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Blockchain/AI/IoT | David Bank
With stakes in Anthropic, impact investors seek a seat at the AI table 

Not long after last fall’s boardroom drama at OpenAI thrust issues of governance, stakeholders and mission into the debates over artificial intelligence, Omidyar …

Blockchain/AI/IoT | Lyel Resner and Wilneida Negrón
How impact investments in Anthropic can strengthen responsible innovation in tech
impact investments in Anthropic
Deploy! | James McIntyre
Greening down payment assistance to create better homes and better mortgages
Greening downpayment assistance 
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Science Based Targets Initiative meets realpolitik on the path to Net Zero
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Dealflow

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April 23, 2024 | ImpactAlpha
The Brief: Impact investments in Anthropic’s AI

Greetings Agents of Impact! In today’s Brief: Featured: Responsible AI With stakes in Anthropic, impact investors seek a seat at the AI table. …

Today’s brief

Featured: Responsible AI

With stakes in Anthropic, impact investors seek a seat at the AI table. Last month, Ford Foundation committed $5 million, Omidyar Network $1.5 million and the Nathan Cummings Foundation $1 million to purchase just under 250,000 shares of Anthropic, a major rival to OpenAI in the development of artificial intelligence. Omidyar Network’s Mike Kubzansky says he called a contact at Anthropic and asked, “‘Would it be helpful to have somebody who is there for the returns, but also for the impact considerations?’” The combined $7.5 million investment from the three impact investors is dwarfed by the $4 billion Amazon paid for its stake in Anthropic and the $2.5 billion Google invested (Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI). “I should say we’re clear on how much influence we get,” Kubzansky tells ImpactAlpha. “We’re under no illusions.” But he says Anthropic’s corporate governance protections and its commitment to “constitutional AI” made it attractive to foundations keen to invest in responsible tech innovation. “The hope is to be in conversation with Anthropic and help them to live into their commitments.”

Dealflow: Creative Economy

Upstart Co-Lab raises $15 million to invest in an inclusive creative economy. The nonprofit impact investor raised a mix of mission and program-related investments and recoverable grants from 14 investors including the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ford, Marguerite Casey and Skoll foundations, the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, the Toledo Museum of Art, and Halloran Trust. The fundraise represents a first close on Upstart Co-Lab’s fund for entrepreneurs and fund managers bringing arts, culture and sustainable livelihoods to women, low-income communities and communities of color. “Creative industries like fashion, food and film employ people, build wealth in communities, and share stories and traditions that foster critical connections,” said Upstart’s Laura Callanan. Investments in the US’s $1 trillion creative economy, she added, “contribute to the kind of economic prosperity that democracy depends upon.”

Impact Voices: Deploy!

Greening down payment assistance to create better homes and better mortgages. Scaling the $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds requires large, established financial markets. Transforming down payment assistance is the key to greening the single-family mortgage market, argues James McIntyre of Inclusive Prosperity Capital, a nonprofit clean energy financing service that has been awarded funds from the GGRF. State and local housing finance agencies, or HFAs, have used down-payment assistance to accelerate homeownership among low and moderate-income families and first-time homebuyers, weaving programs into their bonds and mortgage-backed securities. “Many HFAs already use a wide variety of state and local resources to fund their down-payment assistance programs. Why not GGRF money leveraged with private capital?” suggests McIntyre in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. Making homes more efficient could be a boon to housing affordability and mortgage loan performance: Higher efficiency homes are associated with lower mortgage-default rates. 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

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