ImpactAlpha Open | October 29, 2024

ImpactAlpha Open: Impact investing assets top $1.5 trillion + C3 doubles down on catalytic capital

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

Hi there, Agent of Impact! ImpactAlpha’s David Bank, Amy Cortese, Zuleyma Bebell and Joe Whitwell and Iare in San Francisco this week at SOCAP24. Catch us today at the Yerba Buena Arts Center for the premiere of our documentary: “Napoleon Wallace & the Reconstruction of Black Wealth.” Watch the trailer and read the backgrounder.

🎉 Special SOCAP24 offer: Get 1 year for $99. Don’t miss our on-the-ground – and year-round – coverage of impact investing and sustainable finance. Take 75% off the first year.

In this week’s Open:

  • Impact investing assets top $1.5 trillion
  • C3 doubles down on catalytic capital
  • Podcasts: Live-ish from Amsterdam, the debut of the Market Makers
  • Deal Spotlight: India’s edtech unicorns

Let’s get to it. – Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • And the size of the impact investing market is $1.5 trillion…ish. Pension and insurance funds that are increasing their allocations to impact investments pushed total impact assets under management to $1.571 trillion, according to the Global Impact Investing Network. The number in the GIIN’s latest sizing study is far from precise, as the report acknowledges. As David Bank writes, the GIIN’s commendable methodological detail is likely to be lost as the new number gets cited and rounded in the months ahead. Check it out.
    • A chat with GIIN’s CEO. Fund managers and asset owners are warming up to bigger funds and bigger swings. ImpactAlpha spoke with the GIIN’s Amit Bouri about the dual task of convincing more investors to come under the impact umbrella, while ensuring that investors adhere to recognized and meaningful standards as their work grows. In maturation and momentum, “impact investing is inevitable,” Bouri told ImpactAlpha. Read the Q+A.
  • Wanted: Green projects to stoke demand for US climate funds. Money is not the issue. Two months after $27 billion started flowing to nonprofits and community lenders from a pillar of the Biden Administration’s landmark climate initiative, the challenge is developing enough projects. “There’s no effective demand right now,” Michael Swack of the Center on Impact Finance at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy tells Lynnley Browning. Read more.
  • C3 doubles down to scale up catalytic capital. A year ago, the Catalytic Capital Consortium was ready to declare success and move on. Instead, C3, as it’s known, is opening a new chapter, I report with Lynnley. Amid growing demand, and increasing supply, of so-called catalytic capital, the consortium is redoubling its efforts to expand usage of the investment and financing tool. See why. (Disclosure: C3 supports ImpactAlpha’s coverage of catalytic capital).
  • Risk-adjusted impact alpha. Impact investments can and do outperform, and are often much less risky than perceived. In a guest post for ImpactAlpha, AlphaMundi Group’s Tim Radjy, Clare Sewell of AMG and Ramkumar Narayanan of Tameo Impact Fund Solutions cite historical data showing that impact equity and debt strategies run by private equity firms offer the best places in emerging markets to find risk-adjusted returns. Read the post.
  • Low-risk, high-impact lending in emerging markets. For private investors, there’s a lot to like in the latest data release from the GEMs Consortium of 21 multilateral development banks and development finance institutions on the historical credit risks of lending to emerging markets and developing economies, argues ODI’s Neil Gregory in an op-ed. The big takeaway: Private investors should “see loans in emerging and developing markets as a long-term asset class which repays patient investing and a thorough approach to asset selection.” Not so risky business.

Agents of Impact

🏃 On the move

  • Hillá Watkins, formerly of Scale Venture Partners, joined Congruent Ventures.
  • Brian Wyborn stepped down as managing partner of First Australians Capital to join Aboriginal Investment NT, an Australian firm that invests in Indigenous communities in Australia’s northeast region.
  • Dustin Shay, previously with Acumen, joined Mission Driven Finance as senior director of capital initiatives.

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact: $1.5 trillion of impact capital

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank, checking in from Amsterdam. Up this week: The GIIN’s new report pegs the impact investing market at $1.5 trillion…ish. The new backers of the Catalytic Capital Consortium’s efforts to expand the use of impact-first capital. And, a preview of “Equity and Ownership,” ImpactAlpha’s first film production, which is premiering at SOCAP next week.

📈 The Market Makers: Building inclusive capitalism with Troy Duffie and Lenore Champagne Beirne (video podcasts). The latest addition to the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, is hosted bythe Milken Institute’s Troy Duffie and Bright Ventures’ Lenore Champagne Beirne. On the inaugural episode, Duffie and Champagne Beirne introduce themselves and their choice to pursue more inclusive capitalism through their careers – and with The Market Makers podcast.

  • Innovating financial security with Wemimo Abbey. Episode two features Wemimo Abbey, the founder of Esusu, which uses rent payments to help people improve their credit scores. Abbey tells Duffie and Champagne Beirne how he was inspired to start Esusu by his mother’s experience emigrating from Nigeria. “No matter where you come from, the color of your skin and your financial identity shouldn’t determine where you end up in the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen,” he says. Listen to or watch episode two of The Market Makers.

🏛️ Capitol Gains: Joel Rogers on taking the high road to sustainable and equitable development. “High road development is about prospering better together in places forever,” explains Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the latest Capitol Gains podcast. “It’s about reducing waste, adding value, capturing the benefits, and doing it again.” Rogers speaks with hosts Matt Posner and James McIntyre about how local governments can implement strategies that foster economic equity, sustainability and resilience while navigating the complex challenges of modern governance.  

Deal Spotlight

🦄 India’s edtech unicorns

Artificial intelligence and other technological advances could transform nearly a third of the world’s jobs in the next five years. That’s driving global demand for new skills and education. India’s vibrant ecosystem of education tech providers is staging a comeback after getting hit by the global funding downturn. Mumbai-based Eruditus, which offers online professional development courses, raised $150 million this month in a round led by TPG Rise Fund that gave it a $3 billion valuation. Also in Mumbai, upGrad secured $60 million from Singapore’s Temasek. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, PhysicsWallah which provides an online curriculum for students in grades six through 12, landed $210 million from Mumbai-based Hornbill Capital Advisers and others in September.

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • The New York State Insurance Fund is seeking a senior lead for ESG amd sustainable investments in New York.
  • GAWA Capital is searching for an impact and technical assistance analyst in Madrid.
  • NESsT is hiring a loan officer for Lirio Fund Andes in Lima, Peru.

Sign up to Impact Careers get the top impact investing job listings and internships right in your inbox. Register for free.

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