ImpactAlpha’s deal news coverage for the week:
Agrifood investing. Chobani will acquire plant-based food delivery service Daily Harvest for an undisclosed amount. Daily Harvest, based in New York, is backed by Lightspeed, Collaborative Fund, Lone Pine Capital and Serena Williams and Gweneth Paltrow… Doral Renewables locked in $1.5 billion for agri-solar farms in Indiana.
Climate finance. Brookfield Asset Management, Blackstone and JPMorgan Chase are financing a nearly $1 billion debt package to facilitate Apollo’s $2 billion acquisition of PowerGrid Services, a provider of grid support services for electric utilities… Reflect Orbital raised $20 million for space-based sunlight as a service… Rhizome, a climate risk modelling platform for American utilities landed $6.5 million in a seed round led by Base10 Partners… Somerville, Mass.-based SparkCharge raised $30 million to provide its mobile charging service for electric vehicle fleet operators… TPG Rise Climate’s foray into climate resilience and adaptation.
ESG. Canadian VC firm Inovia Capital led a $27 million Series C round for Novisto, a software platform that helps companies like Meta and Emirates Group collect, manage and track their ESG data.
Impact funds. London-based Local Pensions Partnership Investments will allocate £500 million ($668 million) from its newly launched LPPI Environmental Opportunities Fund for agriculture, forestry and other natural capital investments… New York University’s student-led impact investment fund made its sixth investment, in Rolli, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that connects journalists with credible sources… The Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund, or EAAIF, secured $325 in debt from Allianz Global Investors, ABSA, Standard Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Swedfund to derisk infrastructure projects in Africa and Asia.
Inclusive lending. Brazilian lender Makasi landed $21 million to accelerate affordable housing construction… European Investment Bank guaranteed €200 million for green lending to small businesses… MaxAB-Wasoko acquired Fatura to serve informal retailers in Egypt.
Investing in health. Impact Ventures PSM Seed backed early cervical cancer detection in Mexico… Indian rural telehealth startup CureBay raised $21 million from Bertelsmann India Investments, Elevar Equity and British International Investment (see, “Can tele-health finally bring quality care to India’s rural patients?”).
Low-carbon transition. Brazil’s Re.green which restores degraded land through reforestation, raised 80 million reais ($14.1 million) from the Brazilian development bank, BNDES. The funding will support Re.green projects generating carbon removal credits for Microsoft.
Return on inclusion. Boston-based Mendoza Impact made a $250,000 investment in Prosperos, a Latino-focused neobank that offers remittance transfers, credit cards and other financial services with no fees… Liberty Mutual partnered with Enable Ventures for co-investments in disability tech solutions.
Smallholder farmers. Sahel Capital, through its Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa, provided a $560,000 working capital loan to Mariseth to create fair market access for smallholder farmers in Ghana… Senegalese poultry producer L’Africaine de Production Animale, received 3.2 billion West African francs ($5.4 million) in debt from the International Finance Corp. to widen its network of smallholder farmers… The Miller Center for Global Impact’s Capital Innovation Fund provided a loan to Flamingoo Foods, a Tanzania-based rice processor and distributor that works with smallholder farmers.
Waste management. Metafoodx snagged $9.4 million from Trustbridge Partners, BlueRun Ventures and ScalableVision Capital to reduce food waste in commercial kitchens with its 3D AI scanner.
