The Brief: Making missing markets

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In today’s Brief:

• New York Fed sets out to ‘make missing markets’ 
• Financing vehicle businesses and ownership in the Philippines
• Powering the next wave of the blue economy

Featured: Shared Prosperity

Making missing markets for local builders (and buyers) of health, wealth and vibrant communities. One of the best indicators of the health of a child in elementary school is whether they are reading at grade level. For adults, it’s having a steady job. Such correlations suggest that in communities across the US, many people, organizations and institutions are, in fact, producing good health. Governments, insurers and even private investors should be able to buy into such improved health outcomes. “Why can I invest in a company that makes a pill that lowers blood pressure, but I can’t invest in a neighborhood that measurably does the same thing?” asks David Erickson of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (crediting Maggie Super Church, who created the Healthy Neighborhoods Investment Fund in Boston to make such investments possible). Erickson and his team at the New York Fed have helped bring together children’s hospitals, community foundations and nonprofits with corporations, banks and local governments in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; Syracuse, NY; Fairfield County, Conn.; and the Adirondacks region to prototype more such cross-sector collaborations. The project teams will meet at the New York Fed’s Making Missing Markets gathering this week to design financing mechanisms that connect the builders and buyers of health, wealth and vibrant communities. Erickson will join ImpactAlpha’s David Bank for a fireside chat to kick off the event. 

• Going upstream. Many low-income communities have overlapping vulnerabilities in health outcomes, educational achievement, economic opportunity and climate risk. The flip side, Erickson says, is that there are overlapping resources that could be more effectively coordinated to finance preventive measures and other investments that are “upstream” of such problems. “If we could organize the buyers to say, ‘We have a common cause in going upstream in places that are experiencing overlapping issues,’ then we could rationalize the producers,” says Erickson, author of “The Fifth Freedom,” which explored such solutions. “What we need are the connectors to bring them together.” In Cincinnati and Columbus, local children’s hospitals have helped convene school districts, city councils and chambers of commerce, as well as JPMorgan Chase, Procter & Gamble and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, around access to fresh food and quality affordable housing. The idea, modeled after special-purpose public agencies such as sports stadium authorities, is to issue bonds to back a series of pay-for-success contracts for proven interventions.
  
• Market crafting. Making Missing Markets is an exercise in what author (and Facebook co-founder) Chris Hughes calls “market crafting.” In Connecticut, the state’s green bank, one of the country’s oldest, is working on a strategy to create “resiliency improvement districts” to finance improvements for homes and businesses as the state faces stronger storms, rising seas and extreme winds. Modeled after tax-increment financing tools that municipalities use for redevelopment projects, the districts would tap future increases in property tax revenue to attract private investment. Such tools are becoming more important as public and other sources of funding are cut back. In Syracuse, residents have helped design the East Adams Neighborhood Transformation Plan, a billion-dollar initiative to replace aging public housing with new mixed-income, mixed-use complexes. This year’s federal tax and budget bill cut nearly $30 million that had been approved for East Adams’ neighborhood revitalization.
  
• Keep reading, “Making missing markets for local builders (and buyers) of health, wealth and vibrant communities,” by David Bank and Roodgally Senatus. RSVP for the Making Missing Markets livestream.

Dealflow: Inclusive Fintech

OneLot raises seed funding to bridge vehicle financing gaps in the Philippines. Most car dealers in the Philippines are small, family-run businesses. Manila-based OneLot provides tech services to help independent dealerships source used vehicle inventory and do vehicle appraisals. OneLot also underwrites and disburses short-term working capital so dealers can acquire more inventory. Since launching in 2023, OneLot has facilitated $7 million in business loans across 150 dealerships. Its $3.3 million seed equity round was led by Accion Ventures and 468 Capital. Everywhere Ventures, Seedstars, Crestone Venture Capital, Kaya Founders and several angel investors also participated. Accion Ventures’ Rahil Rangwala told ImpactAlpha that OneLot is unlocking working capital for thousands of small business owners. “They’re building a new asset-backed lending category for a vital but long-ignored segment.”

• Working capital. Inadequate public transportation makes it difficult for many Filipinos to commute to and from cities for work. “But Filipino banks are not financing used cars,” OneLot’s Harm-Julian Schumacher told ImpactAlpha. “These family businesses could have anywhere from five to 50 cars, but they’re being left behind without support from institutions.” With OneLot’s lines of inventory credit, “a dealer that has been working with us for a year can grow their sales between 30% and 40%,” Schumacher said.
  
• Relationship incentives. Most of OneLot’s dealers, because they sell used vehicles, are trading gas-powered cars. Electric vehicles will show up as EV infrastructure improves and more EVs get recycled into the used car market, Schumacher said. OneLot’s focus is supporting the dealers in building their businesses. Because OneLot’s loans are collateralized, it is able to offer lower rates on its financing than other non-bank financiers, Schumacher explained. OneLot reduces its rates as borrowers build their repayment track records with repeat loans. “As we work longer with dealers and they become more predictable for us,” said Schumacher, “we reward the good ones.”
  
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

• Kuppa, an energy efficiency software company based in London, was acquired by UK-based energy supplier and investor Octopus Energy Group. (Climate Global News)
  
• FMC, based in Dresden, Germany, raised €100 million ($116 million) from HV Capital and DeepTech & Climate Fonds for its energy-efficient memory chips, which it says will reduce the energy demand of AI data centers as well as Europe’s reliance on foreign chips. (EU-Startups)
  
• Brazil-based Quartzo invested 6.5 million reais ($1.2 million) in Solan, a software company that supports solar system operators with remote management. (Valor)
  
• ReNew Energy Global clinched $331 million in debt from the Asian Development Bank for a planned solar, wind and battery project in Andhra Pradesh, India. The debt package includes $291 million in local currency debt. (Power Technology)
  
• Sahara Impact Ventures invested in Wahu Mobility, which assembles new e-bikes and converts traditional bicycles into e-bikes for buyers in Ghana and Togo. (Innovation Village)

Impact Voices: Catalytic Capital

Blended capital is powering the next wave in the blue economy. Three giant warehouses on a wharf at the Port of Los Angeles house the campus of AltaSea, a public-private ocean institute. The 35-acre innovation hub is home to ocean startups, scientists and explorers, and since September, the Deep Blue Decade Initiative. The collaboration between AltaSea and Pegasus Capital Advisors supports the commercialization of ocean solutions that create jobs, attract investment and build resilience in coastal economies. The initiative is bringing its collaborative model to Jordan, Indonesia, Tanzania and Tonga, and working with private partners to unlock catalytic capital for the regional hubs. Oceans generate $2.5 trillion in economic activity and absorb 90% of the earth’s excess heat, yet ocean-based climate solutions receive less than 1% of global climate finance. “This funding gap isn’t just a moral failure; it’s one of the biggest missed opportunities in climate finance,” writes AltaSea’s Terry Tamminen in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. “As leaders gather for COP30 in Brazil, one message should rise above the noise: we can’t deliver on climate goals without investing in the ocean.”

• Ocean pipeline. There is already a healthy pipeline of investable ocean solutions. At AltaSea, Voyacy Regen, founded by oceanographer Jacques Cousteau’s grandson Philippe and his wife Ashlan, is constructing shield reefs to protect coastlines and local economic opportunity. Other startups are developing renewable wave-energy systems and regenerative ocean farming to capture carbon and replace harmful fertilizers and plastics. Blended-finance structures are beginning to unlock ocean-positive models, such as the UN’s Joint SDG Fund, which is testing blue-economy financing frameworks. Pegasus has mobilized capital for resilience and biodiversity through the Global Fund for Coral Reefs and the Subnational Climate Fund. Tamminen calls for collaboration between governments, philanthropies and institutional investors. “Together, these actors can unlock a blue economy projected to reach $3 trillion by 2030.”
  
• Keep reading, “Blended capital is powering the next wave in the blue economy,” by AltaSea’s Terry Tamminen.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

The Green Climate Fund is hiring a Korea-based climate investment specialist for East and South Asia… GRID Impact seeks a global fintech innovation challenge lead for its Women’s Financial Inclusion program… Arnold Ventures is looking for a director of mission-aligned investments in New York… Climate Smart Communities Initiative is accepting applications for grants to help communities accelerate their climate resilience plans and projects.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Nov. 18, 2025