The Brief

The Brief: With venture studios, DIY impact investors are rolling their own startups

ImpactAlpha · August 11, 2025

Credit: I was a Sari

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

Enviu makes the case for building ventures and markets
Pacific Community Ventures acquires Radiant Data
Upaya backs I was a Sari’s dignified jobs strategy in India
Building ecosystems for health innovation in emerging markets

Featured: Venture Building

These DIY investors are notching impact and exits by building startups from scratch. A micropension fund to enable Ghana’s informal workers to save for retirement seemed like a solid business idea. But before Enviu, a Rotterdam-based venture builder, could launch People’s Pension Trust, it had to lobby policymakers in Accra for regulations to allow for the creation of such a fund. Since launching in 2016, People’s Pension Trust has attracted more than 23,000 clients, 82% of whom are informal workers. The micropension fund has raised at least $2 million in investment rounds, including from UK-government backed FSD Africa. “We saw that the impact ventures we were creating from scratch had a higher survival rate” than the broader startup market, Enviu’s Dieuwertje Nelissen tells ImpactAlpha. In Kenya, for example, Enviu launched SokoFresh, a pay-as-you-go refrigeration provider that is addressing food waste by helping farmers properly store their goods after harvest. It also runs HalisiGro, which offers products and services farmers need to farm more sustainably, such as training and inputs. Enviu says that across its portfolio, every €1 it invested has unlocked €5.6 from outside investors. In addition to the dozen ventures still in-house, the organization reports that seven have been fully spun-out and exited; four have failed.

Home made. Accelerators for impact startups promised to help founders with interesting market solutions refine their business models and secure early investments. As many of the ventures failed to survive on the way to significant scale, some investors are instead creating “venture studios” to execute on a promising business idea. Enviu co-creates business ideas with promising entrepreneurs. It incubates businesses with technical support and capital until they can fundraise externally. Then it sells equity shares and recycles the proceeds to other ventures in its portfolio. In Latin America, Fundamental has built four impact startups from scratch in Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, Fundamental’s Corentin Larue told ImpactAlpha in a video interview earlier this year. In the US, Montauk Climate has launched seven climate tech companies. “We’re focused on building what we view as a once in a generation opportunity to capitalize on the electron economy,” Montauk’s Sharo Atmeh told ImpactAlpha.
Market building. Developing a business model for one market need often surfaces additional market gaps, for which Enviu can launch complementary businesses in the same ecosystem. Nelissen says the model works well in emerging markets where inefficiencies or fragmentation in one part of the value chain can break a company working in another. She hopes to see other organizations working in emerging market startup ecosystems adopt the venture building approach. Building successful businesses often requires larger-scale market building, however, such as investor education or the policy engagement required for the micropension plan in Ghana. “We apply a systems approach because we see a big upside,” says Nelissen, “We’re not an advocacy party. But if it is important for our ventures, we will do it.”

Keep reading, “These DIY investors are notching impact and exits with venture studios to build startups from scratch,” by Lucy Ngige.

Dealflow: Responsible AI

Exclusive: Pacific Community acquires Radiant Data to bring equitable AI to mission-based lending. Community development financial institutions and other mission-driven lenders have a new AI resource to streamline their impact data. In conjunction with its acquisition of Radiant Data, Pacific Community Ventures is launching a digital hub to offer AI data capabilities to small lenders with limited resources in order to improve their impact underwriting, measurement and reporting. “Right now, if you’re a nonprofit or CDFI leader, you do not have easy access to data and machine learning and AI talent. It’s really difficult,” said Sachi Shenoy, Radiant’s founder who is joining Pacific Community as chief data officer (for background, see, “How machine learning and AI can be harnessed for mission-based lending”). Through Radiant Data Hub, she says CDFIs can use transaction data to build predictive lending models and use voice-based data like transcripts for better impact storytelling. Building trust in the data and financial stability of such lenders is the best way to attract investors “who still have assets sitting on the sidelines that could be actively deployed,” Pacific Community’s Bulbul Gupta told ImpactAlpha.

Community-centered AI. “An innovative, human centric economic future augmented through equitable AI is possible, backed by data and fueled by belief made tangible through investment – if we want it,” Bulbul wrote on ImpactAlpha, “Charting AI’s course to an inclusive economic future.” In the second part of the series, “Re-humanizing AI with community voices to deliver economic mobility in America,” Gupta and Shenoy say the Radiant Data acquisition will help PCV put ethical and community-centered AI tools in the hands of small businesses and their workers. Since 2021, PCV has used Radiant’s AIKKA AI tool to collect voice-based feedback from workers, rather than conducting traditional surveys. Central to PCV’s new strategic plan, they write, is reimagining “how we use this technology to uplift our missions, not be at its mercy.”
Catalytic capital. The acquisition of Radiant is part of PCV’s five-year plan to utilize AI and other innovative technologies to improve its own impact underwriting. The CDFI, originally launched as Silicon Valley Community Ventures in 1998, has deployed over $65 million to California’s small businesses. By 2030, PCV is looking to deploy $100 million of “restorative capital” and create 100,000 quality, sustainable jobs. The nonprofit lender aims to better target underserved small business owners, including women and entrepreneurs of color, while driving economic dignity and green jobs. “The journey has always been how we can prove out what is possible as the most impact-first, equity-centric community investor,” says Gupta.
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Upaya Social Ventures backs ‘I was a Sari’ to create dignified jobs for women in India. I was a Sari is a recycled fashion brand managed by Indian textile manufacturer 2nd Innings Handicrafts. The Mumbai-based social enterprise trains and hires women to upcycle old saris, a traditional garment for women in South Asia, into apparel and handcrafted accessories. I was a Sari supports women from India’s low-income and rural communities, offering fair wages and employee benefits. “We believe that discarded materials and overlooked communities both deserve a second chance,” said 2nd Innings’ Stefano Funari. “We’ve spent a decade building dignified livelihoods for marginalized women, growing organically to prove that social business can be both impactful and resilient.”

Hand-worker economy. Upaya’s investment will support workforce development for I was a Sari’s artisans. Women make up more than 80% of India’s artisan workforce, and most struggle to attain fair wages and market and education access. “I was a Sari embodies the kind of innovation we strive to back, where impact and inclusion are central to the business model,” said Upaya’s Ankur Mehta. I was a Sari was a participant in Upaya’s Dignified Jobs Accelerator this year.
Gift this post. See all of ImpactAlpha’s coverage of Sustainable Fashion, in partnership with Cordes Foundation.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

Lithium-sulfur battery maker Lyten, which last month raised over $200 million of equity capital to finance acquisitions, is acquiring the assets of Northvolt in Sweden and Germany. Northvolt, once Europe’s best hope to compete with Chinese EV battery makers, filed for bankruptcy in March.

UK-based NetZeroNitrogen, which is making a bio-alternative to synthetic fertilizers, snagged $6.6 million from Azolla Ventures, World Fund, Zero Carbon Capital and other investors. (AgTechNavigator)
Sahel Capital, through its Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa, extended a $590,000 line of credit to Rasad Nigeria, which sources cocoa and cashews from smallholder farmers for local and international buyers. (Africa Private Equity News)

Impact Voices: Investing in Health

Scaling health innovation in emerging markets: What does it really take? AI for disease detection. Digitized supply chains. New models for last-mile care. The global market for digital health solutions is booming. In emerging markets though, “too many promising solutions stall between early traction and sustained impact,” explain Dalberg’s Bianca Samson and Bernardo Cantu in a guest post. The fix: Investors must become ecosystem builders, not just capital providers. At a symposium hosted by Investors for Health, experts identified three critical ingredients to scale digital health innovations in emerging markets: investment criteria tailored to each stage of growth; business models that deliver both impact and viability; and hands-on support for navigating complex, high-risk markets.

More than money. Samson and Cantu stress that capital alone won’t get innovations over the finish line. Strategic investors can help startups secure major buyers, navigate regulatory “grey zones,” and access blended finance to reduce risk. Such behind-the-scenes support, from executive hiring to procurement processes, “can be just as valuable as funding itself,” they say. The takeaway: scale happens when investors become conveners, connectors and champions.
Keep reading, “Scaling health innovation in emerging markets: What does it really take?,” by Bianca Samson and Bernardo Cantu. See all of ImpactAlpha’s coverage of Investing in Health, in partnership with Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:

Sept. 1-2: Latimpacto’s Impact Minds (Medellín). Follow this link, select non-partner, and enter code PARTNERSHIP_IMPACTALPHA for $330 off.
Sept. 18: VentureESG’s FRAME 2025 (London)
Oct. 3: Swiss Impact Investment Association’s Impact Summit (Lausanne)

ArcLight Capital Partners’ Angelo Acconcia is appointed president of the firm… Energy Impact Partners adds Skakel McCooey, previously with Bain & Company, as an associate… Indigenous Prosperity Foundation welcomes Robynn Sadler, former community development director of Ontario Native Women’s Association, as youth program manager… City First Enterprises seeks a finance director in Washington, DC.

Climate Policy Initiative has an opening for an agri-food systems manager in Cape Town… Mercy Corps is looking for a development finance advisor… Sitka Foundation is recruiting an investment analyst in Vancouver… The Milken Institute is on the hunt for a social innovation director for its Thriving US Communities initiatives… Convergence is hiring a manager for Europe, based in London… Also in London, Railpen is looking for a manager of sustainable ownership investment… Clean Yield Asset Management seeks a senior impact investment analyst.