Greetings Agents of Impact!
In today’s Brief:
- From grants to investments in Europe’s creative economy
- Clean water for refugee communities
- India’s green transition
- Investing in local impact in Boston
Featured: Creative Economy
Multiplying the impact of Europe’s creative sector with investment capital. European policymakers recognize the arts as a catalyst for social change and democratic growth. But Europe’s philanthropy-funded cultural industries have rarely been seen as attractive assets for investment. “Our core hypothesis is that these are under-exploited assets,” says Fran Sanderson, who heads Figurative, a UK-based impact fund focused on the cultural and creative sector. “The sector hasn’t had access to the kind of investment capital that would allow it to develop and scale.” Two years ago, Sanderson helped Figurative spin out of Nesta, the UK innovation agency for social good, as an independent nonprofit. Figurative’s £16 million ($22 million) Arts and Culture Impact Fund provides affordable loans to cultural organizations. Backers of the fund include Nesta itself, along with Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Better Society Capital. Sanderson is developing a new fund of up to £50 million ($68 million) to help Britain’s cultural organizations decarbonize their buildings as energy prices surge.
- Scaling potential. Figurative is among a crop of new funds supporting the creative arts in the UK and Europe. The Dutch Doen Foundation, alongside impact investor Opes-Lcef and the Moleskine Foundation in Italy, will debut an impact fund dedicated to “culture, creativity and imagination.” The Milan-based fund will invest in European entrepreneurs “who prove the cultural and creative sectors have real growth and scaling potential, from seed to Series A,” according to Merijn ten Thije of Doen Ventures. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology in 2023 stood up its €131.6 million ($133 million) EIT Culture and Creativity fund to provide grant funding and mentorship for Europe’s creative industries. Austria-based New Renaissance Ventures runs an investment fund for tech startups in visual and performing arts, new media and cultural heritage. The grande dame of creative funding in Europe is the French public investment bank Bpifrance, which provides loan guarantees, debt, equity and other support to cultural and creative businesses. Its $470 million French Touch Capital fund, which supports French creativity, has invested in nearly 50 companies. In the US, Upstart Co-Lab’s Inclusive Creative Economy Strategy made seven investments in 2025.
- Multiplier effect. Every dollar spent on the creative arts generates $2.50 in broader value for the economy. “The hybrid cultural and commercial value of creative tech is not yet being served by traditional venture capital investors,” Deloitte wrote in its “Arts and Finance Report 2025” report. “This presents a unique opening for impact investors.” Deloitte tallied some 21 venture capital and impact funds that invest in the creative economy in Europe, which generates 5.3% of European GDP and 8.7 million jobs. Making a switch from grants and subsidies to repayable finance is “a massive mindset shift,” says Figurative’s Sanderson. The benefits can be transformative. “A lot of what we’re doing is really about increasing freedom and independence at arts organizations.”
- Keep reading, “Multiplying the impact of Europe’s creative sector with investment capital in addition to grants,” by Danielle Rossingh.
Dealflow: Refugee-Lens Investing
Lifta lands iGravity loan for water distribution and plastic recycling in refugee communities. The Kakuma refugee camp is a decades-old community of more than 300,000 people in northwest Kenya. Lifta, a company based near the camp, provides clean, bottled mineral water and plastic recycling services, mostly to Kakuma households. It bottles about 60,000 liters per day. A loan from iGravity’s Refugee Investment Facility will help the company ramp up its water production and recycling capacity. The investment, Switzerland-based iGravity’s first in Kenya, “demonstrates that high-growth, commercially viable businesses can emerge from displacement-affected regions,” said iGravity’s Fredrick Oloo. About 44% of Lifta’s staff and 60% of its contractual and sporadic workers are refugees.
- Growth plans. Lifta has 10 water distribution points for its customers, seven of which are run by women. The company expanded into recycling in 2024, building one of the first plastic recycling facilities in the region. Last year it secured a grant from the Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund for refugee-serving businesses to purchase water treatment and recycling equipment. The grant helped Lifta lower the price it charges per liter from 50 Kenyan shillings ($0.40) to about 10 shillings.
- Refugee impact. More global conflict means more human displacement. Many displaced people are becoming long-term residents in new communities and need resources other than aid for their security, wellbeing and economic opportunity (see, “Conflict in the Middle East creates (even more) refugees in need of livelihoods, services and impact investment”). iGravity has provided loans to 10 refugee-focused businesses through its Refugee Investment Facility. It launched the funding vehicle in 2022 in collaboration with the Danish Refugee Council to provide low-cost loans to businesses providing services, products and job opportunities in displaced communities.
- Share this post.
Investors back startups addressing energy efficiency and green transport in India. External forces beyond India’s control are spurring domestic action on its green transition. A pair of deals on electricity metering and EV batteries are the most recent examples. Delhi-based Kimbal secured $22 million in a Series B equity round for its “advanced metering infrastructure,” which helps electricity distribution companies manage the flow of power, track usage and reduce losses through the grid. It’s working now to support the integration of battery systems. “Energy security and energy transition have become global priorities, driving the need for smarter and adaptive power grids worldwide,” said Arvind Kothari of Niveshaay, which reupped its investment in Kimbal in the Series B round. Private equity firm GEF Capital Partners led the round.
- Electric vehicles. Battery Smart, also in Delhi, secured $15 million in debt from Mirova for its network of battery swapping stations for electric vehicles. The company operates more than 1,500 stations for electric motorbike and e-rickshaw drivers in over 50 urban and semi-urban hubs. The company is backed by a raft of impact investors, including LeapFrog Investments, which led Battery Smart’s Series B equity round in 2024 – the first deal from LeapFrog’s climate fund. Rising Tide Energy, ResponsAbility’s Asia Climate Fund, Acacia Inclusion, Ecosystem Integrity Fund and British International Investment are also investors.
- Green priorities. India’s 2026 budget identifies investment priorities in a number of green sectors, including rooftop solar, battery systems, rare earth mineral procurement and carbon capture and storage. “Today, we face an external environment in which trade and multilateralism are imperilled and access to resources and supply chains are disrupted,” said India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman when she released the budget on February 1. The conflict in the Middle East and effective suspension of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has intensified the pressure on India’s energy resources. The country is a major importer of oil and gas through the Strait.
- Share this post.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Galvanize and the corporate venture capital arm of mining company BHP led a $33 million funding round for Wyoming-based Disa Technologies, which handles site remediation at uranium mines, as well as mineral processing from waste streams. (Disa Technologies)
- Tribal Energy Alternatives’ Solar Accelerator Fund awarded $3.2 million in grants to support solar workforce training and installations in 14 tribal nations. (Tribal Business News)
- Enviotech, in Frankfurt, Germany, raised €1 million ($1.2 million) for a smart street-lighting system it says can be installed in 15 minutes and help cities and towns better manage energy usage. (Tech.eu)
Podcast: Advisors’ Corner
How a financial advisor in Boston helps clients drive local impact. It’s not surprising that many investors in deep-blue Boston are unhappy with current federal policy directives and budget priorities. What may be more surprising is that they’re willing to back alternative approaches in their own backyards, even if that means accepting concessionary returns. Carrie Endries of Boston-based Reynders McVeigh is the rare advisor for whom such a tradeoff is not only understood but embraced. Endries works with high net-worth individuals, families and small foundations, many of whom are based in Boston and across New England, to design and implement place‑based, impact first investment strategies. “We have many clients who have more abundant wealth than they need,” Endries says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. “That means that they can set aside a portion of their portfolio that might have a return below-market.” Such clients are among a growing cohort of asset owners shifting their focus to positive local impact. Says Endries, “We look for options where they can feel like they’re having a real, tangible effect on neighborhoods around them.”
- Doing the work. Local families and foundations in Boston are able to tap into one of the most mature place-based impact investing ecosystems in the country. “Twelve years ago, I could make an impact investing map of Boston and have it be pretty complete,” says Endries. “Now that ecosystem is so complex.” Many Reynders McVeigh clients are invested in Sunwealth, a Cambridge-based financier of community-based solar and storage projects. Boston Impact Initiative (ImpactAlpha Edge) pioneered a model that incentivizes companies to create living-wage jobs, explore worker ownership and develop diverse, local suppliers. The democratically governed, community-accountable model developed by 10-year old Boston Ujima Project goes well beyond lending, Endries says. “I give them so much credit for how much work they have done in having financial education classes, as well as developing businesses and promoting the places that they’ve made loans to.”
- Keep reading and listening, “How a financial advisor in Boston helps clients drive local impact (podcast),” by David Bank and Isaac Silk. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Brad Parry of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation in Utah is awarded the $50,000 Schnitzer Prize of the West for a land and water restoration project in Idaho that offers “an innovative response to the urgent issues of sovereignty, ecological restoration and water security” in the area. The project also pays tribute to the site of one of the largest Indigenous massacres in the Western US.
Supply Change Capital adds Ben Steingold, an MBA candidate at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, as a fellow… Malk Partners is looking for a senior associate for its multi-strategy ESG advisory team in New York… Also in New York, the Century Foundation is recruiting a worker rights director and an economic policy director.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– May 5, 2026
