Greetings Agents of Impact! Thanks to all those who tuned into Sherrell Dorsey’s Plugged In conversation with Justice Climate Fund’s Amir Kirkwood. We’ll have the writeup, and replay, in tomorrow’s Brief. Two more events to put on your radar:
✅ Re:Construction North Carolina – A playbook for shared prosperity. ImpactAlpha is going on the road next month, starting with an in-person Agents of Impact event at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. David Bank will join GOOD TRBL’s Napoleon Wallace, Self-Help Credit Union’s Martin Eakes, ncIMPACT Initiative’s Anita Brown-Graham, Symphonic Capital’s Shruti Shah and Bill Spruill of 2ndF, and hundreds of other Agents of Impact, to advance proven models for shared prosperity. The event will include a special screening of “Equity & Ownership: Napoleon Wallace and the Reconstruction of Black Wealth.” Join us in-person for this free event, Friday, April 4, 10am – 6:30 pm, hosted by the Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. RSVP today.
✅ Breakfast with Agents of Impact. Will you be in Washington DC for next week’s Impact Capital Manager’s awards gala? Meet up with ImpactAlpha’s Zuleyma Bebell and Dennis Price, and other Agents of Impact, for breakfast on Friday, March 21, near the Hyatt Place in Georgetown (exact location TBD). Bring news and updates and we’ll share ImpactAlpha LP/GP, our new weekly newsletter, and other innovations for you and your team. Let us know if you can join!
In today’s Brief:
- India’s profitable overlooked market
- Recycling industrial solvents
- Gender bonds in Africa
- Insights from 100% impact investors
Featured: Entrepreneurial Households
Elevar Equity says low-income customers are more profitable – and has the data to prove it. Companies serving low-income households have been collecting data to prove that their customers are reliable, bankable and profitable. Elevar Equity, a longtime emerging markets impact investor, and its sister company, EPIC World, teamed up with Morningstar to create the Entrepreneurial Households India index to track 34 publicly listed Indian companies that offer products and services designed for such families (for background, see “Laying bets on entrepreneurial households in industrious communities”). The index is part of a broader data strategy from EPIC World designed to foster interest from investors in lower-income households, reports ImpactAlpha contributor Shefali Anand from Bangalore. Since 2017, the EHI has outperformed the Nifty 50 benchmark of India’s largest companies, with annual gains of 16.4% versus 13.6%. “This customer segment is vibrant and strong,” Jyotsana Krishnan of Elevar and EPIC World tells ImpactAlpha. Her goal is to see 50 companies that cater to these customers scale into blue chip companies over the next 20 years. Companies in the EHI Index include microfinance firm Spandana Sphoorty Financial, gold jewelry business lender Muthoot Finance, and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank.
- Entrepreneurial households. Elevar and EPIC have recast the outdated “base of the pyramid” terminology. “Entrepreneurial households” often have multiple sources of income, providing them greater financial resilience than individuals or single-income households. EPIC estimates that there are around 250 million such households in India transacting up to $10 trillion, digitally and physically, each year. “We’re seeing companies on the ground that are excited,” says Krishnan (for background, see “Elevar Equity invests in better livelihoods and products for low-income customers”). Varthana in Bangalore, for example, lends to schools and students from lower-income backgrounds. EPIC’s new intelligence unit is helping the company identify locations for new branches in rural areas, where the density of schools is lower than cities. “It could help us save money and be more efficient in how we organize operations,” says Varthana’s Steve Hardgrave.
- Moving down market. Companies in the EHI index had a combined market capitalization of $115 billion as of Dec. 31, 2024 and a compounded annual revenue growth of 22% over the past five years, versus 12% for the Nifty 50. Most businesses and investors still continue to focus on wealthier customers. SarvaGram, by contrast, provides loans and other services to rural households by considering the entire household when underwriting loans to individuals. If a family member can afford an expensive mobile phone, for example, SarvaGram assumes they can afford to repay an education or housing loan as well. The company recently raised a $67 million equity round with backing from Elevar, Temasek and Peak XV Partners. Says SarvaGram’s Utpal Isser,
“Big pools of money should find their way to this customer segment, and they should find their way on commercial metrics.” - Keep reading, “Elevar Equity says low-income customers are more profitable – and has the data to prove it,” by Shefali Anand on ImpactAlpha.
Dealflow: Climate Finance
Nuveen’s private equity impact group backs CleanPlanet Chemical to recycle chemical waste. Nuveen, the $1.3 trillion investment management arm of financial services giant TIAA, has made a $30 million equity investment in Austin-based CleanPlanet to recycle industrial solvents. Its machines, hundreds of which have been installed in packaging, automotive and chemical facilities globally, are tackling waste and emissions for “a true waste to value solution,” said Clean Planet’s Alex Richert. “Our technology can recover most solvents, transforming them into a perpetually reusable product that is both cost-effective and sustainable.” Some solvents were banned under the Toxic Substances Control Act by the US Environmental Protection Agency in the final months of the Biden administration. Traditional solvent disposal methods, like incineration and chemical neutralization, are carbon-intensive; transporting chemicals poses major environmental and health risks. CleanPlanet’s machines, the size of large refrigerators, recycle industrial solvents into reusable products onsite.
- Climate justice. CleanPlanet is the fourth investment from Nuveen’s second Climate Inclusion Fund, which has secured roughly $150 million in commitments toward its $400 million target, according to a recent filing. Nuveen’s Rekha Unnithan says she is betting that “climate change and inequality, two of the biggest challenges the world faces, can be addressed by commercial businesses.” Low-income and diverse US neighborhoods are more likely to get exposed to environmental and health risks from toxic chemical waste leakage, often due to the locations of hazardous waste sites. LPs in the climate inclusion fund include Velliv, a Danish pension fund.
African bond fund and IFC anchor gender bond in Côte d’Ivoire. The International Finance Corp. and the Africa Local Currency Bond Fund are anchoring Ecobank Côte d’Ivoire’s gender bond with 4.9 billion West African francs ($7.8 million). Ecobank issued the bond last week to raise 10 billion francs ($17 million) to support 1,200 women-owned and -led businesses. The five-year gender bond has a 6.5% annual interest rate and a two-year repayment grace period. Its proceeds will support Ecobank’s women-focused lending program, Ellevate, which disbursed 13.3 billion francs ($21 million) to 3,500 women-led businesses. “The proceeds for this gender bond, and its alignment to the Sustainable Development Goals, coupled with supporting Ecobank’s first-ever West African franc bond issuance, were the key considerations for our support of this transaction,” said ALCB Fund’s Brock Hoback.
- Developing bond markets. ALCB is a 2012 initiative of Germany’s KfW. It anchors up to 30% of bond issuances in Africa in local currency. Calvert Impact Capital, Dutch development bank FMO and FSD Africa are among its investors. As of 2024, the fund had committed $363 million in over 95 bond issuances in 16 countries. The European Commission committed €100 million ($108 million) in 2023. KfW has provided guarantees for investors in order to mobilize €820 million in private investments by 2027.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- National Grid Partners, the venture arm of UK’s utility company National Grid, backed Texas-based Amperon, a provider of AI-based energy forecasting and analytics. (NatGrid)
- PHNXX, a Singapore and Melbourne, Australia-based maker of container-based microgrid systems for rural and remote businesses, raised 1.5 million Singaporean dollars ($1.1 million) from ENGIE Factory, Synertec and others. (e27)
- Seattle-based textile recycler Ravel scored seed capital from At One Ventures, Collateral Good, Collaborative Fund to produce polyester-derived plastic for the fashion industry. (RecyclingToday)
Impact Voices: Impact Management
Investors with 100% impact portfolios are rewriting the investment playbook. Nine years ago, a group of investors committed to moving 100% of the assets of at least one seven-, eight-, or nine-digit portfolio to impact investments. Since then, the investor network Toniic has conducted a longitudinal study of more than 100 of those portfolios, drawing from 1,600 impact investments. The results show “a shift in how impact investors are approaching portfolio construction,” Toniic’s Melody Jensen writes in a preview of the study for ImpactAlpha. “While conventional wisdom has long dictated that financial returns should drive investment decisions, a new paradigm is emerging – one where the potential for positive change takes center stage.”
- Spectrum of capital. Perhaps the most striking finding from the T100 study: 64% of portfolios contain at least some sub-commercial, catalytic investments. On average, 19% of the investment capital in studied portfolios is allocated toward catalytic capital. London-based At Be The Earth Foundation, for example, allows its capital to adapt to the specific needs of regenerative projects. “We prioritize wealth circulation over accumulation, stewarding resources in a way that fosters systemic transformation,” says At Be The Earth’s Anne Rimmi.
- Impact in private markets. Traditional portfolio theory calls for a balancing of risks and returns, for example through a 60/40 split between publicly-listed equities and other assets. Impact investors are pivoting toward private markets, particularly private equity. “This isn’t merely a coincidence,” says Jensen. “It reflects a deliberate strategy to pursue deeper, more meaningful impact.” Investing across the spectrum, with an emphasis on private markets, isn’t just changing portfolios, she adds, “it’s redefining what it means to be a successful investor.”
- Keep reading, “Investors with portfolios 100% allocated to impact are rewriting the investment playbook,” by Toniic’s Melody Jensen on ImpactAlpha.
Signals: Situational Awareness
Climate United vs. EPA: A US federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to submit solid evidence for freezing funds, and ultimately terminating a grant, awarded to Climate United and eight other nonprofits under the Biden administration’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. “I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required,” Judge Tanya Chutkan of the US District of Columbia scolded the agency at a hearing. The hearing was initially scheduled to review Climate United’s request for a temporary restraining order to unlock $7 billion in grant funds held at Citibank, but was upended by EPA chief Lee Zeldin’s termination of the entire $20 billion grant program yesterday (see, “EPA raises the stakes in battle over $20 billion in green bank grants”).
- Do over. Chutkan gave the EPA and Climate United until Monday at 5pm ET to resubmit evidence. Climate United will update its claim in light of the termination notice, which its lawyers argued violated its constitutional right to due process. The EPA will need to back up its claims of fraud. As for Citi, which argued it froze the funds at the recommendation of the FBI, the judge admitted the bank “was between a rock and a hard place.” The judge has yet to rule on Climate United’s request for a temporary restraining order, which would unlock the funds.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy is cutting staff from its policy, partnerships and European units, The New York Times reported. The cuts, which don’t affect the firm’s venture capital and Catalyst arms, are an acknowledgement of the shifting policy landscape under the Trump administration… Illa Burbank, previously with iFyber, becomes executive director of the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center… The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is recruiting an innovation partnerships program manager, a business or senior business analyst, a power generation and storage project manager, a power grid modernization project manager.
Community Justice and Community Justice Action Fund has an opening for a fundraising and strategic partnerships director in Washington, DC… Also in Washington, the World Wildlife Fund is hiring a senior director of climate finance and carbon and a strategic planning and finance manager… Goldman Sachs Asset Wealth Management is on the hunt for a sustainable investing associate in New York… Also in New York, the GIIN is looking for a research director… Citi Impact Fund is searching for an investment vice president.
AXA Investment Managers seeks a remote global health investment analyst… LeapFrog Investments is hiring a strategy manager in Sydney… Mastercard Foundation’s Africa Catalytic Impact Facility is looking for a Johannesburg-based investment officer, senior legal counsel and investment manager… Mastercard Foundation, IDH and Acumen are co-hosting, “Better business: The case for a gender transformative approach in agricultural value chains,” Thursday, March 27.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– March 13, 2025
