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In this week’s LP/GP:
- Where Temasek is looking for growth opportunities
- 25 ‘transformative’ impact fund managers
- Rockefeller backs Alder Point Capital’s climate-resilient landscapes
- AI’s energy appetite drives clean tech investment
Featured: LP Profile
With $400 billion in assets, Temasek leans into emerging markets, climate adaptation and ‘sustainable living’ (podcast). Geopolitical uncertainties and shifting policy environments have global fund managers and operators flocking to the relative stability of Singapore. Many have found a receptive ear at Temasek, the $400 billion state-owned investment fund that calls itself a “generational investor”. Temasek is one of the most visible global investors, with major partnerships with Leapfrog, Brookfield, BlackRock and other asset managers. Temasek has also backed managers such as North Carolina-based Aurora Sustainable Lands, which has a permanent capital vehicle for sustainable timber and carbon credits; Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures, which has raised its second Global Water Fund; and Stegra, which is building one of Europe’s largest green steel plants in Sweden. “We always say there are no returns from a dead planet or a divided society,” Eliza Foo, who leads Temasek’s impact investing team, says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. “I think it’s our responsibility to leave the planet a better place for future generations as well.”
- Emerging markets. Temasek’s sustainability report, released this month, details S$49 billion (US$38 billion) in investments aligned with “sustainable living,” one of four structural trends guiding Temasek’s investments (the others are digitization, the future of consumption, and longer lifespans). The impact investing portfolio is within its Sustainable Living strategy, which has a mandate to deliver market-rate returns and positive impact at scale. “Practically, that means focusing on underserved communities in Asia, but also in Africa and Latin America, across financial services, healthcare and climate solutions,” Foo says. This week, Temasek backed Rize, which helps smallholder rice farmers reduce water use and methane emissions. With the world already breaching the 1.5-degrees-Celsius increase in global temperatures, Foo is focused on climate-resilient agriculture and infrastructure, cooling solutions and water. “A lot of the emerging market solutions are now becoming cost-competitive, or actually cheaper, than the incumbent.”
- Impact hub. Temasek, which operates independently, and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, anchor Singapore’s investment ecosystem. Family firms, offices and foundations are supporting a vibrant impact investing hub. Temasek hosted its 12th annual Ecosperity Week in May. Tsao Pao Chee and the No. 17 Foundation are hosting the At One Impact Week in September (see, “From Singapore, Tsao Family Office expands the LP pool for impact strategies in Africa”). Foo said Singapore plays a unique role as a trusted hub, being neutral, well-regulated and steeped in Asia’s tradition of family-owned companies that operate with a generational perspective. “There’s a natural orientation toward long-term, patient capital. [Singapore] thinks about generations. It thinks about long-term stewardship,” Foo says. “We’re starting to see a lot of capital, talent and convening here as well. Hopefully we can encourage more to come, and then build this ecosystem on its own.”
- Keep reading, and listen in to, “With $400 billion in assets, Temasek leans into emerging markets, climate adaptation and ‘sustainable living’,” by David Bank. Get the Agents of Impact and other ImpactAlpha podcasts in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
Live on Edge: Temasek’s Co-Investors
Three dozen LPs that invest alongside Temasek. LP profiles on ImpactAlpha Edge now highlight co-investment relationships, offering a richer view of the networks surrounding LPs like Temasek, which has co-invested with Alterra, Prudential, La Caisse and other global investors. Other LP Edge profiles: Family office Ceniarth has more than 170 co-investors. Woodcock Foundation connects to nearly 150 other LPs through shared fund investments, including more than 10 investments with Ceniarth.
GP Snapshot: Emerging Managers
More than two dozen ‘transformative’ fund managers sync systems change with financial returns. The latest “Transformative 25” cohort from Collective Action for Just Finance features emerging managers for whom “the mission and the mechanism are inseparable, and where financial returns and genuine systems change are not in tension, but in service of one another.” Turtle Island Community Capital, an Indigenous-led, place-based fund manager, designs its capital to serve investees and their ecological, cultural and economic relationships. Such creative, community-rooted, first-time fund managers again dominated this year’s list. The 131 funds and vehicles Collective Action has listed over six years have mobilized a combined $1.9 billion. “The assumption that impact scales linearly with size is one our field is slowly, and rightly, unlearning,” the team wrote. “Small can be mighty.”
- Blending finance. Another theme: “Braiding capital across the full spectrum – financial, relational, political, technical alike – is no longer the exception.” Turtle Island secured a $400,000 zero-interest anchor loan from Common Future, as well as $500,000 from the Ishkode Fund to cover operating expenses for its $10 million Watershed Fund, ImpactAlpha has learned. Boston Impact Initiative’s First Mover Fund leverages grant capital to help first-time impact fund managers prove their models and attract additional investors. FS6’s Guarantees for Regenerative Agriculture uses pooled loan guarantees to share risk with lenders and unlock capital for regenerative farmers. ReFund offers zero-interest, recoverable grants to nonprofits and tribal organizations waiting for approved government funding.
- Read on and check out the full list.
Dealflow: Nature-Based Solutions
Alder Point secures $4 million from Rockefeller Foundation to build climate-resilient forests and farmland. Alder Point Capital Management acquires timberland and farmland and partners with local farmers, foresters and operators to restore soil, water and forest health. Such practices aren’t just good for the land, they’re good for local workers and economies, and for investors. It’s a recipe for “impact alpha,” says Alder Point’s Chris Larson (listen to our podcast conversation with Larson). The Rockefeller Foundation’s $4 million commitment will support Alder Point’s land acquisitions in rural communities.
- Rural revival. Farmland and timberland anchor rural economies in the US, driving local jobs, property values and long-term community stability. Decades of extractive management, underinvestment and climate stress have rendered land less productive and more exposed to environmental and economic shocks. In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Alder Point acquired a blueberry farm to combine regenerative agricultural production with conservation, to protect the farmland from development pressure. “In rural communities across the US, there are lots of opportunities for impact interventions,” Larson told ImpactAlpha in May.
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Lafayette Square backs technology modernization for community lenders. America’s member-owned credit unions are racing to replace decades-old banking systems. Private credit investor Lafayette Square provided capital to support RM Capital Partners’ acquisition of Samaha & Associates, a Miami-based consulting firm that advises credit unions on computing architecture, vendor negotiations and merger-related technology integrations. RM Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm, says Samaha has supported more than 200 credit union clients, negotiating more than $200 million in contract savings. “The credit union movement is navigating one of the most substantial technology transitions in its history, and this partnership gives us the capital and support to guide more institutions through that journey,” said Samaha’s Adam Denbo of the acquisition.
- Modernizing community finance. Unlike shareholder-owned banks, credit unions return earnings to members through lower borrowing costs, higher savings rates and reduced fees. Modernizing technology can reduce operating costs, enabling them to remain competitive with larger banks while continuing to serve working families, small businesses and underserved communities. The financing fits Lafayette Square’s broader strategy of supporting businesses serving low- and middle-income communities (see, “Investing in working-class people and places”). About half of the US’s 4,250 credit unions hold the National Credit Union Administration’s low-income designation.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Mirova invested €150 million ($171 million) in Yanara, a utility-scale renewable energy developer, to support the expansion of its portfolio in Australia. (ESG Today)
- Battery tech developer Sila raised $300 million from private equity firms Atreides Management, Sutter Hill Ventures, 8VC, Bessemer Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, as well as T. Rowe Price-managed funds, for expansion of its plant in Washington state. (Sila)
- British International Investment and the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund are investing $75 million in a mezzanine debt deal for Blueleaf Energy. Blueleaf, an independent power producer owned by Macquarie Asset Management, is developing renewable energy projects in India, with a goal of reaching five gigawatts by 2030. (EAAIF)
Signals: Deploy!
AI power demand revives climate tech funding. Demand for energy by AI hyperscalers is so great that BloombergNEF has upped its 2035 energy demand forecast for US data centers by 83% since December, to 194 gigawatts. The boom is driving billions of dollars into clean power and related technologies (see “Pulling climate tech to commercial scale with the energy demand from data centers”). That helped lift climate tech investment to its strongest first half since 2022. Companies developing clean energy, electric vehicles, green data centers and climate-risk technologies received $26 billion from venture investors in the first half of 2026, up 55% from a year earlier, according to a new report from Currence (formerly Sightline). Clean-powered data center developers captured 34% of all global climate tech funding, up from just 3% a year ago, led by DayOne’s $4.5 billion Series C round and NScale’s $2 billion round.
- Mixed message. Climate tech exits are back. Some 152 climate companies were acquired or went public, including IPOs from geothermal developer Fervo Energy, and nuclear company X-energy. Recovery across the broader climate tech market remains uneven. Deal count fell 25% to a five-year low, as investors wrote bigger checks to fewer companies. Equity investments into carbon credit companies collapsed 61% to its weakest half since 2020. Adaptation tech saw some of the sector’s largest deals to date.
- More.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Djalal Khimdjee, formerly with Proparco, will take the helm of Africa50’s Principal Investment Fund in August… Adaptation Asia’s Panra Fund, Big Valley’s Ag360 fund and Gawa Capital’s Secure Fund are among the grantees selected by the SDG Impact Finance Initiative’s climate adaptation and resilience innovation window… Charm Impact is recruiting an investment officer, with a preference for Nairobi-based candidates.
Rainier Climate is searching for a vice president of programs, based in Bellevue, Wash… Ikea Foundation is recruiting a director of impact investing in the Netherlands… Women Invest is hosting an information session for a new angel investment network for Caribbean and diaspora women interested in investing in entrepreneurs in the region, Friday, July 31… Engineering for Change is hosting a webinar on building sustainable critical mineral supply chains for finance professionals, technologists and policy advisors, Monday, July 27.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– July 22, 2026
