ImpactAlpha’s deal news coverage for the week:
Agrifood investing. Blue Earth Capital, AHL Venture Partners and family office Ceniarth extended a $25 million sustainability-linked loan to Robust International to source and process cashews and sesame seeds in West Africa for export… Eratani nabbed $6.2 million to provide digital services and financing to Indonesia’s small rice farmers.
Creative exits. Yale University plans to sell $6 billion in private equity holdings, or about 15% of its $41 billion endowment fund, on the secondary market (see, “Restive LPs look to secondaries and creative exits to recoup capital”). The move comes as the Trump administration threatens to cut funding and tax exemptions for Ivy League universities, and amid a broader embrace of secondary sales by limited partners looking for liquidity.
Energy transition. Apollo Global committed up to $220 million for community solar… Austin-based Hexium raised $9.5 million in seed funding and $2.5 million in credit to supply isotopes to nuclear fusion and fission producers… Exowatt, a solar and storage developer for data centers, raised $70 million in a mixed debt and equity round led by Felicis on the equity side and HSBC Innovation Banking on the debt side… OnePlanet snagged $7 million for first-of-a-kind solar recycling plant in Florida.
Fund news. Attracting LPs to India’s climate tech opportunities… Buenos Aires-based Alina VC launched its first fund with a goal of raising $10 million to invest in startups addressing the future of work in Latin America… San Diego-based Symphonic Capital clinched $13.5 million for a debut fund that will back pre-seed ventures in health, financial services and climate. Investors included Bank of America, Illumen Capital, Uplifting Capital, Candide Group and Known Financial (see, “How Symphonic Capital is setting up pre-seed founders for success”)… TDK Ventures rolled out $150 million decarbonization and digital transformation fund.
Green infrastructure. Aavishkaar Capital’s Global Supply Chain Support Fund made a $5 million investment in Poshs Metal to help the steel processing company improve its environmental, social and governance practices while building a new plant… California-based Mainspring Energy, which designs and manufactures power generation solutions, raised $258 million in a Series F round from General Catalyst, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, DCVC, Temasek and other previous investors… Spanish clean energy and infrastructure investor Plenium Partners secured €25 million ($28.6 million) from financial services provider ING Italia in a bilateral project finance agreement to help set up the first of four biomethane plants in Italy.
Inclusive finance. Indian financial services firm Varthana secured a loan of 750 million rupees ($8.7 million) from small business lender Oxyzo to on-lend to low-cost private schools.
Institutional impact. Keppel, a Singapore-based asset manager, secured $2 billion from pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and other investors across three of its funds, including one focused on sustainable urban development… New York state pension fund directed $2.4 billion to three new climate investments.
Investing in health. J&J Impact Ventures backed Mobio Interactive to expand low-cost mental healthcare.
Low-carbon transition. Swiss startup novoMOF raised 4.4 million francs ($5.4 million) from GTT Strategic Ventures, Shift4Good and Regenerative Limited to develop highly porous materials to capture carbon from industrial processes.
Responsible tech. Respondology, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup that uses AI to cleanse online conversations of toxic comments, raised $5 million from Iron Gate Capital and SJF Ventures in a Series A extension round.
Soil health. Corteva backed Puna Bio to expand bio-based soil health products… India’s EF Polymer, which produces biodegradable polymers from fruit peels to improve soil health, raised $6.6 million in a Series B round to set up a manufacturing facility and accelerate research and development.
