The Week in impact investing: Buckle up

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

• Roundup: Regrouping
• Podcast: Responding to Trump
• Call: Brazil’s impact growth market
• Spotlight: EVs and climate tech in India

🗣 Making sense. “The enormity of the problem is a bit overwhelming,” Caroline Bressan of Open Road Alliance told ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese in one of the week’s understatements. Bressan was scrambling to raise emergency funds to bridge social enterprises over this week’s on-again, off-again federal funding freeze ordered by the Trump administration. Overwhelmed was the way many Agents of Impact described themselves as projects halted, funding evaporated, jobs were lost and progress reversed. The regrouping has just begun. If foreign aid and climate action is out, blended finance must step in, offered Convergence’s Nnamdi Igbokwe. Cutting climate funding won’t cut climate risks, which are coming home in the $4 trillion municipal bond market, as Climate Proof’s Louie Woodall explained in his latest report on the implications of the fires in Los Angeles. In healthcare private equity investing, the profits-over-patients approach creates headline risks, and hardships, that a focus on patient outcomes and value-creation can help overcome, wrote ImpactAlpha’s Snehal Shah.

Amid the frenzy around Chinese AI company DeepSeek, Accessity’s Mar Diteos Rendon and Nicole Jansma and Radiant Data’s Sachi Shenoy detailed how they put AI to work to improve mission-based lending. Dolma Fund Management’s Tim Gocher, who focuses on impact investing in Nepal, suggested ways investors can drive AI standards to lift developing economies from algorithm takers to makers. And Brazil is offering sustainable and inclusive entrepreneurs and investors fast-track visa and residency permits, as we learned on this week’s Call (see below). But maybe don’t book your flight to Rio just yet. We have some work to do here in the US. – David Bank

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Responding to President Trump’s federal funding freeze; sound bites from Brazil from this week’s Agents of Impact Call; and how machine learning and AI can be harnessed for mission-based lending.

• Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple or Spotify.

The Week’s Call

Huge opportunities and trickle of capital make Brazil an impact growth market (video). As global governments backtrack on climate and sustainable development commitments, Brazil sees an edge in the global competition for talent. Coming soon: a fast track visa and residency permit for entrepreneurs and investors who want to live in Brazil, work in its green ecosystem, or invest in its sustainable growth opportunities. “I think this sends a very clear message to the world,” said Gisele Vianna from Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Commerce. On ImpactAlpha’s Call No. 68, players in Brazil’s impact ecosystem explored the opportunities, and challenges, as Brazil finds itself in the global limelight. 

• Seizing impact alpha. A mismatch of demand for, and supply of, impact capital in a country roughly the size of the US has created one of the planet’s largest growth markets for impact investing. Add to that an inclusive policy agenda and the catalytic possibilities of COP30 climate gathering in Belém in November. “We have huge opportunities here in Brazil for impact,” Fama Re.Capital’s Fabio Alperowitch, who manages a portfolio of climate, agriculture and gender-based impact investment strategies. “But very few people are investing.” With differentiated impact strategies, he says, “We can provide greater returns.”

• Inclusive growth. With the presidency of the G20 last year, Brazil put a stake in the ground on social inclusion, nature-based economies, and financial institution reform as catalysts for economic growth. This year Brazil is expected to elevate the climate voices of the Global South and Indigenous land stewards (for context, see “Brazil’s impact and climate investment ecosystem gets ready for COP30.” “Having a Global South country in the lead [COP] is an opportunity to raise and highlight topics that are often ignored and neglected,” said Ricardo Ramos of Aliança pelo Impacto, Brazil’s national advisory board for impact investing, which co-hosted The Call.
  
• Impact ecosystem. Brazil’s share of global impact investing is about 1% globally. That’s starting to change. Brazil’s national Enimpacto policy agenda has rallied a vibrant and growing impact investing ecosystem. More than 30 Brazilian financial institutions and organizations offer impact investing opportunities. Fernanda de Arruda Camargo of Wright Capital Wealth Management, a São Paulo-based multi-family office wealth manager, said she is seeing more families allocate money to impact investing, and in increasing amounts. 

• Inclusive investing. Adriana Barbosa, founder of PretaHub, an incubator for Black Brazilian entrepreneurs, wants to make sure that the money invested reaches those who need it most. Barbosa has championed policy changes in São Paulo to increase access to financing for the region’s Black entrepreneurs who, given the country’s legacy of slavery, face systemic issues in accessing credit. Brazil’s Black entrepreneurs often receive support from accelerators and incubators like PretaHub, says Barbosa. “But they don’t often receive the seed and growth capital that they need to achieve their goals.”
  
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The Week’s Deal Spotlight

Investors in India chase EV opportunities to expand the range of vehicles. India’s already-toxic air becomes particularly dangerous in the northern cities during winter. Across most of Delhi, yesterday’s air quality index ranged from “severe” to “hazardous.” “We are at a crisis level,” said Nipun Sahni of private equity giant Apollo Global Management at a climate finance forum last month. “It’s time to be very, very impatient.” Putting capital to work in the mobility transition is one of the most immediate ways private investors can address India’s air quality crisis, ImpactAlpha contributor Shefali Anand reports from Delhi. Some 70% of private climate finance invested between April and September last year went to companies making EVs and enabling EV adoption. Investors are encouraged by strong government policy incentives that are boosting demand: sales in all EV segments in India grew last year, with sales in the biggest segment, electric two-wheelers, growing by a third. Electric bus sales increased by nearly 40%.

• Deal surge. Investors kicked off the year with a host of EV investments aimed at expanding the range and reach of vehicles. Mumbai-based VoltUp, an EV battery swap-station operator for small EVs, raised $8 million in a seed round led by UK-based EM Impact Capital, while Indian bicycle maker AlphaVector announced plans to invest a billion rupees ($11.5 million) in making electric bikes and low-speed scooters. This month’s dealmaking also included early-stage funding for electric tractor maker Moonrider and electric motorbike maker Oben Electric. One of India’s biggest auto makers, Mahindra and Mahindra, secured 6.5 billion rupees ($75 million) from a consortium of international investors led by British International Investment for its production of electric cars. The funding was the final tranche in a partnership initiated in 2022 to get more private capital into India’s EV market.
  
• Beyond EVs. Other critical climate segments in India are slower to attract funding, but pockets of activity are appearing in agriculture, renewable energy, and green consumer and business finance. A smattering of drone companies supporting greener farming and rural livelihoods have attracted investor attention. Unsustainable farming practices like land burning and clearing are a major contributor to northern India’s winter air-quality crisis. Avaana Capital last year closed its first climate tech fund to invest in companies like Eekifoods, which is building a network of high-tech greenhouse farms. Impact investors Omnivore and Ankur Capital, both active in the agtech sector, have been raising funds with a climate lens.
  
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The Week’s Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share more than a dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.

Energy Impact Partners welcomed Taylor Rowe, previously with The Clean Fight, as vice president… Impact Community Capital named Michael Lohmeier as president (see, “Putting an ownership lens on the preservation of affordable housing“)… London-based VentureESG and ESG_VC have merged… Ownership Works welcomed Riikka Davidkin, previously at Social Finance, as a principal on its client advisory services team. 

Henry Philipson, co-founder of ESG_VC, will join the council of VentureESG. VentureESG’s Johannes Lenhard, an ImpactaAlpha contributor, will lead the combined organization as CEO… Impact Cubed (soon to be iCubed) welcomed Antonia Lim, previously with Schroders, as chief investment officer… WaterEquity appointed Aleem Remtula as its head of private equity and infrastructure. 

Ninety One tapped Marilyn Rowland, previously with Fiducient Advisors, as director of consultant relations… Christie Cade, previously with NeighborWorks America, joined Community Enterprise Partners as southern market vice president… Economic Architecture and Brookings Institution selected Doug Ryan of Grounded Solutions Network, Homium’s Marcus Martin and other housing and real estate innovators for the Valuing Homes in Black Communities Challenge.

Aboriginal Investment NT appointed Nigel Browne, previously with Larrakia Development Corp., as CEO… Impact Capital Managers promoted Andrew Garrett to member experience manager… Opportunity Finance Network tapped Aisha Benson, president and CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund, as board chair, and Henry Jiménez, president and CEO of Propel Nonprofits, as board vice-chair.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– Jan. 31, 2025