The Week in impact investing: Contradictions

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

• Roundup: Redwashing risk
• Podcast: Trump’s big chill on global development finance
• Agent of Impact: Azzi Agnelli 
• Spotlight: Better, cheaper cleantech

🗣️ Wash cycles. Remember when some corporations and asset managers were so eager to exaggerate their environmental or social impact that “greenwashing” threatened to tarnish even legitimate efforts? Fast forward to 2025, and the wash cycle is spinning in the other direction. There’s efficiency-washing, as when the mega-MAGA billionaire Elon Musk trashes too-modest efforts to improve education, healthcare and economic prospects around the globe in the name of budget savings (with crippling follow-on effects for impact co-investors across emerging markets, as ImpactAlpha’s Jessica Pothering reported). There’s meritocracy-washing, with VCs like Sam Lessin and Joe Lonsdale launching a tech talent recruitment platform called MeritFirst, without acknowledging the implicit and explicit bias that pervades their industry. And there’s fairness-washing, as when Donald Trump Jr. joins up with a VC fund to back “overlooked” entrepreneurs like… Tucker Carlson (while conservative activists like Edward Blum cry discrimination when funders like Founders First and Fearless Fund bet on women, veterans and founders of color). It’s MAGA-era virtue signaling or, perhaps, “redwashing.” 

More than greenwashing, ImpactAlpha always thought the bigger threat to markets was   riskwashing – when investors and politicians put ideological agendas over material risks to their portfolios and constituencies. President Donald Trump called for a US sovereign wealth fund to invest in TikTok, bitcoin and other national priorities (without mentioning investments in quality jobs, affordable housing or working families, as Ford Foundation’s Roy Swan had proposed). At the same time, the White House halted a (profitable!) Department of Energy loan program that was already investing in companies onshoring critical growth industries and rebuilding American resilience. And it’s certainly riskwashing to blame diversity, equity and inclusion for the LA wildfires, the DC plane crash and nearly everything else, while ignoring the real risks of climate, cutbacks and corruption.

Also in ImpactAlpha this week, contributor Ibrahim Rashid provided an allocator’s guide to spotting private equity excesses that hamper not only patient outcomes, but long-term returns. After many carbon-avoidance projects came under criticism for their efficacy, corporate buyers are nudging the voluntary carbon markets toward higher-quality projects, as Jessica reported. The nonprofit ReFED took on the risks of early-stage investments to accelerate food waste solutions with a catalytic grant fund, as Dario Parziale recounted in Toniic’s latest case study on the deployment of catalytic capital. Asset managers looking for impact are scooping up “GP stakes” in impact fund managers, reported David Bank and Snehal Shah. Redwashers should take heed of the fate of their greenwashing predecessors. As ImpactAlpha has long argued, saying one thing while doing another is not just bad marketing and bad policy – it’s bad investing. Real risks have a way of making themselves known. – Dennis Price

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with ImpactAlpha’s Jessica Pothering. Up this week: The Trump administration’s freeze on global development finance. How corporate buyers are driving higher-quality – and higher-priced – carbon credits in the voluntary carbon markets. And tips for asset owners and allocators in spotting risks in private equity healthcare investments.

• Tune in to this week’s episode and subscribe on Apple or Spotify to get This Week in Impact in your feed.
  
• Agents of Impact: Responsible AI in the Age of Trump. TechBetter’s Ravit Dotan, an AI governance advisor and researcher, joined David Bank to discuss how investors can navigate AI risk, opportunity and impact in the Trump era. Read the recap and listen in.

The Week’s Agent of Impact

Azzi Agnelli, TMV Lifecycles: Modeling an investment portfolio for mental health. When venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz led last month’s eight-figure Series A financing round for Slingshot AI, it hailed the AI startup as “the world’s first foundation model for psychology.” Investing alongside a16z was tiny TMV Lifecycles, a $25 million “proof of concept” fund launched last year by Azzi Agnelli, an heir to Italy’s Fiat fortune. The mental health fund, tucked within the venture capital firm TMV, has gotten traction and a foot in the door on competitive deals like Slingshot. “It’s been an active year,” Agnelli, the fund’s sole LP and one of its general partners, told ImpactAlpha over coffee. Agnelli intends for TMV Lifecycles to serve as a model for other young heirs looking to have more impact with their wealth.

Agnelli discovered her own power – and her passion for mental health investing – after struggling with mental health issues and an eating disorder. She lost her father, Giovanni Agnelli, who was slated to take the reins of the family auto empire, to a rare cancer in 1997 when she was just a few months old. At 18, Agnelli also inherited some of her grandfather’s wealth – a privileged situation that at the time felt like an overwhelming responsibility. In search of answers, she earned her master’s degree in psychology. With her stepfather, John Frieda, Agnelli set up a foundation to support cancer research, but chafed at the bureaucracy. She had little say over the bulk of her wealth, which she says was managed by a “very regimented, classic family office structure.”

It wasn’t until Agnelli met Soraya Darabi, a founder of New York-based TMV, that she began to see other possibilities. “It was the first conversation where I felt empowered by women and saw how I could leverage my power,” Agnelli said. The two set up the Lifecycles fund to bring together Agnelli’s capital and clinical knowledge with TMV’s investing chops. In its first year, Lifecycles has invested in a half-dozen startups, including Millie, a tech-enabled maternity clinic that offers other types of patient support; Banquet Health, a maker of food management software for hospitals to reduce food waste and encourage healthier options; and Daylight Health, which offers insurance-covered mental healthcare via primary care plans. Slingshot AI is building a generative AI model informed by psychotherapy to power digital solutions. “We’re not naive to the fact that technology has had an outsized influence on some of these [mental health] factors,” says Darabi. “But we do think technology has to be part of the solution.”

• Keep reading, “Modeling an investment portfolio for mental health,” by Amy Cortese on ImpactAlpha, and share the story on Instagram.

The Week’s Spotlight

Is better and cheaper enough to sustain cleantech? The stormy weather that engulfed San Francisco this week served as a metaphor for policies that in recent years have buoyed battery, solar and electric vehicle investments and a host of climate tech innovations. Aside from occasional references to “policy uncertainty,” the hundreds of clean tech professionals at this week’s Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit largely looked past the first-month actions of the second Trump administration, Clint Wilder reports for ImpactAlpha. Most speakers highlighted bullish market trends and a strong global outlook with the optimism that has always been a hallmark of the clean tech industry. Prominent among them was Galvanize Climate’s Tom Steyer, who once ran for president on a climate platform. “People around the world are choosing new, better, cheaper technologies. Is that going to change? No,” Steyer said. More than 90% of new electricity generation installed last year was renewables, he crowed. Solar and battery costs have dropped by 80% in the last decade. “Fossil fuels, adjusted for inflation, have not gone down in price in 100 years.” 

• Focus on EVs. Trump may kill EV incentives, but globally, electric vehicles show no signs of slowing. In China, the world’s largest auto market, sales of EVs have surpassed those of internal combustion engines, or ICEs, for the first time. EVs are cheaper than ICEs to build there, said Rachel Muncrief of the International Council on Clean Transportation. The same crossover could occur in the US by 2029, she added. Other EV stats: EVs last year accounted for 20% of new vehicle sales globally, 10% of sales in the US, and an eye-popping 43% in Silicon Valley, PG&E chief Patti Poppe shared.  

• Green China. China accounted for 81% of the world’s $112 billion in clean tech factory investments last year, BNEF’s Albert Cheung said in his kickoff presentation. Overall clean tech investments grew 11% to $2.1 trillion, but the market is diverging into a “two-speed transition,” he said. More than 93% of investments went to mature technologies such as renewables, EVs, storage and power grids, where “the technology works and the business models are scalable,” Cheung said. Just 7% went to emerging technologies such as industrial decarbonization, hydrogen and carbon capture, where investments declined collectively by 23% in 2024.
  
• Brewing battle. A battle is shaping up between California, which has led the nation in clean energy and air standards, and the Trump administration. One speaker who did take on Trump’s policymaking was California’s top energy official, David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission. “Never discount the state of California and what we’re able to achieve,” said Hochschild defiantly. “We are going to get to 100% clean energy in this state. I am absolutely confident of that. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The thing that the Trump administration is going to have to contend with is that the private sector sees this as well. The energy transition can be slowed, but it can’t be stopped.”
  
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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.

Ocean Impact Organization’s Nick Chiarelli joined 1000 Ocean Startups as a part-time steering committee member… Marie Nemcova stepped down as Media Development Investment Fund’s chief operating officer after nearly 30 years, to become a part-time senior advisor. Kristyna Machova, previously senior program officer, will become operations and programs manager. MDIF will retire the COO position. Bilal Randeree was promoted to chief program officer… Engine No. 1 appointed Lyndsey Merrill, previously a special assistant to President Joe Biden, as managing director and head of business development.

ImpactAssets welcomed Curtis Cohen as an investment operations associate, Kimberly Morris Hall as assistant counsel, Nilanjana Chowdhury as a grant operations associate, and Sophia Sunderji as impact measurement and management lead… Ember, a UK-based energy transition data and policy think-tank, recruited three RMI executives: Kingsmill Bondas an energy strategist and director, Daan Walter as a principal, and Sam Butler-Sloss as a manager… Worthmore named Franklin Mora, previously with Vital Healthcare Capital, as managing director. 

Ghana Venture Capital and Private Associate appointed Amma Gyampo, previously with Criterion Institute, as CEO. She succeeds Hannah Acquah… Engine No. 1 added Brian Boland, previously with BridgNight, as managing director and head of investments… Raven Indigenous Capital Partners welcomed Carissa Sanchez, previously a consultant with Boston Consulting Group, as an investment associate… Tensie Whelan announced that she will step down as director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business at the end of this year… Asha Rao, previously with LISC, joined Roc USA Capital as deputy director.

Cooperative Development Foundation named Julie Bosland, previously chief impact officer at Living Cities, as executive director… Greentown Labs appointed Georgina Campbell Flatter, formerly with climate tech nonprofit Tomorrow Now, as CEO… Stefany Gutu, formerly an ESG research associate at MSCI, joined JP Morgan as vice president of its Center for Carbon Transition… Jenny Everett of Everett Interests, EO+WD’s Mark Hand and Brenna Davis of Organically Grown Company are among the founders and board members of the Purpose Trust Ownership Network, a new organization supporting the growth of purpose trust ownership in the US. The network is hiring a program manager.

Ownify added Jonah Cave of Dry Land Capital to its advisory board… IMPACT Community Capital appointed Leah Mele-Bazaz, previously with Arden Group, as an investor relations and capital raising senior associate… Aligned Climate Capital welcomed Megan Neligan, previously with Irradiant Partners, as director of its Aligned Solar Partners team… Kamal Cheema joined Impact Capital Managers as a communications and policy analyst… Former DOE Loan Programs Office chief Jigar Shah will team up with his former Energy Gang, Katherine Hamilton and Stephen Lacey, on Open Circuit, a weekly podcast about “the next phase of the energy transition.” The first episode drops Feb 14.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– Feb. 7, 2025