ImpactAlpha LP / GP

Introducing ImpactAlpha LP/GP: Inside the business of impact investing

ImpactAlpha · February 18, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact! 

Welcome to ImpactAlpha LP/GP, our new specialized newsletter designed to take you inside the business of impact investing. Across venture capital, and private equity and debt, both limited partners and general partners are seeking alpha in impact. ImpactAlpha LP/GP, delivered to you each Tuesday in The Brief, is a portal to ImpactAlpha’s growing suite of news and data products to serve the ecosystem of owners and managers deploying capital for positive impact. 

“ImpactAlpha LP/GP is an essential read for those seeking an edge in private market impact investing,” says Marieke Spence, executive director of Impact Capital Managers. “Resources like ImpactAlpha’s LP/GP newsletter will help to build stronger connections between impact GPs and LPs, especially on topics related to fundraising and capital allocation.” What to expect:

  • Feature articles. Original LP/GP reporting that takes readers inside the business of impact investing.
  • Active fundraising. New entrants to The Liist database of actively rising impact funds. 
  • Real-time dealmaking. LPs staking funds. GPs closing raises. GPs deploying funds.
  • Impact voices. Guest posts from allocators and fund managers.

Know a friend, colleague or peer that should be reading ImpactAlpha LP/GP? Forward them this registration page for a free trial. – David Bank

In this week’s LP/GP:

  • When LPs co-invest with GPs
  • Fund managers come back with second funds 
  • TPG’s Jim Coulter is bullish on impact

That (mixed) feeling when your LP co-invests in the sweet deal you’ve just negotiated. When San Francisco-based Generate Capital last month agreed to provide $200 million in credit to build an electric arc furnace steel mill near Mojave, Calif., it brought along for the ride pension funds not only from California, but from Australia as well. The $353 billion CalSTRS pension fund and Australia’s $91 billion HESTA co-invested with Generate to help Pacific Steel build one of the first green steel plants west of the Mississippi. Pension funds increasingly are writing big checks for sustainable infrastructure and other projects alongside their fund managers who arranged the deals. Such “co-investments” have moved from the sidelines to the center of fundraising for private equity and debt funds and other investment vehicles, as institutional LPs push their fund managers for more access to direct investments – and for lower fees. 

  • Co-commitments. “When you’re raising a fund these days, a key consideration for some LPs is how much co-investment you are expected to be able to give them,” Generate’s Scott Jacobs tells ImpactAlpha. In the case of Pacific Steel, it had taken Generate roughly two years to put the deal together. Nonetheless, it offered CalSTRS, HESTA and other investors in its credit fund the chance to make an additional low-fee investment. “They see it as an investment opportunity that they find attractive, and they wanted more of it than they were going to get through us otherwise,” Jacobs says.
  • Forgoing fees. More than $33 billion was raised last year across 40 co-investment vehicles, according to PitchBook. From early stage VC through growth-stage private equity, and across the private-credit and infrastructure markets, general partners have had to accommodate themselves to the fact that their deep-pocketed limited partners want to piggyback on their best deals, without paying full freight on fees. “There are folks who want to put $5 or $10 into co-investments for every dollar in the fund, because there’s no management fee weight, and they can pick and choose which deals they do, which ones they really like,” says Neil Devani of Necessary Ventures, which has made more than 20 investments from its first fund for early-stage, mission driven tech companies. “For us to have a business, to bring those opportunities, we have to have a fund.”
  • Access to capital. As a manager of funds of funds, Illumen Capital has the opportunity both to co-invest with the managers in its portfolio and to make co-investment opportunities available to its limited partners. “Our LPs are invested in us because we’re discovering funds that are overlooked by much of the market,” says Illumen’s Daryn Dodson. Illumen has co-invested with one of its managers in a company that Dodson says was overlooked by a number of Silicon Valley venture firms that didn’t have experience underwriting companies led by Latina founders. “The fund manager that we partnered with had deep experience in investing in women and women of color, being a women-led firm, and executed an investment that we continue to be excited about,” he said. 

A Message from Impact Capital Managers

Calling impact LPs: Take the limited partner survey. What asset classes are you focused on? What are the gaps between LPs and GPs? How are you leveraging outputs, like GP-authored impact reports, to better inform your decision making? Impact Capital Managers, a trade association of more than 140 private capital funds investing for superior returns and meaningful impact, and its LP Advisory Council  are circulating a short LP survey. The goal: To better understand allocator perspectives on impact investing in private markets. The survey should take no longer than 10 minutes. Responses are anonymous and only aggregated results will be shared.

  • Take the survey, get a first look. Participating LPs will be invited to a “first look” webinar on the takeaways in April. The full report is slated for public release in May. Take the LP survey here. 

Dealflow: The Liist

With second funds, managers double down on impact strategies. Since relaunching The Liist database of actively raising impact funds, we’ve received a flurry of new entries. ImpactAlpha LP/GP brings you the latest: Alante Capital, Triple Impact Capital and Goodwell Investments are all in the market with second funds that bet on impact strategies in climate and economic inclusion. Alante, a women-led VC firm in Santa Barbara, Calif., invests in materials companies, AI, software and other tech ventures making the fashion, home and textile industries more sustainable. “We invest in tools to help designers and merchandisers and people at brands to make better decisions on what they should be producing, how it’s produced, and how it’s sold,” Alante’s Karla Mora told ImpactAlpha (see, “To disrupt the $3 trillion fashion industry, VCs back tech for sustainability and authenticity”). The firm, co-founded with fashion designer Eileen Fisher, is targeting $35 million for its second fund, one of four new impact funds appearing on ImpactAlpha’s Liist.

  • Health, wealth and climate. Triple Impact Capital in San Francisco and Philadelphia went to market with its first fund in 2021 to make seed and pre-seed equity investments in companies with “environmental and/or societal impact embedded into their revenue models.” It has since notched more than 50 deals, including carbon capture startup Capture6, and Juniper, an enterprise software company for behavioral health and physical therapy providers. Its second fund is looking to raise $50 million to continue with early stage investments in startups focused on health, climate and economic mobility. It reached a first close in December. 
  • Impact in Africa. Amsterdam-based Goodwell Investments has for nearly two decades invested in access to essential goods and services in Africa and India. The firm manages five funds through partnerships with local fund managers like Aavishkaar in India and Alitheia Capital in Nigeria. Goodwell and Alitheia are raising their second Africa-focused uMunthu Fund with a target of $150 million to back companies supporting financial inclusion, food and agriculture value chains, and mobility and logistics in Africa. A quarter of the fund is earmarked for other impact sectors, including energy, education and health. Goodwell and Alitheia launched the fund in late 2022, and reached a $57 million first close in 2023 as global fundraising contracted. 
  • Energy transition. Ultra Capital in Philadelphia is in the market with its third energy transition fund. The private equity infrastructure fund invests in companies and assets supporting the development and adoption of cleaner fuels in North America. Its portfolio includes energy management software companies, EV charging providers, solar energy and battery storage developers, and community solar operators. It also has several investments in power plants and natural gas plants that are being redeveloped with renewables. Ultra’s Energy Transition Fund III has made five investments. It’s aiming to raise $150 million.  
  • Share this post, and learn more about these and other impact funds actively raising capital, on ImpactAlpha’s improved Liist database. Know a fund that we should include? Suggest additions here. 

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners is looking to buy a renewable energy unit and a solar plant from Brazilian mining giant Vale. (Reuters)
  • UK private equity firm Apis Partners has fully divested its stake in the fintech firm Baobab to Egypt’s Beltone Capital. Baobab, in Paris, provides microloans, solar financing and other digital financial services to small businesses in seven African countries. (Africa Private Equity News)
  • Canada Growth Fund CGF, Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board issued a $150 million convertible note to Canadian long duration energy storage provider Hydrostor. (ESG Today)

Signals: Impact in Private Equity

TPG’s Jim Coulter is still bullish on climate and impact. Four years and whiplash-inducing policy shifts have not dimmed veteran investor Jim Coulter’s enthusiasm for impact investing. Climate and impact investments will make a meaningful contribution to TPG’s goal of doubling its assets under management to some $500 billion, Coulter said on the company’s recent earnings call. Coulter co-founded TPG in 1992 and took over the firm’s $19 billion TPG Rise impact strategy in 2021. Rise includes a growing number of climate-focused funds. The global TPG Rise Climate Fund II is said to be nearing a $5 billion close; the emerging markets-focused TPG Rise Climate Global South Initiative is targeting $2.5 billion; and TPG’s first climate infrastructure fund has secured $2 billion toward a $6 billion target. The effect of the political “atmospherics,” as Coulter called it, on Rise’s portfolio has been “muted” and “activity remains very high.” Ignore the noise from Washington, DC, he counsels, and “pay attention to what’s happening on the ground.” 

  • Climate rising. The firm’s climate strategy has been closing big transactions, such as this month’s $2.2 billion take-private deal for solar developer Altus Power, which took advantage of the lower valuations caused by US policy headwinds. “This disruption,” says Coulter, “is creating opportunity.” The Rise Climate fund led a $750 million investment in Intersect Power in 2022, and topped it up in December with $800 million via a partnership with Google to accelerate Intersect’s development of clean power for new data centers. In October, the fund joined Singapore’s GIC in a €6.7 billion ($7 billion) buyout of German home decarbonization firm Techem. It stood up Rubicon Carbon, a marketplace for buying and selling carbon offsets. Last February, Rise Climate notched an exit when Nextracker went public, just a year after TPG invested $500 million in the solar tracking company. The 2021 vintage Rise Climate Fund I had a gross IRR of 29%, according to the firm. 
  • Green data centers. “We’re seeing an absolute explosion of spending around the grid in the US, driven in part by data centers, but really a more-broad based electrification of our economy,” Coulter told investors. That is giving rise to opportunities such as the firm’s investment in Intersect, which alone could catalyze tens of billions of dollars in clean energy investment, he said. “You’ll see a series of announcements from us of other opportunities to build out clean power backbones for what’s happening in AI. Whether it’s Deep Seek or Open AI, the one thing that’s clear is more power will be needed.” That demand, Coulter said, “is opening up a very large investment opportunity for us.” 
  • Global opportunity. Last year, 65% of global energy-related spending went to clean energy. “There’s a lot of attention on the US right now,” said Coulter. “Make sure that you pay attention to what’s happening around the world.” Despite the newfound enthusiasm for oil and gas, not all countries have fossil fuel resources; renewable energy gives them a measure of independence. The Techem acquisition, a European decarbonization play, is Rise Climate’s largest deal to date. Nearly three-quarters of TPG Rise’s investors are outside of the US, he said. “They don’t really care much about what’s happening with US policy.” The forward momentum of the energy transition continues, he said. “So far, we haven’t seen anyone step back.”
  • Keep reading, “Why TPG’s Jim Coulter is bullish on impact,” by Amy Cortese on ImpactAlpha. 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:

Per Franzén, head of EQT AB’s private equity business, will become CEO of the European buyout firm in May, replacing Christian Sinding, who is stepping down… Reinvestment Fund welcomes Chris Warman, previously with Baltimore Community Foundation, as its Baltimore market director… Baltimore Community Foundation is on the hunt for a program officer… The Sobrato Organization seeks a senior program associate… Mission Driven Finance has an opening for a fund management vice president.

Partners for the Common Good is looking for an impact and research manager in Washington, DC… Ownership Capital Lab will host, “Women’s growing economic power to scale the ownership economy,” Thursday, March 20… Upaya Social Ventures is accepting applications for a technical assistance facility, backed with philanthropic capital from Laudes Foundation, from enterprises in India working in textile waste and circularity in fashion.

👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

Thank you for your impact!

– Feb. 18, 2025