The Brief

The Brief: At British International Investment, new chief looks to unlock private capital

ImpactAlpha · February 20, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • Reforming DFIs for turbulent times 
  • A powerhouse first-time fund for ‘underinvested’ founders 
  • Catalyzing private sector investment in Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Getting DAF funds off the sidelines

Climate and development challenges spur development finance institutions to unlock private capital. Last week’s acquisition of Indian solar developer Anaya Renewable Power was a big win for the company’s founders and early investors. The UK’s development finance institution, British International Investment (then known as CDC Group), launched Anaya in 2018 with a $100 million investment to bring clean, reliable power to underserved parts of South Asia and support India’s green transition. Anaya went on to raise more than $1 billion from private investors. When ONGPL, a joint venture owned by the Indian government, bought out BII and other shareholders, the company was valued at $2.3 billion. That’s the kind of capital mobilization development finance institutions like BII need to pursue in order to meet climate and development goals, argues BII’s new CEO Leslie Maasdorp in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. Development finance institutions “need to change the way they do business,” he says. “Unless the world unlocks the vast pools of capital that exist in pension funds, life insurers and other large institutions, we won’t get close to getting the job done.”

  • Climate pressure. Publicly-funded development finance institutions and multilateral development banks are under pressure to be more catalytic, creative, risk-taking and transparent in order to build local markets and economies. Under previous CEO Nick O’Donohoe, BII moved 20% of its capital into a catalytic funding pool (listen to O’Donohoe on “Risk, liquidity and catalytic capital in emerging markets,” on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast). BII has launched several vehicles to take on even more risk. Maasdorp, who joined BII last fall from the New Development Bank, is emphasizing climate change. “While some eyes are naturally drawn to daily headlines out of Washington, the climate emergency continues to worsen,” he says. DFIs “need to act as benign forces to galvanize private capital, especially if further capital injections from their shareholders are not forthcoming.”
  • Data transparency. BII and Mercer last month launched a global competition to attract hundreds of millions of dollars into climate investments in emerging markets. Development finance institutions’ traditional role of “originate and hold” is increasingly outdated, Maasdorp says. “Going forward we can do a lot more.” That includes leveraging DFIs’ own balance sheets to raise more capital to deploy and derisking local funds with catalytic capital and guarantees. The recent announcement of an additional £100 million ($126 million) in funding for Mobilist, which helps emerging markets financial strategies list on public markets, could unlock £400 million to £600 million to deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Maasdorp says. And the release of investment data collected in the GEMS database, long closely held, and other sources could help private investors better understand risks and underwrite investments (see, “New release of GEMs loan data debunks misperceptions of risks“).
  • Keep reading, “Climate and development challenges spur development finance institutions to unlock private capital,” by Leslie Maasdorp of British International Investment on ImpactAlpha.  

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Dealflow: Emerging Fund Managers

Cherryrock Capital raises $172 million for growth-stage startups led by underinvested founders. When Stacy Brown-Philpot stepped down as CEO of Taskrabbit in 2020, following its acquisition by IKEA, she became one of the country’s most sought-after board members. With a $172 million venture fund, Brown-Philpot, a former executive at Google and co-founder of Softbank Opportunity Fund, and partner Saydeah Howard will put their expertise to work for diverse and underinvested founders of growth-stage digital health, fintech and future of work startups. “Overlooked and underestimated teams are creating companies at an unprecedented pace,” Brown-Philpot wrote in a blog post announcing Cherryrock Capital. Lack of access to capital keeps many such founders from realizing their companies’ full potential. “This is where we come in with unique scaling, board, and networking expertise to build companies and deliver returns for our investors.” Among the limited partners: Goldman Sachs Asset Management, JP Morgan Asset Management, MassMutual, Pivotal Ventures and Spring Point Partners. Individuals including Mellody Hobson, Reid Hoffman and Sheryl Sandberg also joined the fund, one of the largest debut venture funds led by Black women. 

  • Alpha opportunity. The raise took place during one of the biggest venture droughts of recent decades. Spring Point, the Philadelphia-based social investment firm of the Berwind family, joined Pivotal Ventures in the fund’s first close last year. “We wanted to help them establish fundraising momentum,” Spring Point’s Margot Kane told ImpactAlpha. Brown-Philpot’s reputation will help Cherryrock win deals, she said. “The opportunity for alpha is the founders knowing they have someone who has their backs, understands where they’re coming from, and is going to fight for them.”
  • Later-stage gap. Brown-Philpot’s team includes Howard, who led talent at venture capital firm IVP; Christa Williams, who joins from Citi Impact Fund; and Adrianna Samaniego, previously with Female Founders Fund. While a number of pre-seed and seed funds focus on diverse founders, very few funds, if any, lead Series A and B rounds for such founders, says Brown-Philpot. Cherryrock has backed Coactive AI, which helps businesses analyze images, videos, and audio; and Vitable Health, which provides affordable health plans to businesses with hourly workers. “These founders are often over-mentored and underfunded,” said Kane. Cherryrock is “going to mentor them, sure, but they’re also going to fund them.”
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IDB Invest launches billion-dollar fund to spur private investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. To help address Latin America’s sustainable development finance gap, IDB Invest, the private sector investment arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, created the JICA Trust Fund Achieving Development of Latin America and the Caribbean with Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, which put up the capital. TADAC, as the fund is called for short, will co-finance private sector projects alongside IDB Invest, including infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, universal health coverage, poverty alleviation and climate mitigation. The two agencies have been working together since 2011, when they teamed up to co-finance renewable energy, water and sanitation and health projects under their Cooperation for Economic Recovery and Social Inclusion, or CORE, initiative. Last year, they expanded CORE’s mandate to develop resilient infrastructure and address inequality, and boosted its funding to $4 billion. 

  • Bilateral partner. JICA’s nearly half-century of work in Latin America and the Caribbean has made it IDB’s largest bilateral aid agency. TADAC, JICA’s first fund with IDB Invest and its largest private sector fund in the region, has the potential to expand to $1.5 billion. JICA’s Akihiko Tanaka said the agency is “committed to supporting private-sector efforts to solve the deep-rooted social issues in Latin America and the Caribbean.” JICA and IDB Lab, IADB’s innovation lab, made their first joint investment in 2019, a $10 million loan to Abaco, a credit union founded by Japanese Peruvians to lend to small businesses in Peru. In 2023, the two invested $20 million in Dr. Consulta, a chain of medical clinics catering to low-income Brazilians. Last year, JICA and IDB Lab co-invested in Mexican VC firm Dalus Capital’s third fund for early-stage startups across Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • Florida-based Circuit, which offers short-distance electric shuttles in over 40 cities in the US, raised $17 million from climate tech investor MKB, Impact Engine and others. (MKB)
  • Low-carbon cement producer Terra CO2 raised $82 million in a round led by Just Climate, GenZero and Eagle Materials. The funding will accelerate commercial production in North America and Europe. (ESG Today)
  • Spanish impact fund manager Impact Bridge secured over €130 million ($136 million) in commitments from Spain’s CaixaBank, CDTI Innovación, the European Investment Fund, family offices and other investors for its agrifood-focused private equity fund. (CaixaBank)
  • Infrastructure financier InfraCo Africa is selling its 25% stake in Malawi-based Golomoti JCM Solar Corp. to Old Mutual Infrastructure Investment Trust Fundi. JCM’s solar plant includes a five-megawatt battery system that provides renewable energy to Malawi’s national grid. (InfraCo Africa)
  • Bernstein Private Wealth Management and Impact Engine closed a $40 million impact fund that invests in venture and private equity funds focused on economic opportunity, environmental sustainability and health equity. (Impact Engine)

Signals: Catalytic Capital

Donor-advised recoverable grants power Social Finance’s impact-first fund of funds. Social Finance has long sought to put donor-advised funds and other tax-advantaged philanthropic capital to work for impact. The how part, however, has taken a while to figure out. The Boston-based nonprofit and registered investment advisor launched its Impact First Fund in 2023 to make deals more accessible to DAFs and other philanthropic donors, with a low management fee and no carry. Donations to the open-ended fund, in the form of recoverable grants, are starting to flow from DAFs at Boston Foundation, Fidelity and Vanguard Charitable. Through a new partnership with UBS Optimus Foundation, Social Finance is hoping to attract more capital from DAFs. UBS Optimus is offering a 10% match on recoverable grant allocations made by UBS clients.

  • Off the sidelines. UBS and Social Finance hope their partnership will lure donors and spur broader deployment of charitable capital parked in DAFs, which are tax-advantaged vehicles set up by wealthy individuals or families to manage their charitable giving. As of 2023, just $55 billion of the $250 billion sitting in DAFs had been deployed. “A big piece of what we’re trying to do is to teach, and have folks learn alongside us, what it is to do impact investing,” says Social Finance’s Jessica Brooks. Social Finance seeks to raise $250 million in grants and investments to build a diversified portfolio of first-time and emerging private impact funds that are investing in the creation of good jobs, expanded home ownership and access to clean energy. The fund has raised $20 million, of which half has been deployed.
  • More. 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

SJF Ventures welcomes three venture fellows: Harvard Business School’s Ryan Dant, Sarah Renfro of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and UC Berkeley’s Marcus Wong… Low Income Investment Fund promotes Eliisa Frazier to vice president of impact capital initiatives… The National Cooperative Bank appoints Hannah Schoolfield as a digital banking specialist, and Nwaka Mogekwu as a commercial loan portfolio manager… Ninety One adds Leong Kae Xiang, previously with Clifford Capital, as a director focused on green infrastructure debt investments in Asia.

Amalgamated Foundation seeks a chief financial officer in Washington, DC… Also in Washington, Energy Futures Initiative is on the hunt for a senior research specialist, and World Wildlife Fund is looking for a senior director of climate finance and carbon markets… Energy Infrastructure Partners is hiring a decarbonization financing advisor in New York… Electrify America is recruiting a portfolio management specialist… Arup is looking for a sustainable investment advisory manager in New York… Mercer seeks a values-aligned and sustainable investments director in Boston.

Solar Impulse Foundation has an opening for an analyst for deal sourcing, investment screening and community engagement… ResponsAbility seeks an analyst for sustainable food equity investments in Singapore… PIMCO is on the hunt for an ESG product strategy associate in London… Jordan Park Group is hiring an impact senior analyst in San Francisco… Teneo is recruiting an ESG manager in New York… Climate Policy Initiative seeks an analyst in Delhi for its Center for Sustainable Finance… IFC is looking for an infrastructure senior investment officer in Mexico City.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Feb. 20, 2025