Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure
Green project developers and project finance skills have always been in short supply. Now, with $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awards …
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Dealflow | Jessica Pothering
Indian home lender Altum Credo’s $40 million round gives investors a partial exit
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Dealflow | Jessica Pothering
IDB Lab backs small businesses in Paraguay and health access in Ecuador
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Dealflow | Jessica Pothering
Next Billion raises capital to invest in digital infrastructure and services in Latin America, Asia and Africa
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Dealflow | Jessica Pothering
Connect Humanity pioneers rural broadband in Appalachia
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Dealflow | Jessica Pothering
Upstart Co-Lab raises $15 million to invest in an inclusive creative economy
The Brief
Read by thousands of impact pros daily
Greetings Agents of Impact! In today’s Brief: Featured: LP / GP Family offices warm to investment opportunities in the climate transition. As much …
Today’s brief
Featured: LP / GP
Family offices warm to investment opportunities in the climate transition. As much as $200 trillion in investment is needed by 2050 to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to BloombergNEF. That’s many multiples of today’s level of climate investments. The more than 4,500 family offices globally that manage $6 trillion in wealth are poised to play a critical role in getting philanthropic and investment dollars off the sidelines and into climate solutions. “These are trillion-dollar issues,” writes Bruce McNamer of Builders Initiative, the grant and catalytic investment arm of Walmart heir Lukas Walton's Builders Vision. “To move these transitions forward faster, we need to attract and unlock additional capital.” The family office makes R&D grants for promising innovations, investments to bring technologies down the cost curve, anchor investments in early stage companies and funds, and it engages with public companies and its family office peers. Says McNamer, “It is the ability to engage in these kinds of wide-ranging capital deployment and influencing activities that make family offices potentially important players.”
Podcast: Agents of Impact
Franchising indoor farms to build a billion dollars in Black wealth (podcast). Two years ago, Loren Taylor missed out on becoming mayor of Oakland, Calif. by 677 votes. “But who’s counting?” jokes Taylor on this week’s Agents of Impact podcast. The biomedical engineer-turned-city council member has turned to business to tackle racial wealth gap. As CEO of Zarû Systems, he has the ambitious goal of growing Black wealth by a billion dollars through 1,000 businesses worth at least $1 million each. “We’re focused on bridging the racial wealth gap – unapologetically,” Taylor says. Zarû’s first business application: modular, turnkey indoor farms run by local owner-operators.
Dealflow: Inclusive Communities
Next Billion raises capital to invest in digital infrastructure and services in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The investment firm Next Billion Capital Partners funds tech ventures supporting access to basic services in emerging markets. It reached a first close for its debut Digital Growth Fund with backing from Impact Engine, Capricorn Investment Group, responsAbility and other investors. The fund provides up to $15 million in growth equity to companies delivering financial services, insurance, healthcare and education to women, low-income households and small businesses in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Next Billion is looking to raise $250 million.
Signals: Inclusion Alpha
FreeCap’s ‘decarceration index’ highlights companies that are outcompeting with fair-chance hiring. The US economy is generating more jobs than there are workers to fill them. To address shortages and compete for talent, companies like Walmart, Apple, Alphabet and JPMorgan Chase are recruiting, training and hiring from a pool of more than 70 million formerly incarcerated workers, who have faced rampant discrimination in the job market. A new "decarceration index" from FreeCap Financial helps investors identify companies with leading fair-chance hiring practices. Companies “able to hire people with arrest records are going to be in a better position to compete in the labor market in the future,” says Tanay Tatum-Edwards of FreeCap. The data provider that helps quantify the prison industrial complex for investors.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Economist Lawrence Summers joins the advisory board of residential solar provider Palmetto… Runway is hiring a chief lending officer… Gavi is hiring a head of private sector partnerships and innovation in Geneva… Also in Switzerland, Impactful Business Networks is recruiting a global CEO.
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Following the energy transition to every community
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Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure
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Greening down payment assistance to create better homes and better mortgages
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For this Earth Day, the White House delivers a $7 billion message: Solar for All
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Private sector sees opportunity in federal ‘green bank’ fund
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Nexamp snags a half-billion for community solar expansion
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With bridges, buses and bike lanes, Reconnecting Communities rebuilds ‘civic muscles’ along with neighborhoods
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Colorado is demonstrating how states can accelerate conversions to employee ownership (video)
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With ELBOs and EOTs, more business owners are exiting to employee ownership
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Putting ownership and wealth-building strategies on center stage
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Wanted: First-time fund managers with strategies to ‘Unlock Ownership’ in underserved communities
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Wealth-building and community ownership in the next stage of The Great Deployment
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Sorenson Impact backs Redemption’s purchase of Holladay Bank to create a new Black-owned bank
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Kachuwa Impact Fund scores $3.2 million to bring cooperatives to impact investing
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This sustainable investment firm is now governed by a perpetual purpose trust
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Agents of Impact
Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact.
Deploy! | Amy Cortese
Beats | Amy Cortese
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Beats | Cynthia Muller
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Beats | Dennis Price
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Beats | Jessica Pothering
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