Greetings Agents of Impact!
In San Jose, Costa Rica, for FLII Central America and the Caribbean? Catch up with ImpactAlpha’s Zuleyma Bebell, who will be moderating “Driving capital for inclusive growth in Haiti,” tomorrow with Kellogg Foundation’s Dana Francois, Alterna’s Daniel Buchbinder, Ivy Kuperberg of the International Finance Corp., and the European Commission’s Kathrin Renner.
🔌 PluggedIn: How BIPOC designers are disrupting fast fashion with sustainable luxury. Join ImpactAlpha contributing editor Sherrell Dorsey in conversation with designer Jacques Agbobly and Felita Harris, a former Saks and LVMH executive and current executive director of RAISEFashion, to explore how the luxury sector is innovating in waste reduction, equity and inclusion. RSVP for the conversation on LinkedIn or YouTube, tomorrow, Nov. 7, at 9am PT / 12pm ET.
In today’s Brief:
- Systems thinking at SOCAP
- Dignified jobs in sustainable fashion
- Credit for Colombia’s farmers
- Paying tribute to amplified impact’s Andrea McGrath
Featured: Systems-Level Investing
Slides of SOCAP showcase systemic and sustainable solutions. Systems thinkers don’t leave home without their slide decks. At last week’s SOCAP gathering in San Francisco, the quickest way to capture the abundance of innovative thinking on offer in plenaries and panels was simply to snap pictures of the slides. Transcap Initiative’s Dominic Hofstetter, for example, diagrammed the interconnected systems of food production to illuminate how our portfolios may well be successful, even as planetary systems deteriorate. “Arguably, what we’re doing is creating islands of sustainability in a sea of polycrisis,” he said. “What gives me hope is that we essentially have all the solutions we need to build the future we want… The key question is, how will it all come together?” We’ve selected a few “slides of SOCAP” – share your own.
- Abundance and archetypes. Business strategist Salim Ismail traced the declining cost curves of everything from human genome sequencing to electric lighting and urged entrepreneurs to decentralize their solutions as much as possible. “You can now do very disruptive innovation at almost zero cost and that, I think, gives us unbelievable potential for the future,” he said. “When you think about the potential for taking technologies and using them disruptively in a democratized, decentralized way, the world quickly becomes very, very amazing.” Such abundance requires a radically different mindset. “The male archetype, when it meets abundance, relates to it as power, and wants to hoard it. The female archetype meets abundance and shares it around,” he said. “As we move to abundance and we get more and more technology and more and more democratization, you really want a female archetype running the world.”
- Funding urban nature. Cities are on the front lines of sustainability, but they often lack the data, tools and funding to pursue climate and nature-related projects. Open Earth Foundation’s Martin Wainstein and Ombrello Solutions’ Anastasia Mourogova Millin sketched new models and mechanisms to finance urban nature and biodiversity. Open Earth is developing place-based transition funds that convert city climate plans into investable portfolios. Ombrello’s Civic Infrastructure Bond is envisioned as 30-year, 8% fixed-income mechanisms that pool private and institutional capital to finance biodiversity preservation, flood mitigation, nature parks and other “urban natural assets” across Canada.
- Keep reading, “Slides of SOCAP showcase systemic and sustainable solutions,” by David Bank and Amy Cortese. Share your favorite slides – or your own. And catch up on our annual SOCAP “best dressed” list and other coverage from last week’s gathering.
Sponsored by the European Microfinance Platform
Increasing women’s financial inclusion with top-to-bottom gender strategies. Many financial services providers in lower-income countries serve more women than men. Some serve women exclusively, providing access to credit, savings, insurance and other services that women have historically been unable to access. But access is only the first step to meaningful economic empowerment, Bob Summers writes in a preview of European Microfinance Week, Nov. 13-15 in Luxembourg. Kenya Women Finance Trust found that financial services adoption among women improved when it added more online services because women didn’t have to leave the home for banking and borrowing. Bolivia’s Banco FIE set up a Gender Equality Action Plan to enhance women’s workplace safety and career opportunities. “Creating the best products and ensuring their adoption requires a comprehensive gender-lens approach that includes not only financial product design, but also women’s voice and representation in the sector, and addressing barriers to financial inclusion that are unrelated to products,” Summers writes.
- Value chains. South Africa’s Small Enterprise Foundation takes a broader look at empowering women in their everyday lives with programs on financial literacy as well as home health and safety. BlueOrchard’s gender rating tool tracks the progress of women within its investees’ businesses and value chains. Women’s World Banking Asset Management looks into potential new investors’ commitment to gender-based business strategies when considering investment exits.
- Gender smart. The conference’s gender-lens track features sessions on safeguarding women from financial abuse, local considerations for successful savings circles, and health insurance for female entrepreneurs. Other tracks focus on financial inclusion of refugees and displaced communities, climate and green finance, youth-lens finance, and digital finance and fintech. ImpactAlpha subscribers can register here with a special discount.
- Read on.
Dealflow: Sustainable Fashion
Upaya Social Ventures backs Ecoright to create dignified jobs in sustainable fashion. Upaya leverages philanthropic funding to provide equity and quasi-equity financing for India’s small and growing businesses. The Seattle-based impact fund has since 2011 invested in 40 companies creating more than 42,000 jobs for Indians living in extreme poverty. Its investment in Ecoright will help the company expand its line of environmentally-friendly “lifestyle” products, such as bags and totes. Ecoright’s “commitment to Upaya’s values of creating dignified jobs while positively impacting the environment makes them ideal partners on this journey,” said Upaya’s Ankur Mehta. The majority of Ecoright’s 90 workers are women.
- Sustainably made. Ecoright, based in Ahmedabad, uses organic cotton, recycled plastic and chemical-free dyes to ensure its products are safe for people and the environment. It uses post-consumer recycled plastic in its packaging and solar energy at its manufacturing facilities. The fair trade-certified company has sold more than 1.5 million bags, at prices between $13 and $80, via its website and online retail partners.
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ALIVE Ventures invests in Colombia’s AgriCapital to finance smallholder farmers. AgriCapital has for six years served as a bridge to formal financing for Colombia’s nearly three million farmers, nearly half of whom live in poverty. The company leans on alternative sources of data and digital underwriting to meet the needs of the country’s growers for financing to acquire equipment and inputs. Acumen’s Latin America-focused fund, ALIVE Ventures, led the equity portion of AgriCapital’s $7.4 million mixed debt and equity round. Bancolombia and COMFAMA also invested. IDB LAB, Alphamundi and Bancolombia were among the company’s debt providers.
- Products and reach. More than 80% of AgriCapital’s customers are smallholder farmers, and 17% are independent workers. A quarter of its borrowers are women and nearly half are first-time financial services users. AgriCapital offers lines of credit of up to $1,500 for crop inputs and machinery through a network of agri-supply shops. AgriCapital also has a credit offering specifically for female borrowers. Borrowers pay 2.4% to 3.1% monthly for one to three-year terms.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- New York-based Bowery, an indoor vertical farming producer of lettuce and other leafy greens, is shutting down. The company had raised $700 million from a range of investors including KKR and General Catalyst, as well as Justin Timberlake, Natalie Portman and other celebrities. (Axios)
- Japan’s Mizuho Bank invested $20 million for a minority stake in Pollination, a UK-based climate and nature-based investment firm. (Pollination)
- Transaera, which is developing an energy-efficient approach to cooling and dehumidification, raised $8.2 million in seed capital from Clean Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and MassMutual Ventures. (Clean Energy Ventures)
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Long-time Agent of Impact Andrea McGrath of Amplified Impact died suddenly last week while attending SOCAP in San Francisco. “We have lost not only an inspiring advocate but also a dear friend whose warmth and dedication touched us all,” wrote the team at Impact Entrepreneur, where McGrath served as an editorial advisor. “Her legacy of compassion, resilience, and visionary leadership will continue to inspire us as we move forward.” In other roles, McGrath was a member of NationSwell, an investment circle leader at Invest for Better, and a founding board member of the New England Impact Investing Initiative.
Tributes and remembrances poured in. “She always showed up with a smile, smarts and energy,” wrote Criterion Institutes’ Joy Anderson. “Andrea brought life and love to her many communities, always seeking to connect people, eager to keep learning, and committed to social good,” shared Invest for Better’s Ellen Remmer. Andrea was “the kind of person who delighted in helping others find their path to social and environmental impact,” said Randall Kempner of Prosperity Strategies. Added Marieke Beeuwkes Spence of Impact Capital Managers, “She had no agenda but to make the world a better place and to bring others along in that pursuit.”
International Finance Corp.’s Gender and Economic Inclusion, Innovation and Funds unit is seeking a senior gender specialist… Quona Capital is hiring an investment officer and an Asia-focused investment associate… Forerunner is hiring a director of operations and finance in San Francisco.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Nov. 6, 2024
