The Brief

The Brief: How Next50 is investing its endowment for healthy aging

ImpactAlpha · May 19, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • Peter Kaldes on valuing aging in Next50’s endowment
  • European Investment Bank’s guarantee for green small businesses
  • Space-based solar power
  • Appeals court considers unfreezing “green bank” funds

Next50 sets out to invest its entire endowment to value and support aging (podcast). There are nearly as many people in the US over 65 years old as there are under 18, and the country is not getting any younger. The age wave crashing into the US, and much of the rest of the world, will upend more than just government spending and healthcare. “It’s genuinely a mega trend that’s going to impact every aspect of our economy,” Next50’s Peter Kaldes tells ImpactAlpha on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. “We would be missing out on a profound investment and impact opportunity if we don’t build this framework.” The Denver-based foundation has made $70 million in grants to support healthy aging since it was established in 2016 with proceeds from the sale of InnovAge, a senior care operator. Last year, the foundation announced it will align 100% of its $265 million endowment to value and support aging. Kaldes joined Next50 in 2023 and quickly moved to expand the foundation’s toolkit to include impact investments across four areas: creating economic opportunity, supporting the built environment, ensuring health and expanding social inclusion. “It’s expensive to get old,” Kaldes says. “We haven’t done enough to focus on the capital markets and the opportunities there.”

  • Model portfolio. The foundation this year selected JPMorgan Chase & Co. to construct a portfolio for the foundation’s own assets and for other investors as well. Members of the affinity group Grantmakers in Aging, for example, have a combined $45 billion in endowment assets. Next50 is about six months into its journey and expects to have about 60% of the endowment aligned by the end of this year. “We’re convinced, given the diversity of a robust aging portfolio, we’re going to get market rate-returns when investing in our future,” Kaldes says. “To be so hyper focused with our endowment on what’s going to make us all age well,” he adds, “could be really catalytic.” ImpactAlpha and Next50 are partnering to expand coverage of investment opportunities in healthy aging, and to chronicle the foundation’s efforts to align its endowment investments with its programmatic mission.
  • Longevity tech. Even before engaging JPMorgan, Next50 had dipped its toe into private equity, as a limited partner in funds such as San Francisco-based Age1 and 1843 Capital. Age1, which raised $35 million in 2023, was co-founded by Laura Deming, who had earlier run the Longevity Fund, one of the first longevity-focused VC funds, and Alex Colville, an aging-focused biotech investor. The firm invests in new therapeutics for aging-related diseases and machine learning platforms that advance drug discovery. Tracy Chadwell’s 1843 Capital is focused on age and longevity tech – all the changes needed in social infrastructure to “solve for the 100+ lifespan”. The key, Kaldes says, is to mitigate the chronic conditions that come with aging, rather than trying to “cure” aging itself. “A lot of billionaires think aging, in and of itself, is a disease, and we don’t take that point of view,” Kaldes said. “We definitely want to help people live longer, healthier lives. But we aren’t investing in the fountain of youth.”
  • Keep reading, and listen in to, “Next50 sets out to invest its $265 million endowment to value and support aging,” by David Bank on ImpactAlpha.

Dealflow: Green Guarantees

European Investment Bank guarantees €200 million for green lending to small businesses. About 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the operations and properties of small and mid-sized businesses. Achieving global climate goals will therefore depend on individual businesses’ green strategies. The European Investment Bank is hoping to encourage more green small business lending with a €200 million ($223.3 million) portfolio guarantee to BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions. The guarantee will cover loans for businesses in France, Germany, Italy and Spain that need capital to improve energy efficiency, invest in renewable energy projects, and adopt sustainable mobility and green technologies. The EIB signed off on the guarantee via the European Investment Fund, a testing ground for equity and debt instruments for entrepreneurship, innovation, research and development, job creation, and the green and digital transitions in Europe.

  • Catalytic capital. The guarantee was made possible with capital from InvestEU, the bloc’s catalytic capital initiative, which aims to leverage €26.2 billion to encourage public and private investors to finance Europe’s small businesses, skills development and infrastructure projects. InvestEU was started to speed bloc countries’ economic recovery from the Covid pandemic and to “support the European economy in addressing new challenges arising from major uncertainties linked to the global and security outlook.” The initiative was launched just 10 days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The European Investment Fund’s share of the InvestEU pot is €12.2 billion, with which it hopes to mobilize €159 billion from other backers.
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Reflect Orbital raises $20 million for space-based ‘sunlight as a service.’ The Los Angeles-based company is developing a constellation of low-orbit satellites to reflect sunlight to a precise location on earth for large-scale, on-demand lighting and energy. Reflect Orbital says it has received over 260,000 applications from potential customers in 157 countries for what it calls “sunlight as a service” agreements to deliver space-based lighting and energy to Earthly customers. Reflect Orbital’s “on-demand illumination technology has the potential to reshape how we solve problems on earth – from critical operations to energy resilience,” said Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, which led the company’s Series A round, alongside Sequoia Capital and Starship Ventures. Reflect Orbital plans to launch its first satellite next year to provide lighting for remote operations, defense, civil infrastructure and energy generation. Lux has backed companies including Saildrone, which deploys a fleet of ocean-going drones to collect vital ocean data; Osmo, a maker of environmentally-friendly fragrances; and Maven Clinic, a women’s health provider. 

  • Solar after dark. Venture capital investors are buying into space-based solar power – collecting solar energy in space and transmitting it down to earth – as a potentially unlimited and uninterrupted source of clean energy. Drawing energy from the sun in space can solve critical generation issues including solar power intermittency and limited land for large solar farms. Last month, California-based Aetherflux raised $50 million to develop small satellites that transmit solar power to ground substations via infrared lasers.
  • Space infrastructure. Solestial, a Tempe, Ariz.-based company developing ultra thin, low-mass solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity for spacecraft power systems, has raised $17 million in Series A funding from Mitsubishi Electric Corp.’s ME Innovation Fund, AE, Crosscut, Zeon and Airbus Ventures. Solestial says the solar cells in the modules are engineered to weather up to 10 years of harsh space conditions, and can self heal at operating temperatures from 65 degrees Celsius. Celestial is seeking “to revolutionize low-cost, lightweight solar power for space,” said Airbus Ventures’ Mat Costes. “The market applications for this technology are robust.”
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • Metafoodx snagged $9.4 million from Trustbridge Partners, BlueRun Ventures and ScalableVision Capital to reduce food waste in commercial kitchens with its 3D AI scanner. (Metafoodx)
  • Sahel Capital, through its Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa, provided a $560,000 working capital loan to Mariseth to create fair market access for smallholder farmers in Ghana. (Africa Private Equity News)
  • Boston-based Mendoza Impact made a $250,000 investment in Prosperos, a Latino-focused neobank that offers remittance transfers, credit cards and other financial services with no fees. (Prosperos)

Signals: Deploy!

Clean energy programs hang in the balance as Republicans take aim. Federal “green bank” awardees are bracing for the worst as they head back to court today in their standoff with the US Environmental Protection Agency over $20 billion in frozen funds. A Washington, DC, appeals court will determine whether to affirm or deny a federal court’s preliminary injunction issued, and then “stayed,” last month (for background, see “Green bank grantees may get access to loan funds”). Two of the three judges hearing the appeal are Trump appointees. An affirmative ruling would unfreeze the funds, held in a custodial account at Citibank, and unleash much-needed capital. The nine plaintiffs have been unable to fulfill loans, and in some cases to pay staff, since mid-February. If the appeals court rejects the earlier court’s ruling, the government would be able to claw back and redirect the congressionally-appropriated funds. Almost all scenarios involve appeals and counter-appeals, potentially leading to the Supreme Court. 

  • No evidence. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, sought to catalyze nationwide green lending infrastructure to finance pollution-reducing projects in communities and mobilize private capital. Without providing any evidence, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has cast the program as rife with fraud and abuse. Despite broad-based subpoenas, investigators have uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing or malfeasance, according to a New York Times report. The GGRF could provide solar power to up to 2.2 million homes each year, save consumers $52 billion in energy costs over the next 20 years, and spur $65.5 billion in private investment, according to a new analysis by Energy Innovation.
     
  • War of attrition. The drawn out legal battle is taking a toll. Last week, Rewiring America, a member of the Power Forward Coalition, which was awarded $2 billion under the program, laid off 28% of its workforce. “We are facing purposeful volatility designed to prevent us from fulfilling our obligations and from delivering lower energy costs and cheaper electricity to millions of American households across the country,” wrote Rewiring America’s Ari Matusiak.
  • Burning bridges. Separately, Energy Department officials are expected this week to “de-obligate” seven conditional loans and guarantees made by the agency’s Loan Programs Office, former LPO chief Jigar Shah said in an email. The IRA boosted the LPO’s loan authority to $400 billion to help build “a bridge to bankability” for promising clean tech startups. Under Shah, LPO committed more than $107 billion to 53 projects. The conditional loans, he said, are intended to “signal to equity investors that the project can meet a reasonable prospect of repayment.” That, of course, assumes a stable policy environment, a quaint notion as House Republicans draft a budget bill that would ax to the IRA’s tax incentives. Says Shah, “The House reconciliation bill has effectively repealed the Inflation Reduction Act and has caused these equity investors to think twice about investing in America.”
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Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:

New York Community Trust welcomes Nupur Chaudhury, a former program officer with the New York State Health Foundation, as program director, and Mike Nuno, previously with the Princeton Area Community Foundation, as vice president for development… Full Circle Communities is looking for a mission impact portfolio manager… Hamilton Community Foundation is recruiting a director of social finance investments. 

Redington seeks a director and sustainable investment stewardship lead… British International Investment has an opening for an impact management executive… Abler Nordic is hiring an impact investment associate… RSF Social Finance is seeking an assistant accounting manager… Sturgeon Capital is on the hunt for an impact investing summer intern.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– May 19, 2025