The Brief

The Brief: Busting myths about AI and youth mental health

ImpactAlpha · October 8, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • Co-creating youth mental health apps with young people
  • Brookfield and Energy Impact Partners haul in billions for the energy transition 
  • Bicycle Capital tops up its Latam fund for growing tech startups
  • Highlights of the GIIN’s “State of the Market” report

Youth ‘co-creators’ are busting (adult) myths about AI and mental health. Fact or fallacy? Today’s youth don’t worry about privacy – they share everything online and don’t care what is done with it. How about this one? Teens mostly use AI to cheat on their schoolwork. The generation that is growing up with the explosion of artificial intelligence chatbots, mental health apps, and yes, homework helpers, must also grapple with the sometimes wrong-headed assumptions of adults, including those who are developing and deploying the technology. For Tech Week in San Francisco, ImpactAlpha is joining Omidyar Group’s Hopelab and Second Muse’s Headstream to bring together a panel of young people to bust some of the myths. Today’s event will explore co-creation of approaches and technologies to advance the mental health and well-being of young people. “A lot of adults tend to make assumptions about teens and our use of technology,” says Kaelyn Tan, a member of the youth advisory committee in Mountain View, Calif., and a participant in Headstream’s innovation program. Tan will join today’s panel. “I think it would be helpful if we were asked the questions about how adult allies could support us, and how systems can start being more youth-centered.”

  • Competitive advantage. The arrival of AI amid a surge in anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges among young people has spurred a raft of startups with tech-driven approaches to complex psychological and emotional issues. “Youth co-creation isn’t just an ethical imperative, it’s a competitive advantage,” Headstream youth co-creators Tanvi Kale and Cynthia Arenas wrote in a post in July. Young people, for example, “can spot forced ‘mental wellness’ content in a heartbeat and will uninstall anything that feels inauthentic or irrelevant.” A participant in today’s panel, Nick Peatfield, a co-founder of HeyBro, said conversations with young people changed the company’s approach to privacy. The service, developed out of the Vancouver-based R&D lab Lyminal, offers phone-based access to an AI chatbot to help young men navigate stress, transitions or loneliness. “I was surprised how in tune they were with the privacy concerns, especially the idea that the documents are going to the cloud and back,” Peatfield says. “So how do we try and change some elements so we could be privacy-first?”
  • Youth voice playbook. Hopelab Ventures has invested in almost two dozen startups “that help young people with eating disorders, with moderate to severe anxiety, with a whole range of things that are really clinical in nature,” Hopelab’s Margaret Laws said on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast in June. “There are also some interventions that we want to look at upstream – things that help young people find purpose, that help young people feel like they’re contributing, that help them build connections and support and relationships” (disclosure: Hopelab supports ImpactAlpha’s coverage of Healthy Youth). Hopelab helped develop the “Youth voice playbook: Engaging youth in research,” a guide for researchers on how to include young people in research that impacts them. “When we bring youth into the driver’s seat, something shifts,” writes Headstream’s Arenas. “The tools become less abstract and more grounded, more creative, more authentic. And when we’re part of building these solutions, we also get to reclaim youth power.”
  • Keep reading, “Youth ‘co-creators’ are busting (adult) myths about AI and mental health,” by David Bank. There’s still time to RSVP for, “Youth mental well-being and AI,” at the American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco, today at 6pm local time.

Dealflow: Energy Transition

Brookfield reels in $20 billion for second Global Transition Fund. Brookfield Asset Management’s record fundraise, buoyed by billion-dollar-plus injections from institutional investors, creates one of the largest energy transition funds to date and signals continued global appetite for big renewable energy plays. As data center growth drives up energy demand, said Brookfield’s Connor Teskey, “our strategy will succeed by investing in the technologies that will deliver clean, abundant and low-cost energy and transition solutions that underpin the global economy.” 

  • Co-investment. Brookfield Global Transition Fund II outraised its predecessor by $5 billion. It had been looking to raise as much as $25 billion. Last week, Norges, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, committed $1.5 billion to the fund. Alterra, the UAE’s $30 billion climate fund, kicked in $2 billion. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System put in $1 billion. Singapore-based Temasek and other investors contributed $3.5 billion for co-investments alongside the fund, bringing the total to $23.5 billion. More than $5 billion has been deployed so far. Investments include Geronimo Power, a large scale energy developer in the US; Evren, a wind, solar and storage joint-venture in India; and a take-private deal for French renewable energy developer Neoen.
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Energy Impact Partners raises nearly $1.4 billion for its third energy transition fund. New York-based Energy Impact Partners works with utilities, tech firms, real estate owners and other big energy users to identify new technologies, and gives them an opportunity to invest in their development and growth. It has more than 75 investor partners, including utilities Duke Energy and EDF, insurer Aviva, rental car and fleet management company Enterprise, and self-storage company Public Storage. After 10 years, more than 125 deals, three dozen exits, and a few busts, the firm has closed its third and largest fund. A key driver of interest: the growth of energy-guzzling AI and data centers. “Energy and AI are no longer separate domains; they are fundamentally intertwined,” the company said in a statement.

Bicycle Capital scores commitment from IDB Invest for Latin America growth fund. The $10 million from the private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank brings Bicycle Capital’s funding to more than $450 million toward its goal of $500 million. The Miami and São Paulo-based firm backs growth-stage tech companies serving small businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is filling a capital gap for e-commerce, fintech and software companies serving the region’s more than 17 million micro, small and mid-sized enterprises. Bicycle launched in 2022 and secured a $440 million anchor commitment from Mubadala Investment Company. Its fund is among the region’s largest run by a first-time manager.  

  • Executive team. Bicycle is led by former SoftBank executives Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta. Claure previously worked with telecom giant Sprint and SoftBank Group International, while Nyatta co-founded SoftBank’s Latin America and Opportunity Fund. Bicycle’s investments include Cayena, a Brazilian B2B marketplace for which the firm led a $55 million Series B round. It has also backed Fina Partner, a Venezuela-based business automation service provider, and Mottu, which offers motorcycle rentals for delivery workers.  
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • Private equity giant Carlyle AlpInvest and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System formed a co-investment partnership for climate opportunities. CalSTRS is also an LP in at least four of Carlyle AlpInvest’s funds. (Carlyle)
  • San Francisco-based OpenSolar raised $20 million from Titanium Ventures, Google, 2150 Sustainability Fund and other investors for its software that helps home solar installers manage their projects. (OpenSolar)
  • Paris-based Keenest raised €10 million ($17 million) to enable everyday investors to back climate startups. A feature of the investment platform is that it pays dividends to its more than 3,500 investor members based on the amount of CO2 emissions its startups curb. (EU-Startups)

Signals: GIIN Impact Forum

Survey of GPs, LPs and advisors shows impact investors to be hopeful but cautious. This year’s survey by the Global Impact Investing Network shows an expanding market that is becoming more cautious amid political and economic headwinds. Some 429 organizations – including fund managers, limited partners and advisors – reported $448 billion in assets under management in 2024, up 21% annually since 2019, according to the latest “State of the Market” report, released on the eve of the GIIN Impact Forum in Berlin. But capital deployment dropped 30% from 2023 to $49.8 billion. That’s 18% below what investors had projected just 12 months earlier. Respondents expect their dealflow to rebound – to $58.6 billion for 2025 – in hopes that demand for climate, agriculture and health solutions will keep impact capital flowing despite tougher macroeconomic conditions. The survey feeds into the GIIN’s market sizing report, which last year pegged the global impact investment market at more than $1.5 trillion (see, “And the size of the impact investing market is $1.5 trillion…ish”). 

  • Institutional investors. Pension funds, insurers and banks accounted for more than half of all new impact capital among the respondents, overtaking the foundations and family offices that once led the field. Nearly four out of five impact investors now target fully risk-adjusted market-rate returns. The shift reflects the field’s growing maturity, but also a pullback from higher-risk, higher-impact markets where capital is most needed. The data revealed a defensive geographic shift. With nearly 70% of respondents based in North America and Europe, most new capital stayed in wealthier regions and gravitated toward lower-risk assets. Investors continue to cite inconsistent data and exaggerated impact claims as their top concern.
  • Climate and clean energy. Climate investing continues to dominate the impact market. At least 86% of respondents invested in climate-related projects, with the vast majority focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Much of that capital is flowing to clean energy, now the biggest channel for climate investment, accounting for about one-fifth of total impact assets. Investors cite clear metrics, supportive regulation and proven commercial models that make the sector attractive even in a higher interest-rate environment. More than half of respondents plan to increase their energy commitments over the next five years.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Costas Papamantellos, former chairman and CEO of REW Renewables Hellas, joins Nuveen as head of energy transition investments… Marie Giandomenico returns to Social Finance as a director on its impact advisory team. The organization has an opening for an assistant general counsel in Boston… Accion Impact Management seeks an investment fund operations associate and a senior ESG and risk associate in Washington, DC. 

Second Horizon Capital is looking for a senior associate of asset management in Boca Raton, Fla… Working Capital Fund is on the hunt for a senior VC analyst in San Francisco and Washington, DC… The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Opportunity Lab seeks a senior program manager in Philadelphia… Apollo Global Management is searching for a head of sustainable engineering and data strategy in New York.

Pivotal Ventures has an opening for a senior investment analyst on an interim basis… Sygnus Group’s Caribbean Community Resilience Fund is hiring a senior investment associate in Jamaica… Oikocredit is recruiting a marketing and communications specialist… Tribe Impact Capital is seeking a head of impact management in London… Kiva is on the hunt for an investment manager for South and Southeast Asia.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Oct. 8, 2025