The Brief

The Brief: Charting strategies for change in Trump’s second term

ImpactAlpha · November 7, 2024

Greetings Agents of Impact!

🔌 PluggedIn: How BIPOC designers are disrupting fast fashion with sustainable luxury. Join ImpactAlpha contributing editor Sherrell Dorsey in conversation with designer Jacques Agbobly and Felita Harris of RAISEFashion, to explore how the luxury sector is innovating in waste reduction, equity and inclusion. Join the conversation on LinkedIn or YouTube, today, Thursday, at 9am PT / 12pm ET. 

In today’s Brief:

  • Strategies for change in Trump’s second term
  • Agri-drones in rural India 
  • AI-based mammograms in emerging markets
  • Trinity Church’s Bhakti Mirchandani on the Market Makers podcast

Agents of Impact take stock and chart strategies for change in Trump’s second term. For many impact investors and entrepreneurs, it was a day to step back, lay low and make sense of an election outcome that was always a possibility but rarely fully contemplated. The results “are a shock to the system – not just to our political system, but also in how our economy operates and our society functions,” Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance tells ImpactAlpha. To grapple with the new terrain, ImpactAlpha reached out across our networks for perspectives, reflections and emotional reactions to Tuesday’s US elections. Off the record, many briefly indulged in anger and even defeatism. Most quickly pivoted to reflection and humility, and then to renewed determination to prove out solutions that lift and unite – and to prove their popularity as well.

  • Responsibility to engage. “Whether you call it ‘middle-out’ or ‘kitchen table’ politics, it’s clear that our economy and electorate have a Reconstruction-sized hole that needs more than just rhetoric to be filled,” says ImpactAlpha contributing editor Napoleon Wallace, who in North Carolina has championed strategies to capitalize underserved entrepreneurs and communities. “The assignment hasn’t changed: Money matters,” says Wallace. As an impact investor, he adds, “I still feel a deep responsibility to help bring about that change, regardless of the political climate.” Seegull likewise says the impact investing alliance will continue to work across ideologies in the service of shared prosperity. It’s time to “double down on our work, not to disengage,” she says.
  • Lean into economic populism. It takes a Canadian to cut straight to the heart of American politics. “Only populist messages are working, and they’re quite similar on the left and the right,” says Social Capital Partners’ Jon Shell from Toronto. “People are mad for the same reasons most of us in the impact community do our work: our system has produced outcomes that seem very unfair.” Maybe it’s time to embrace our own brand of populism, Shell says. “Our wealth inequality solutions are populist. Community wealth funds keep outside money out of our neighborhoods. Employee ownership saves local jobs from foreign and big corporate ownership. So does supporting independent small businesses.”
  • Women’s leadership matters. If the election of Trump is a setback for women’s representation and reproductive rights, investors are taking a stand on the value of women. “As humans we can turn a page today,” Heading for Change’s Sana Kapadia tells ImpactAlpha, “to make an active choice to live differently in the face of such denial. Now is the time to aggregate all we are doing in our smaller circles of possibility to accelerate greater collective change.” Kristin Hull says Nia Impact Capital is “doubling down on our engagement with companies, making sure they know that regardless of who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., that investors care and are here to hold companies accountable to the highest standard of sustainability and human capital management.” Adds Hull, “We are doubling down on women in leadership.”
  • Climate technologies will outcompete. The climate itself was top of mind. “Unlike public opinion and politics, climate change isn’t fickle,” says Enduring Planet’s Dimitry Gershenson. Jobs and projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, have overwhelmingly flowed to so-called “red states” that support Trump. “If we keep the conversation on the economics and the value of climate action, I think we will be okay in the next administration,” Taj Eldridge of Include Ventures tells ImpactAlpha. Gina McCarthy, who served as Biden’s climate advisor, says that despite what Trump may say, “the shift to clean energy is unstoppable and our country is not turning back.” To build resiliency for the IRA, “we have been building relationships with Republican offices, which is vital,” Anne Kelly of the advocacy group Ceres tells ImpactAlpha. 

Dealflow: Rural Livelihoods

Lok Capital invests $6.2 million in drone startup Marut Drones. Hyderabad-based Marut Drones designs unmanned vehicles for crop planting, spraying and surveillance in rural India. It operates a fleet of about 750 drones in 14 states. The Series A equity financing from impact investment firm Lok Capital will enable the company to ramp up drone production and expand its training and certification academies for operators. Marut Drones says it is creating rural employment opportunities and has trained more than 700 drone operators to date.

  • Policy momentum. Agriculture drone startups for crop surveillance and seed planting have had a bumpy ride in terms of venture capital funding. But in India, drones are getting a boost from government initiatives like SVAMITVA, which is using drones to help rural residents identify, demarcate and title their plots of land. The government’s Drone Didi initiative trains women in rural areas as drone operators. It highly subsidizes the cost of acquiring drones and provides two weeks of drone pilot training for agriculture, disaster management, healthcare and infrastructure.
  • Check it out. 

Vara raises $8.9 million for breast cancer detection in emerging markets. Access to early screening for breast cancer, the most common form of cancer in women globally, is a challenge in many emerging markets. Berlin-based healthtech startup Vara uses AI imaging to screen more than 80,000 women monthly in Germany. Vara says its technology lowers the rate of false positives while improving detection. The new raise “not only validates our technology but enables us to accelerate Vara’s expansion for global impact,” said Vara’s Jonas Muff. The company will expand to India, where the cost of a mammogram is a barrier for low-income women. Vara is partnering with NM Medical’s network of breast diagnostic and screening clinics in the cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.

  • Women’s health. Vara’s round was backed by European family offices, including Austria’s Smart Family Office and Germany’s FJH. “By combining an AI-driven screening approach with proven medical evidence and commercialization in emerging markets, Vara is an excellent fit for the goals of our impact fund,” said Ute Mercke of German healthcare investor IBB Ventures, which invested through its €30 million ($32.2 million) IBB Ventures Impact Fund. Other Vara backers include OMERS Ventures, EQT Foundation and Soleria Capital.
  • Share this post.

Blue Forest launches ‘watershed resilience bond’ to finance conservation on private lands. The conservation finance nonprofit teamed up with Pheasants Forever to create a financing mechanism for watershed resilience projects on privately owned tracts of land in Oregon and California. The Natural Resource Conservation Service, a US Department of Agriculture agency, helps finance large scale conservation projects on privately owned land. But landowners need to pay upfront costs before getting reimbursed, holding back full use of the program. The bond covers those upfront costs to improve liquidity. “This new approach allows landowners to exercise their conservation ethic without the fear of drowning in up-front costs for natural resources management,” said Ron Leathers of Pheasants Forever. “It’s the future of conservation finance.” 

  • Wildfire risk. The bond will be financed by mission-driven investors via Blue Forest’s FRB Catalyst Facility. Alumbra Innovations Foundation, a lead investor in the facility, supported the bond’s development. Separately, Blue Forest secured a $25 million commitment from IBank California for its California Wildfire Innovation Fund to invest in projects that reduce wildfire risk in the state’s forests.
  • Share this. 

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • Ampd Energy raised $27.3 million in Series B funding, co-led by Kibo Invest and Openspace, to make battery storage systems for mining, manufacturing and other heavy industries. (Ampd)

Podcast: The Market Makers

The Market Makers: Responsibly investing at Trinity Church with Bhakti Mirchandani (video podcast). Nestled among the skyscrapers of Manhattan’s financial district is the iconic, centuries-old Trinity Church – and its $6 billion endowment. On the latest episode of the Market Makers, Trinity Church’s Bhakti Mirchandani joins the Milken Institute’s Troy Duffie and Bright Ventures’ Lenore Champagne Beirne to discuss the institution’s “sustainable investing plus advocacy and field building.” Mirchandani says she looks at the diversity of both portfolios and managers, “and we strengthen and support manager transitions to sustainability and inclusion.”

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

The NYC Commission on Racial Equity taps Sabani Biswas, previously a talent acquisition coordinator at HelloFresh, as operations and administration associate… Community Investment Management is hiring a director of investments in Mexico City… IDB Invest seeks a managing director of climate and the environment in Washington, DC… Bloomberg Beta is looking for an associate in San Francisco… Oxfam is looking for a remote research consultant for an accountable governance project on the just energy transition.

Aqua for All has an opening for a legal and compliance officer in The Hague… In Amsterdam, Systemiq is recruiting a sustainable finance strategy manager… PwC is on the hunt for an ESG and sustainable finance senior associate in Brussels… Nordic Development Fund is livestreaming from COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, “Unlocking catalytic finance for climate,” Thursday, Nov. 14.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Nov. 7, 2024