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Climate Finance | Andrea Riquier
A ‘dual debt-climate challenge’ for the world’s poorest nations

The Atlantic hurricane season looms large this year, following 2023’s record number of billion-dollar disasters in over four decades of data collection. For …

hurricane aftermath
Climate Finance | Jessica Pothering
Spring Meetings yield green shoots of development finance reform at the World Bank
World Bank Washington DC
Creative Economy | Dennis Price
Shutdown of Participant challenges other investors to drive impact through film
Participant investors impact film
Ownership Economy | Roodgally Senatus
Colorado is demonstrating how states can accelerate conversions to employee ownership (video)
Capitalism Reimagined | Dennis Price
Impact CEOs are navigating macro uncertainty with purpose
impact CEOs

Dealflow

Latest impact investments and fundraises

The Brief

Read by thousands of impact pros daily

man filming
April 18, 2024 | ImpactAlpha
The Brief: Participant Media’s impact on film investing

Greetings Agents of Impact! In today’s Brief: Featured: Creative Economy Shutdown of Participant Media challenges other investors to drive impact through film. When …

Today’s brief

Featured: Creative Economy

Shutdown of Participant Media challenges other investors to drive impact through film. When Ava DuVernay made her 2019 series “When They See Us” about the five Black teens convicted of a rape they didn’t commit, Participant Media helped her get it in front of tens of millions of Neflix viewers. Alongside the film, Participant collaborated with Color of Change on a directory of local prosecutors to highlight racist practices. Former prosecutor Linda Fairstein, who pressed the "Exonerated Five" case, resigned from two nonprofit boards. News broke this week that Participant is shutting down. The social impact production house backed by billionaire Jeff Skoll was known for social-action initiatives that accompanied films such as "The Help", “Spotlight” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” one of the most successful documentaries in Hollywood history. “It is the right time for me to evaluate my next chapter and approach to tackling the pressing issues of our time,” Skoll said.

Dealflow: Catalytic Capital

Prime Coalition launches Trellis Climate to finance first-of-a-kind climate tech deployments. Boston-based Prime Coalition has spent more than a decade marshaling risk-tolerant capital to bridge funding gaps for early stage climate tech through Prime Impact Fund and Azolla Ventures. With Trellis Climate, the nonprofit is expanding to later-stage climate tech ventures that are building their first commercial plants. These first-of-a-kind projects, or FOAKs, are notoriously hard to finance. FOAKs don’t fit the venture capital model, but are considered too risky for commercial lenders. “This first-of-a-kind funding gap is a big one, and now is the time to solve it,” Trellis Climate’s Lara Pierpoint told ImpactAlpha.

Signals: Development Finance

Spring Meetings yield green shoots of development finance reform at the World Bank.  It’s been less than a year since Ajay Banga took over as president of the World Bank; he immediately faced intense pressure to modernize the bank’s policies and operations to facilitate more and fairer capital flows for emerging economies’ intensifying development and climate needs. At the annual Spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, this week, even bank critics saw signs of progress on financial system reforms, sovereign debt distress and development finance impact transparency. “This agenda at the World Bank is starting to bear some real fruit and reforms,” observed Alexia Latortue, the US Treasury’s assistant secretary for international trade and development. Among the developments: an update to the bank’s mission statement to include "ending extreme poverty and boosting prosperity on a livable planet." An agreement to offer debt repayment suspensions to the most vulnerable countries in the event of a natural disaster. And an overhaul of the bank’s guarantee business with the goal of tripling guarantees to unlock private investment in emerging economies by 2030.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Former Shell CEO Ben van Beurden joins KKR as a climate senior advisor… Novata appoints Joel Raha, former VP of engineering at Alloy, as chief technology officer, and Jeanne Lee, previously with Coursera, as head of sales in the Asia Pacific region… Christina Shih, previously with the News Revenue Hub, joins Press Forward as associate director… American Family Insurance promotes Nyra Jordan to vice president of community and social impact associate.

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Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

Climate Finance | Andrea Riquier

A ‘dual debt-climate challenge’ for the world’s poorest nations
Catalytic Capital | Amy Cortese

Prime Coalition launches Trellis Climate to plug gaps for first-of-a-kind climate tech projects
Climate Finance | Jessica Pothering

Spring Meetings yield green shoots of development finance reform at the World Bank
Dealflow | Lucy Ngige

Medulance scores $3 million to bring medical emergency response services to India’s smaller cities

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There is no denying that impact finance is one of the most sought after spaces in finance right now, but what does it …

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