The Brief

The Brief: Navigating the new climate landscape at Climate Week NYC

ImpactAlpha · September 22, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact! 

In today’s Brief:

  • ImpactAlpha’s guide to Climate Week NYC
  • Carbon Tracker’s Mark Campanale on the global climate shift (podcast)
  • Lendable backs lender to private schools in Mexico
  • Multi-billion dollar climate opportunities in Latin America

At Climate Week NYC, investors look to shake off the doldrums and start deploying capital again. It’s reset time for climate action. Climate Week NYC will be a kind of pep rally for climate and impact investors who are back in the fray after pulling back to assess the extent of recent policy damage, particularly in the US. As the dust settles, a fragile new spirit of mobilization seems to be taking hold. Private and philanthropic funders with an eye on the long term see an opportunity to step up and fund climate tech sectors battered by the US retreat. Commercial investors see a buying opportunity as valuations settle (for background see, “For climate fund managers with dry powder, there’s rarely been a better time to invest”). “I’m hoping that this is a helpful week to get people back to focusing on deploying, on allocating money to these sectors, and realizing that this is not a lost cause,” says Beth Bafford of Climate United, a key player in the Biden-era green bank program under attack by the Trump administration. “There is still a lot of great opportunity.” 

  • Scaling climate tech. The signs of mobilization are everywhere. The All Aboard Coalition is looking to clinch $300 million or more to co-invest alongside Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures and other climate tech VC firms in innovative startups building their first commercial plants. It’s aiming to close its first deals before year end. Tom Steyer’s Galvanize last week debuted its $1.3 billion Credit and Capital Solutions strategy to finance companies and projects developing renewable energy and other decarbonization efforts. The fund will deploy bespoke financing to fill what Galvanize sees as a gap between bank debt and private credit markets, Galvanize’s John Delaney tells ImpactAlpha. “That’s the part of the market that is most attractive, but also helps unleash the most projects to advance the energy transition.”
  • Greening communities. Months of talks are coalescing around concrete efforts to salvage economically viable projects for greening low-income communities. Grantees of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF, are pitching their pipelines even as a protracted legal battle plays out. Some projects could attract investment with an assist from loan guarantees or other credit enhancements (for background see, “Green lenders are all dressed up and ready to roll”). ImpactAssets, backed by philanthropic capital, is rallying family offices and others for an Energy Catalyst Fund to help stalled community projects get underway, according to people briefed on the effort. GGRF grantees are also pursuing efforts to fund their own deals. Leaders of these efforts will try to clinch commitments at closed door meetings this week. “The proof will be in the pudding,” says Bafford. “Watching commitments is going to be important throughout the fall to see if real money is moving.”
  • Keep reading, “At Climate Week NYC, investors look to shake off the doldrums and start deploying capital again,” by Amy Cortese.

Carbon Tracker’s Mark Campanale on the strange split screen at Climate Week NYC (podcast). As climate action shifts east and south, some would-be Climate Week attendees are staying away due to visa hassles, fears of invasive immigration procedures, and risks of detention. The rollback of US climate policy likewise has global effects as the Trump administration strongarms nations into buying US gas and weakening climate policies, and upends global trade with mercurial tariffs. “The Europeans are not buying it,” Carbon Tracker’s Mark Campanale told Amy Cortese on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. Nor, he says, are Asian countries. “The ones today who are taking sustainability more seriously than anyone else are the Chinese, the Koreans, the Singaporeans and groups in Indonesia, Malaysia,” he said. “It’s Asia, led by groups like Temasek, who are taking sustainability very, very seriously.” 

  • Electrostates v. petrostates. The situation has set up a kind of split screen, in which the US retreats at the same time cheap and abundant wind and solar energy is being adopted around the world, fueled by low-cost Chinese imports (for details see, “Ten slides that chart the bumpy road to the sustainable future”). “This drive to electrify the world and create electrostates versus petrostates is probably a more important shift than the relatively inconsequential politics of what’s going to happen in Brazil” at COP30, the global climate talks that kick off in November, Campanale said. “They’re trying to reorganize the geopolitics of trade back in the favor of the Global South and through Chinese dominance.”
  • Listen to, “Carbon Tracker’s Mark Campanale on the strange split screen at Climate Week NYC.” 

Navigating Climate Week

Catch up with ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese and Erik Stein at this week’s events. 

  • Today: Explore how to align capital for public interest AI at “Tech Ttogether: Unlocking improbably good futures,” hosted by Siegel Family Endowment, Heising-Simons Foundation, GitLab Foundation, Omidyar Network and Patrick J. McGovern Foundation… Hear from Democratic and Republican pollsters at “Volts and votes,” sponsored by Overture Ventures and Blue Bear Capital.
  • Tuesday: Second Muse will co-host “Scale for climate tech” at Brooklyn’s Newlab.
  • Wednesday: Node’s “FOAK Summit” will feature innovative financing structures for first-of-a-kind projects… Climate Policy Initiative and Deutsche Bank will talk climate capital for emerging markets.
  • Thursday: ImpactAlpha, Heading for Change and UBS are convening an intimate discussion about inclusive climate investing. Request an invitation.

Climate conversations

Dealflow: Fintech for Education

Lendable provides $50 million for school financing in Mexico. The UK-based fintech investor provided a line of credit to Mattilda, a Mexico City-based company that lends against private schools’ expected tuition payments to help them manage cash flow. Lendable invests in fintech companies in emerging markets that support financial and economic inclusion. “Mattilda’s mission is bold: to empower schools serving low- and middle-income families with the financial tools and solutions they need to achieve financial resilience and long-term sustainability,” Lendable’s team wrote. In addition to its financing, Mattilda provides back-end billing and payment software to help schools avoid tuition delinquencies and defaults. The three-year-old company works with schools educating more than 240,000 students in Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador.

  • Debt + equity. Lendable’s loan follows Mattilda’s $10 million equity round, led by Mexico City-based Dila Capital. Dila reupped in the company after first investing in 2022. QED Investors, GSV Ventures and Fintech Collective also participated in the new equity round.
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Terra Oleo raised $3.1 million to make alternatives to palm oil and cocoa butter. Palm oil and cocoa butter are common ingredients in foods and cosmetics. The global cocoa supply has been disrupted by climate change; palm oil – and the rampant deforestation associated with it – is a climate change contributor. Singapore-based Terra Oleo is testing alternatives made with agricultural waste, yeast strains and precision fermentation. The biotech company’s funding round was backed by ADB Ventures, the Asian Development Bank’s climate-focused venture arm, as well as The Radical Fund, Elev8 VC and Asia-focused food tech investor Better Bite Ventures.

  • Breakthrough technology. Terra Oleo has also been selected for Breakthrough Energy’s 2025 fellows program. The program provides up to $500,000 in early investment capital and support for pilot-stage startups developing clean energy and climate tech solutions. This year’s cohort of 20 companies also includes battery tech companies PowerNaP Energy in Berkeley, Calif., and LiftOff Technology in Oxford, UK. Path Power in Oakland, Calif. is making high-voltage electricity transmission cables. New York-based EverBloom is upcycling organic waste into new textile materials. Malaysia-based Quarbotech is working on a process to help farm crops to improve light absorption, boosting yields.
  • Check it out.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • AlleyCorp led a $20 million equity round for Birches Health, a company that helps adults in the US with gambling and internet additions – “a public health crisis unraveling before our eyes,” AlleyCorp’s Youssef Kalad said. (Birches Health)
  • The Visa Foundation and the African Guarantee Fund provided a $2 million grant to the African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa’s Guarantee for Growth program. The program provides loan guarantees and technical assistance to African financial institutions lending to women and small businesses. (African Guarantee Fund)
  • In KKR’s latest employee ownership exit, employees of Integrated Specialty Coverages, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based insurance company, will receive payouts of up to two years of their salaries. (KKR)

Impact Voices: Impact in Latin America 

The world’s untapped climate innovation launchpad. Smart lithium extraction. Biodiversity monitoring. Carbon sequestering bio-fertilizers. Latin America and the Caribbean offer multi-billion-dollar climate solutions yet attract less than 1% of global climate venture funding (see, “Just Climate leans into ‘natural’ strategies, with a Latin flavor”). In a guest post on ImpactAlpha, Reciprocal’s Benjamin Zehr calls out this “strategic misallocation of capital.” Entrepreneurs in the region need “partners who understand that proximity to climate impact creates innovation advantages,” he says. A new report from the Santiago-based venture studio, in collaboration with Breakthrough Energy Discovery, identifies 10 climate tech sectors and more than two dozen investment theses that are ready for billions of dollars in global investment capital. “What we found challenges conventional wisdom about where climate innovation happens,” says Zehr, “and has revealed a region positioned to become the world’s next leading climate tech launchpad.” 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Join ImpactAlpha at these upcoming partner events:

  • Sept. 29 – Oct. 1: Neighborhood Economics, Chicago. ImpactAlpha subscribers can use the code IA495 for $200 off (expires today).
  • Oct. 3: Swiss Impact Investment Association’s Impact Summit, Lausanne.
  • Oct. 7: Ownership Economy Summit, New York. ImpactAlpha subscribers can use the code IA-2025OESummit for 30% off.
  • Oct. 7-9: GIIN Impact Forum, Berlin. The first 50 ImpactAlpha subscribers to sign up can get 15% off with the code Berlin-IMPACTALPHA. 
  • Oct. 13-15: GAIL Impact Summit 2025, Mexico City. ImpactAlpha subscribers can take 30% off the ticket price using the code MS25NP
  • Oct. 27-29: SOCAP25, San Francisco.

Lilian Dodd, previously with the Environmental Defense Fund, joins Ownership Works as a manager on the nonprofit’s client advisory services team… WaterEquity promotes Suma Swaminathan to head of private equity… Media Development Investment Fund appoints Nolwazi Tusini as Southern Africa program director, and Adedeji Adekunle as West and East Africa program director…  Yici Wang is promoted to manager of impact investments at CapShift… VentureESG rebrands as Reframe Venture. 

RF Catalytic Capital is looking for a program manager in Washington, DC… Neuberger Berman seeks an investment solutions associate in London… Mad Capital has an opening for a portfolio manager and a director of credit in Boulder, Colo… In Atlanta, Energy Impact Partners is hiring an associate vice president for research and innovation and power delivery… The Washington Center for Employee Ownership is recruiting a strategy and operations lead.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Sept. 22, 2025