ImpactAlpha’s deal news coverage for the week:
Agrifood investing. Grow Indigo, a Mumbai-based startup which trains farmers on regenerative agriculture practices and links them to carbon markets, raised $10 million from British International Investment… Unilever is selling The Vegetarian Butcher, a 15 year-old plant-based meat company from The Hague, to Dutch alt-protein company Vivera.
AI-powered. Aura snagged $140 million for AI-based online safety tools.
Eco-friendly products. Boulder, Colo.-based Sunday raised $25 million from S2G Investments to expand its eco-friendly lawn care products… European deep tech VC firm 360 Capital led a €5 million ($5.4 million) funding round for Resilco, an Italian company recycling industrial waste into new industrial materials… Lululemon entered a multiyear partnership with California-based biotechnology firm ZymoChem to introduce bio-based nylon in its athletic wear products.
Electric vehicles. Ecofy Finance secured a $12.5 million loan facility from Denmark’s Investment Fund for Developing Countries. The Mumbai-based green lender will use the line of credit to finance electric two- and three-wheelers and rooftop solar… Rivian-spinoff Also raked in $105 million from Eclipse for electric micro-mobility.
Energy transition. I&P made its first energy investment in Zimbabwe… Peregrine Energy Solutions, which develops utility-scale renewable energy and storage projects, raised $168 million in equity and short-term debt.
Fund news. Chicago-based VestedWorld secured $20 million toward a $35 million goal for its Rising Star fund for early stage African tech companies… Fidelity secured €330 million ($356 million) for its Logistics Impact Climate Solutions fund, or LOGICS, which acquires and decarbonizes logistics properties, such as warehouses, in Western Europe… Norfund made a $7.5 million allocation to Inside Capital Partners’ second private equity fund, which is backing small and mid-sized enterprises in Southern Africa… The UK’s Thena Capital, a women-led fund that invests in early stage medical tech companies, reached a £50 million ($65 million) first close for its first fund… WaterEquity is out with the Everspring Fund, an evergreen investment fund for water and sanitation projects and companies in emerging markets.
Green infrastructure. German solar provider Enpal, Team Global and Geschwister Oetker Beteiligungen invested €15 million ($16.2 million) in battery startup Theion, which uses upcycled sulfur to cut battery production costs and minimize environmental impact… North Carolina-based Terrestrial Energy, which makes small modular reactors that generate industrial heat and electricity to power data centers, has merged with a special purpose acquisition company.
Inclusive finance. Alithea and Goodwell sold their stakes in Baobab Nigeria… German development finance institution DEG re-upped its investment in Malta-based Mediterrania Capital’s fourth fund with €15 million ($16.2 million) to support medium-sized businesses in North and West Africa… Higala raised seed funding to reduce the cost of rural lending in the Philippines… Lafayette Square financed Pacific General’s majority stake in Lenwich Holdings… Mexican VC firms Nazca, with $300 million in assets under management, and Bridge, a $20 million manager, are merging to amplify support for the region’s early stage startups.
LP/GP. A half-dozen new impact debt strategies on the Liist… Goldman Sachs’ asset management group launched a bond fund in Europe to invest in biodiversity conservation and remediation… Meanwhile, Goldman’s alternatives group backed Michigan-based SkySpecs alongside Statkraft and Equinor Ventures to help the company expand monitoring and inspection of wind turbines… Stonepeak provided equity funding to Longview for US electric transmission infrastructure… Sustainable infrastructure investor Actis took a $600 million equity stake in MTerra Solar, a solar energy developer in the Philippines with a 20-year, 850-megawatt pipeline.
Sustainable forests. Japanese paper and pulp maker Oji Holdings and Sydney-based New Forests launched the Future Forest Innovations Fund, an open-ended fund seeded with $300 million to acquire and manage plantation forests in Southeast Asia, North America, Latin America and Africa.
