The Brief

The Brief: Ten ways LPs are shoring up GPs ‘beyond the check’

ImpactAlpha · January 28, 2026

Greetings, Agents of Impact!

Welcome to this week’s ImpactAlpha LP/GP, where we take you inside the real business of impact investing and the dynamic relationships between owners, managers and intermediaries of impact capital.

In this week’s newsletter:

Going ‘beyond the check’ to shore up impact managers
All Aboard Coalition’s first co-investment
Obvious Ventures’ $360 million fifth fund
Three dozen LPs investing in emerging impact managers

Featured: GP Support

Ten ways LPs are going ‘beyond the check’ to help impact managers survive the fundraising drought. A new generation of impact fund managers has crisp investment theses, vibrant pipelines and increasingly sharp ability to pick founders and teams that outperform on financial results, impact outcomes or both. What many don’t yet have is enough capital, from fees or profits, to build their own fund management operations. The long-running drought in fund raising has left many general partners looking for ways to sustain their teams and themselves. To keep these high-impact managers afloat, committed family offices, foundations and other asset owners, separately and together, are stepping in with new ways to help general partners, or GPs, bridge operational gaps that can make the difference between emerging managers surviving or closing up shop. “The people raising these funds are not coming from networks of privilege, which makes it much harder for them to raise capital,” Blue Haven’s Daniel Wanjira tells ImpactAlpha. “It’s not just about uplifting the next generation of managers, but also making sure we’re bringing in communities that have been neglected for many years.”

Collective action. The GP Runway Fund, recently launched by Denver-based Catalyze with partners including Blue Haven, Spring Point Partners, and Gary Community Ventures, provides working capital loans to support diverse and underrepresented fund managers in the US. Managers can face legal, compliance, staffing and travel costs of $150,000 to $300,000 before they reach a first close in their fund raising. Mission Driven Finance has taken a similar approach with its Capital Partners Fund, a $9 million demonstration fund backed by World Education Services, Tara Health Foundation, Trimtab Impact and Chordata Capital that provides bridge financing, working capital advances, deal warehousing and capital for co-investments. “Launching your own fund requires grit and determination beyond most entrepreneurial ventures,” Mission Driven Finance’s Stephen Nunes tells ImpactAlpha. “These tools have helped the managers that we’ve worked with get a little bit further.”
Multicapital. Asset owners are looking for ways to help emerging fund managers avoid the several “valleys of death” before they can raise their second or third funds and become financially viable businesses of their own. “They are basically doing three full-time jobs at once between running the existing firm, fundraising for the next iteration, and making and managing their investments,” says Spring Point Partner’s Margot Kane. Spring Point tries to commit early, provide feedback on GPs’ pitches and data room presentations, make introductions to other LPs and serve as a reference for their due diligence. “We’ve heard that just knowing what to expect is hugely reassuring – even if it does result in a quicker ‘no,’” she says. “Clarity is a form of kindness.” WES’s Smitha Das says her shop’s “multicapital” approach includes grants alongside its investments for expenses such as strategy consultants, impact management and measurement and pilot projects. Das said WES shares its social capital by amplifying its partners’ voices in conference sessions, partner‑focused events, blog posts and “integrating key partner narratives into our influence strategies.”
Expanding toolkit. Other strategies include “warehousing” facilities to enable managers to close their first few deals before closing their funds, sharing back-office costs and making warm introductions to other LPs. Firms like Capricorn Investment Group and TPG Next are taking minority “GP stakes” in sub-$1 billion new managers with deep domain expertise. Capricorn’s Sustainable Investors Fund has seeded more than a dozen fund managers including Vision Ridge Partners, Lafayette Square, and MSquared. Mission Driven Finance teamed up with Community Capital Management last year to launch Bold Line Capital, a private credit strategy, to offer a lending facility to help GPs move quickly to close deals while managing their capital calls. Blue Haven and other LPs last year stood up Policy-Enhanced Impact Investing to lift the burden of policy work and lobbying from GPs. Even more valuable: Committing to the next fund. “LPs should take a long term view when they’re backing an emerging fund manager,” said Mission Driven’s Nunes. “When they make a fund one investment, LPs should do so with the expectation of supporting a second fund and growing alongside the manager, so that when the manager goes out to raise fund two, they aren’t starting from scratch.”
Keep reading, “Ten ways LPs are going ‘beyond the check’ to help impact managers survive the fundraising drought,” by Erik Stein.

Dealflow: Deploy!

All Aboard Coalition co-invests with climate VCs in Zanskar’s geothermal exploration. The All Aboard Coalition, launched last year, co-invests alongside its venture capital partners, matching their checks when at least three members join a deal (see, “All Aboard Coalition mobilizes co-investments in climate tech as federal funding falls”). The coalition made its first investment in a $115 million financing round for Salt Lake City-based Zanskar, a geothermal power explorer and developer. Zanskar’s AI leverages geological maps, satellite data, thermal readings and other sources to identify promising geothermal sites and speed development. “We started Zanskar with the belief that AI would have as profound an impact on geothermal cost and scalability as modern drilling technologies have,” said Zanskar’s Carl Hoiland. All Aboard co-invested in the Series C round alongside six coalition members, including Lowercarbon Capital, Obvious Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Spring Lane Capital. The investors first met the Zanskar team at the 2024 All Aboard conference, according to Jason Scott of Spring Lane, which led Zanskar’s round. “We were able to see the company present, agree on general financing terms, meet existing investors and recruit new investors to the financing syndicate.”

Ticket size. The All Aboard Coalition includes more than two dozen of the world’s leading climate-tech investors, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero and Energy Impact Partners. All Aboard committed $10 million to the Zanskar deal, alongside coalition members writing checks of at least $5 million each. All Aboard’s Stan Miranda told Impactalpha the fund has reached a $100 million first close, backed mostly by family offices “with some expertise on investing in the energy transition space.” As it looks to close the fund this summer, All Aboard is targeting pension funds in California, Canada and Europe’s Nordic region.

Commercialization. Zanskar’s Series C investment will support the development of a multi-gigawatt pipeline of geothermal power plants in the western US. Zanskar says it expects to begin delivering power to customers within the next four years. Zanskar’s AI is helping “identify where best to drill to discover economically-viable geothermal heat,” Miranda said. “Rather than backing a company that’s just drilling so many holes a year, we’re backing a technology that can be sold to any and all geothermal development companies.” Zanskar’s new financing, which brings its total equity raised to $180 million, included Munich Re Ventures, StepStone Group, Carica Sustainable Investments and Susquehanna Sustainable Investments. Separately, Carbon Direct Capital, alongside Ormat Technologies, co-led the $97 million Series B financing round of Houston–based Sage Geosystems to commercialize its ‘pressure geothermal’ technology.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

San Francisco-based Obvious Ventures raised $360 million for its fifth fund, which is looking to write checks ranging between $5 million and $12 million in planetary, human and economic health startups. (Obvious Ventures)
T. Rowe Price and Canada Growth Fund led the $75 million Series C equity round of Toronto-based Cyclic Materials to recycle magnet waste for rare earths and other critical materials critical to the rapid growth of AI, robotics and EVs. (Cyclic Materials)
Ambienta Sustainable Credit Opportunities, a credit fund managed by Milan-based asset manager Ambienta, secured a €500 million ($594 million) final close. The fund received commitments from more than 40 institutional investors in North America, Europe and Asia. (Ambienta)

Signals: LP Scan

Three dozen limited partners backing emerging impact fund managers. Fundraising is down. Fund sizes are getting larger. And fundraising as a first- or second-time fund manager is not getting any easier. ImpactAlpha tracked three dozen limited partners backing emerging managers since last year’s fourth quarter in climate, housing and biodiversity strategies. In the US, Builders Vision, the family office of Walmart heir Lukas Walton, anchored Superorganism’s debut fund, which closed at $25.9 million to invest in biodiversity tech startups. Other investors included AMB Holdings and the Cisco Foundation. In France, asset manager Tikehau Capital along with Bpifrance and SWEN Capital Partners invested in Ring Capital’s second buy-out fund, which closed at €217 million ($252 million). The European Investment Fund also served as an anchor investor, with Groupe Crédit Agricole and Abeille Assurances participating. Bogotá-based EWA Capital closed a second fund to invest in tech and health ventures across Latin America with funding from the Visa Foundation, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, and Mexico’s government-backed Fondo de Fondos, Sonen Capital and others.

Place based. Local investors, including Boston Medical Center and Union Capital, purchased community notes to back the Boston Impact Initiative’s second fund, which closed at $22 million, to invest in New England small businesses and nonprofits. Global asset manager GCM Grosvenor recently invested in American South Capital Partners‘ third fund to finance affordable and workforce housing across the US South. New York-based MSquared reached a second close of its Equitable Housing Solutions Fund, securing $139 million from Trinity Church, Capricorn Investment Group, Citi Community Capital and Deutsche Bank. The fund has financed 500 units of mixed-income housing in Dallas and Everett, Washington.

Collect the whole set.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Betty Francisco, after nearly five years as CEO of Boston Impact Initiative, will begin a three-month sabbatical next month. Lubna Maria Elia will step up as interim CEO… Cambridge Associates appoints Alice Blackorby as associate investment director of sustainable and impact investing… Aurum Impact welcomes Birgit Handl, previously with the German Energy Agency, as an investment analyst.

Adriana Gadala-Maria Ochi was promoted to principal at Halogen Ventures…Jessica Sun, former impact investing MBA intern with Spring Point Partners, joins Maycomb Capital as an investment associate… Oui Capital taps Pius Bankong, previously with Stead Money, as an investment associate… Carissa Sanchez was promoted to senior associate at Raven Indigenous Capital Partners… Sucharita Varanasi, previously with MassMutual, joins Nonprofit Finance Fund as general counsel.

Root Capital is looking for an institutional philanthropy and partnerships account specialist in Cambridge, Mass… The Ford Foundation seeks an investment analyst in New York… Bentley Systems is recruiting an ESG impact manager… The Washington Area Community Investment Fund is on the hunt for a social impact consultant in Washington, DC… Boreal Waters Community Foundation has an opening for a finance director… Marsh is hiring a senior manager of values-aligned and sustainable investments in Mumbai… Captona is looking for an energy transition investment analyst.