‘Circular economy’ startup Truman’s raises $5 million from Germany’s Henkel.
The six-month old green cleaning product startup raised the seed funds in a round led by Henkel Ventures, the investment arm of the …
Tagged with: social-impact
Pin the tail on the billion-dollar impact investing funds
(Editor’s note: The half-dozen impact investment firms on the new ImpactAssets 50 list that manage more than $1 billion are (drumroll…) Kairos Investment …
Athena Capital opens SF office to boost impact practice
The Bay Area continues to attract impact investment activity. The latest data point is the opening of Athena Capital’s San Francisco office. The …
Overheard at The Economist’s New York impact investing event
Headliners at the magazine’s second annual gathering seemed to find their voice in rebutting stubborn assumptions. ‘Can investors revive the American Dream?’ and …
Big Society Capital unveils £30 million fund for community finance
The UK-social investment firm’s Community Investment Enterprise Facility will be used to capitalize lenders so they can make loans to individuals and businesses …
South Korea plans $276 million social impact fund
Several private initiatives from SK Group and Impact Finance Korea have launched in South Korea in the past year to kickstart more proactive …
Too much of a good thing in Kenya?
A new report on “The State of Social Impact Investing in Kenya” suggests that a growing number of impact investors, many of them …
Notley and Capital Factory partner on Austin social coworking space
Nonprofit impact investor Notley Ventures and Austin startup accelerator Capital Factory are launching a 10,000 square foot coworking space for social startups. The …
View from Seattle: Nine ways to create a bigger tent for impact investing in 2018
Impact Voices SOCAP365 hits the road to dig up local insights from long-time impact investors Michael Brown of Seattle Foundation and Lindsay Smalling …
Is the social impact bond market half-billion full or empty?
The more than 100 social impact bonds launched in the past eight years have mobilized more than $400 million in total and touched …
ImpactUs marketplace suspends operations
The online impact broker-dealer, which launched last year with backing from the Ford, Kellogg and MacArthur foundations and others, went offline just before …
Exits, with impact
A new report from the Global Impact Investing Network offers guidance for those who want to make sure their investments keep having an …
BlackRock makes impact a necessity for companies, India’s fintech rush, China pushes toward…
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: ImpactAlpha Voices Larry Fink flips social impact from a luxury to a necessity for every company. The chief executive …
Impact Investing: Year in Review. New entrants, increasing evidence, uncertain future
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! We’re taking a break next week, but will be back for another eventful year on Jan. 2. We wish you …
Measuring and managing impact performance for better business decisions
It is hard to miss the incredible growth and attention that impact investments have achieved in recent years. With a near constant stream …
Introducing 2030 Finance, Aspiration’s $47 million raise, five Breakthrough energy innovations
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #ImpactAlpha Focus: 2030 Finance Introducing 2030 Finance, where ImpactAlpha tracks the global shift of capital. Looking back from 2030, it may …
Three saving graces to help foundations dodge three deadly perils
At the SOCAP conference last month, Emmet Carson, president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the nation’s largest, described their impressive $500 million-plus …
“Setting new social defaults” at the 9th Sankalp Forum in Mumbai
While Aavishkaar is raising its Bharat Fund, its Intellecap advisory arm is helping build a deal pipeline. Next month, Aavishkaar-Intellecap will convene more …
Take more risks, and four other venture-philanthropy takeaways
Investors, grant-makers, banks and business schools, met in Oslo earlier this month to boost capital flows and ecosystem support for social ventures taking …
Social Finance Awards winners spotlight Canada’s impact leaders
Canada’s impact investing market is red hot, attracting more than CAD$9.2 billion ($7.2 billion) in 2015. Check out the winners of the Social …
What can impact due diligence tools do for you?
A vocal minority of impact investing practitioners have long espoused that impact measurement is a waste of time and resources because it distracts …
The Brief’s Big Ten: American entrepreneurship, institutional tipping point, real impact
Happy Friday, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: The Brief’s Big Ten 1. Steve Case is raising the rest…of a $100 million seed fund. Since 2014, the …
Doing impact deals Down Under
Australia this year has been aggressively building up its impact-investing infrastructure, an effort championed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Now a group of …
Techstars doubles down on impact with new accelerator
The global startup network has already supported companies like Texas-based Fig Loans, a lender for low-income borrowers, and ZipLine, which delivers blood by …
Families wrangle with impact investing
“We are on the verge of a Golden Age in impact investing,” said Josh Mailman, founder of Serious Change. Mailman, a longtime impact …
Nudges for good
“Nudges” are small changes designed to have a big impact on individual behavior. Richard H. Thaler, a behavioral economist won this year’s Nobel …
Tim O’Reilly asks WTF?, Shell’s electric-car charger, impact measurement brain trust, #MeToo
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: Returns on Investment Tweaking the ‘master algorithm’ for the future we want. Tim O’Reilly once again brings us news …
‘Impact-rated’ mutual fund, Tiedemann acquires Threshold, `impact investing’ turns 10, closing the…
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: ImpactAlpha Original First ever ‘impact rating’ issued for a publicly traded mutual fund. Just as third-party ratings have become …
Present at the Creation: Amit Bouri looking ahead as `impact investing’ turns 10
Among the big new things introduced in the year 2007 were the iPhone and Airbnb. Amit Bouri, CEO of the Global Impact Investing …
Takeaways from Wednesday at SOCAP
Hello ImpactAlpha readers and welcome to a SOCAP special edition. A few highlights from Wednesday at SOCAP: “SOCAP is the flea market of impact …
SOCAP signals, calling early-childhood innovators, SDGs as a ‘declaration of interdependence’
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Overheard at SOCAP “SOCAP is the flea market of impact investing” (#SOCAP17 joke making the rounds). “The Sustainable Development Goals are a …
Six impact storylines, Andela’s African coders, creative economy, climate job-loss
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: ImpactAlpha Roundup At SOCAP17, looking ahead to 2030. Today’s brief comes to you from the main hall at Ft. …
Six impact storylines ImpactAlpha is watching for the decade ahead
By Dennis Price and David Bank Impact is a big story. The greatest wealth- and value-creation opportunity of the millennium (to date), social and environmental …
Good Capital Project takes on impact investing’s `grand challenges’
By Sharadiya Dasgupta, Good Capital Project The Good Capital project has a simple goal: drive more capital towards more impact investments. To increase the …
The impact investment strategies that helped make these funds among the ‘Best for the World’
Private-equity firm CoreCo has an investment thesis you’re not likely to read about in The Wall Street Journal. The $54 million fund spots …
Find us at SOCAP, fintech and edtech raises, racial-equity growth market, big brands in 2030
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: SOCAP17 The social capital markets’ annual meeting. It’s not your grandfather’s business convention. Next week’s 10th annual SOCAP will …
Social-change economics, Rise Fund hits $2B, JP Morgan in DC, environmental impact investors…
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: Returns on Investment Real Impact: Morgan Simon on bringing communities into impact investing. The longtime leader in the field …
Big asset managers, Salesforce impact fund, financing education in India, open data privacy
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! #Featured: Impact Voices Nine out of 10 of the largest U.S. asset managers are now active in impact investing. The biggest …
Major asset managers moving slowly but surely toward impact investing
Co-authored with Kim Wright-Violich, Tideline Nine out of the top 10 largest U.S. asset managers are now active in impact investing, according to …
People on the move
Rich Mauro is director of capital markets at Wunder Capital, a solar fund manager in in Boulder, Co. Mauro previously was a VP …
How wealthy families can harness impact investing
Wealthy families have the assets, the nimble operations and a growing inclination to shift billions to impact. A U.S. Trust survey last year …
Startup Oasis seeds six Indian startups
The Jaipur-based incubator is backing the ventures with 17 million rupees ($260,000) through its “Invent” program. Recipients are committed to developing technologies and services …
‘Impact apologetics’ to the back
Those that say impact investing isn’t financially viable are running out of excuses, says Tim Freundlich of ImpactAssets. The nonprofit financial services firm, …
Big League: Transforming the capital markets with impact rigor and disclosure
I recently opened my ImpactAlpha daily brief and read, “Swiss Re to move $130 billion portfolio to track ESG indexes.” That was followed …
Meet Purpose Capital’s new CEO, Upkar Arora
Purpose Capital has recruited Upkar Arora as its new CEO. Toronto-based Purpose Capital works with U.S. and Canadian investors to develop impact investing strategies. …