ImpactAlpha, September 20 – The Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations four years ago partnered on a $30 million Zero Gap Fund to catalyze more private capital for the Sustainable Development Goals. The fund’s final commitment helped Boulder, Colo.-based Trailhead Capital closed a $50 million fund to invest in tech companies supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture.
Zero Gap invested alongside the Argosy Foundation, Cisco Foundation and impact funds of funds Wire Group and WovenEarth Ventures.
Model portfolio
Among its dozen investments, Zero Gap anchored Apis & Heritage’s first employee-ownership and job preservation fund. The fund helped blend finance to protect investors in LeapFrog Investments’ third emerging consumers fund, which scored $500 million from Singapore’s Temasek. It provided first-loss capital for IIX’s second women’s livelihood bond.
It also invested this year in Blue Forest Conservations first forest-resilience bond, which provides loans to forest and biodiversity restoration projects.
Climate strategy
As part of Rockefeller Foundation’s $1 billion climate strategy, the foundation will direct 75% of its giving to fighting climate change, including renewable energy in emerging markets and sustainable food systems.
“We have a food system that accounts for more than 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, yet we have billions of people sliding into hunger,” Rockefeller Foundation’s Liz Yee told ImpactAlpha. “We’ve got to create incentive structures for markets and government policy to be built so that capital crowds in.”
