How will more investors increase their allocations of capital to Latin American impact funds and ventures scale up? One by one.
“We think it’s an incredible opportunity that’s been often overlooked by much of the global impact investment ecosystem,” Sonen Capital Raúl Pomares says in a video interview with ImpactAlpha. Sonen is exposing asset owners to impact opportunities in Latin America with a portfolio of nearly a dozen investments.
“More managers are moving into the impact space, which is important for us because we are allocators of capital in the impact themes,” Pomares’ colleague Sandra Sainz explains in her own video interview about making direct and indirect impact investments in Latin America. “We do need more capital in the early stage of the evolution of the companies.”
The interviews are part of ImpactAlpha’s series from this year’s FLII in Merída, Mexico. Take a spin:
Carolina Puerta of the FLII on “Uniting Latin America’s social innovators” (video interview). “Latin America is hip right now,” Puerta says. “Latin America is the present and the future.”
Rogelio de los Santos of Dalus Capital on “Catalyzing capital for climate tech in Latin America” (video interview). Green solutions to bringing hot water to Mexican households represent a huge opportunity in a country where only half the population can afford a gas heater. “We wanted to create a solution from the ground up based on the circumstances that we live with in emerging markets that could be scaled to the masses,” he explains.
Elena Amato of Community Investment Management on “Financing inclusive fintech in Latin America” (video interview). The institutional asset manager provides credit facilities to financial technology companies that serve the “completely unbanked or poorly banked,” Amato says. “There are a lot of investees that are having trouble in the region about raising debt and not having any access to credit,” she says. “These are the types of businesses we are trying to support.”
Paulina Macías Romero of Chevez Ruiz Zamarripa on “Bringing legal guidance to Mexico’s social enterprises” (video interview). The law firm helps social entrepreneurs navigate grants, investments and tax issues. The challenge: “How do we help them grow that impact by doing it correctly or in a more sustainable way?” she says.
Najada Kumbuli of Visa Foundation on “Backing women-led fund managers in Latin America” (video interview). “We’re looking for opportunities, from an innovation perspective, from an impact perspective,” Kumbuli says. “There’s a lot here.”
