s $67 billion fund is using oil and gas revenues to build a clean energy economy (podcast). New Mexico’s solar resources, geothermal features and nuclear know-how attract many climate tech startups, and the venture capitalists who back them. There’s also the state’s $67 billion State Investment Council, which in recent years has grown into the second-largest sovereign wealth fund among US states. New Mexico’s SIC has become an active investor in climate fund managers, investing $1 billion in the last six months alone. A $300 million commitment to Lowercarbon Capital, for example, helped convince a hot nuclear startup to locate a research and development facility in Albuquerque that could create 200 jobs. “If we were offering Lowercarbon $5 million to invest, they would have responded very differently than if we offered them, as we did, $300 million to invest,” Bruce Brown, head the SIC’s new office of strategic climate initiatives, says on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast. “Lowercarbon knows that the more of this they bring, the more capital we’ll have to give to them to invest for us.”
- Sovereign wealth. The SIC grew out of an arrangement that dates to New Mexico’s admission as a state in 1912. The federal government gave the state large tracts of land with the proviso that it be used to fund public services, and could not be sold. The fracking boom of the mid-2000s and 2010s propelled New Mexico’s fund into the top tier of sovereign wealth funds in the US and globally. In the most recent fiscal year, the fund distributed $2.6 billion back to the state and by 2050 could represent one-third of the state’s revenues. It covers the costs of more than a quarter of all K-12 education in the state and 75% of early childhood education. Families in New Mexico are eligible for assistance paying for childcare, regardless of income level, through SIC’s $10 billion Early Childhood Trust Fund.
- Gun shy. The fund has recently moved back into venture capital and private equity. Recent investments include the SIC’s $50 million commitment to DCVC to help commercialize research from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. Last year, the SIC committed $80 million to several funds of UP.Partners, a climate tech VC with a focus on mobility and transportation. “We need somebody to know how to make money in this field,” says Brown, a former prosecutor in the New York Attorney General’s office, who was recruited to New Mexico in 2013. “We’re not giving out participation awards. We are looking for people who can actually make this new industry happen and happen in New Mexico.”
- Growth potential. Brown said the state is grateful for the oil and gas resources that created its wealth, but that the future is renewable. A 2023 memo about the fund’s climate tech investments makes clear that the driver is financial returns, not climate action. “The purpose of this sub-strategy is not to decarbonize the atmosphere and prevent global warming, but rather to make money and to help grow a segment of New Mexico’s economy that has significant growth potential,” the memo explains. As an LP in Anzu Partners, the SIC got exposure to Houston-based XGS Energy, a developer of advanced geothermal projects, including one in New Mexico that will supply power to Meta to power its data centers. “The fund we invested in was pushing them to this,” Brown said. “Now we’ve got a billion-dollar New Mexico project. That’s the magic of venture capital right there.”
- Keep reading and listen in to, “How New Mexico’s $67 billion fund is using oil and gas revenues to build a clean energy economy,” by David Bank.
LP Scan: Sovereign Wealth
Ten sovereign wealth funds deploying billions in climate and infrastructure strategies. Sovereign wealth funds are leaning into impact strategies for climate tech, infrastructure and regional development, as both financial opportunities and national priorities. State-owned funds collectively manage more than $13 trillion in assets. Nearly 70% now factor the UN Sustainable Development Goals into their investment decisions. ImpactAlpha has tracked more than a dozen sovereign wealth fund commitments over the past year to impact vehicles in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
- Tech-driven. New Mexico’s State Investment Council‘s investments include Lux Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, Scout Ventures, Acequia Capital and Morpheus Ventures (see above). The Gobi Dana Impak fund, a partnership between Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional and VC firm Gobi Capital, invested in ArmourZero to scale low-cost cybersecurity software for small businesses. Mubadala, a $330 billion sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, has been at the center of a series of major AI financing initiatives, including the Global AI Investment Partnership with Microsoft and BlackRock.
Dealflow: Community Solar
Gratitude Railroad and Plankton Energy partner to buy commercial and community solar projects. The Plankton-Gratitude Yield Co. has raised $10.8 million in equity and, with leverage and tax credits, aims to buy 35 to 40 projects worth around $40 million. New York-based Plankton, a developer of small commercial and community solar projects in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California, arranges the leases, permits, purchase agreements and interconnections before selling it to the yieldco. Gratitude Railroad is an impact-focused investor network and asset manager.
- Tax advantaged. More than half the PGY projects will be community solar projects that lock in electricity price discounts for low- and moderate-income consumers, including one already operating in Worcester, Mass. “From an impact lens, we are money by the people, for the projects for the people,” Plankton’s Daniel Giuffrida told ImpactAlpha. Because of the size of the projects, the joint venture is able to take advantage of federal tax credits through at least 2027 or, in some cases, 2031.
- More.
FSD Africa rolls out an ‘insurtech’ fund to expand access to insurance in Africa. The Inclusive Insurtech Investment Fund, or 3iF, is looking to raise $30 million to make equity investments in insurance tech startups supporting climate, health and other types of coverage for vulnerable individuals and households. Only about 3% of Africans have any type of insurance coverage. FSD Africa, a UK-government backed development finance initiative for Africa, anchored the fund with junior equity. Senior equity investors include African insurer Zep Re, which was launched by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, a regional economic organization.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Berlin-based Future Energy Ventures raised €205 million ($239 million) for its second fund for digital and asset-light energy transition startups. (EU-Startups)
- Tiger Infrastructure Partners invested growth capital in Kansas City, Mo.-based Raptor Waste Solutions, which handles management logistics for residential, commercial and industrial customers. (Tiger Infrastructure)
- TPG Rise Climate completed its acquisition of Siemens Gamesa, the onshore wind business of Siemens Energy in India and Sri Lanka. (TPG)
Signals: Deploy!
PosiGen bankruptcy highlights solar industry woes and puts Brookfield in the hot seat. Residential solar company PosiGen is the latest US solar company to go bust. It joins other one-time high-flyers such as SunPower, Sunnova and Mosaic Solar, which all declared bankruptcy this year as high interest rates, tariffs and the abrupt removal of federal solar incentives batters the solar market. New Orleans-based PosiGen stood out for its focus on low-income communities and “no credit check” pledge. The Brookfield Asset Management-backed company, which installed solar panels on homes and leased them back to homeowners, instead looked at customers’ payments of cell phone, utility and auto loan bills. It relied heavily on federal incentives that, under the Trump administration, have been prematurely phased out, even as new policy barriers have been erected. “For so many of the families we serve at PosiGen, energy tax credits are what make solar possible,” wrote Posigen’s founder Thomas Neyhart this spring.
- Who’s who. In addition to some $600 million in debt financing from Brookfield since 2023, PosiGen raised tens of millions of dollars from investors including SJF Ventures, Builders Fund, Emerson Collective, Kresge Foundation and Lafayette Square. PosiGen’s demise was perhaps hastened by Brookfield, its senior lender, according to a lawsuit filed by the Connecticut Green Bank in late October. The bank, which was also a PosiGen lender, charges that Brookfield’s “aggressive exercise of control over the financial and operational affairs” jeopardized its chances of a successful restructuring. Brookfield is one of four “strategic financial partners” that shared in $2.7 billion from the Coalition for Green Capital, a green bank group awarded $5 billion via the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, before the funds for that program were frozen in Citibank accounts.
- ‘Dead to me.’ PosiGen, a public benefit corp., was made up of dozens of entities grouped into three main units: an operating company; a financing arm that raised debt for projects; and a project unit that owned and leased the solar assets. Brookfield’s $600 million was funneled into the financing group. According to Connecticut Green Bank’s suit, Brookfield orchestrated mass layoffs of the operating company’s employees, and dribbled out weekly bridge loans to the financial unit, protecting only its narrow interests. When the green bank pressed for more information on the situation, the suit alleges, a Brookfield executive, Michael Rudnick, said the bank “would be ‘dead’ to Brookfield” if it did not agree to Brookfield’s terms, and that the PE firm would cut off unrelated business opportunities. Brookfield, which has asked for the suit to be dismissed, did not respond to inquiries from ImpactAlpha.
- More.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Appalachian Community Capital appoints Daniel Wallace as president and CEO, effective in January… PaceZero Capital Partners welcomes Trish Nixon as an executive in residence… At One Ventures adds Mark Schwager as an entrepreneur in residence… Curewell Capital taps Neeraj Prathipati, previously with Great Hill Partners, as principal… ONE WORLD Investments welcomes Gianna Cacciatore, previously with Social Finance, as director of programs and partnerships.
BRIDGE Housing Corp. adds Lisa Laffer, previously with Regent Properties, as chief operating officer and general counsel… Ceniarth has an opening for an investment associate in London… Also in London, Standard Chartered Bank is looking for a sustainable reporting director… ThreeCap seeks an impact analyst in Vancouver… Sistema.bio is on the hunt for a carbon partnerships manager in Europe.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Dec. 3, 2025
