The Brief

The Brief: Systems built to extract can be redesigned to repair

ImpactAlpha · May 28, 2025

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • The high price of American poverty
  • Pension fund backs emerging manager closing wealth and skills gap
  • Sustainable animal feed from insects
  • Local and emerging fund managers take the spotlight at CLIIQ

Feature: Re:Construction

Bad policy + Big Business = Burdened poor: The high price of American poverty. From prison beds to payday loans, being poor in America isn’t just hard. It’s profitable – for someone else. “For millions of Americans, the cost of belonging to the economy isn’t measured in opportunity. It’s measured in fees, evictions, interest rates and burnout,” contributing editor Napoleon Wallace writes in his latest Re:Construction column on ImpactAlpha. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is the latest example of American capitalism’s policy-enabled reliance on poverty as a profit center, he says. “It shifts the cost of that extraction onto America’s most vulnerable.” At the bill’s core are the kind of policy choices that have gutted public safety nets while subsidizing corporate bottom lines. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the hurdle of work and citizenship requirements could strip Medicaid coverage from 8.7 million people and lead to 7.6 million more uninsured people over 10 years. Wallace is a co-founder of the fiscal justice nonprofit Activest, which seeks to align municipal finance with racial and economic justice. The thesis: “Governments that criminalize poverty and underinvest in communities based on race are fiscally unsound,” Wallace says. “Systems built to extract can be redesigned to repair.”

  • Muni impact. Activest launched after the police killing of Michael Brown to put a spotlight on Ferguson, Mo., and its budgetary dependence on fines and fees extracted from Black residents. “This wasn’t just racial profiling,” Wallace writes. “It was fiscal occupation.” Now, through its affiliate, Next World Assets, Activest is helping investors like Kataly Foundation redirect fixed-income and municipal bond allocations toward issuers investing in housing, education and public health (see, “Kataly Foundation charts an equitable bond strategy”). Financial activists are likewise leveraging data and investor pressure to dismantle the prison-industrial complex. FreeCap Financial tracks corporate exposure to the prison economy, enabling investors to divest from systems of incarceration (see, “Decarceration-lens investing gains momentum in public and private markets”). “It’s abolition via analytics,” Wallace explains – disrupting injustice through exposure of material risks.
  • Playbook for shared prosperity. ImpactAlpha is assembling a playbook for shared prosperity – a roster of what works in making less wealthy people more wealthy. Mississippi-based Hope Credit Union offers an alternative to the predatory financial options, like payday loans, that dominate low-income, Black and Latino communities. Hope provides affordable credit and financial services designed to build, rather than strip, wealth (see, “Bill Bynum, Hope Credit Union: Transformational deposits”). Oakland-based Greenlining Institute and its partners are pushing back on pollutant profiteering and ensuring that climate investment does not replicate redlining, but reverses it. Wallace calls this work “not just a social good, but a market correction to exploitative finance.” New contributions in ImpactAlpha’s growing playbook include fishing cooperatives, community investment funds, and home ownership strategies that turn risk into opportunity. Scan the latest playbook entries and contribute your own.
  • Equity and ownership. Wallace is the subject of ImpactAlpha’s award-winning documentary, “Napoleon Wallace and the Reconstruction of Black wealth,” which charts his quest to build a network of organizations in North Carolina to foster Black wealth-building and multi-racial prosperity, while living with the challenges of advanced ALS. The 20-minute video won “best documentary” at last month’s Boston International Film Festival and is an official selection at the Indianapolis Black Documentary Film Festival, happening Aug. 15-17. The film is available for screening in your organization or community. Watch it here.
  • Keep reading, “Bad policy + big business = burdened poor: The high price of American poverty,” by Napoleon Wallace on ImpactAlpha. Add to the playbook, watch the mini-documentary and catch up on all of Wallace’s Re:Construction columns.

Sponsored by Tideline

State of the impact investment market. Tideline’s fifth annual “State of the impact investment market” Compass Series on Tuesday, June 10, will feature leaders at the forefront of sustainable and impact investing. The conversation will take stock of how the evolving landscape is shaping opportunities and challenges. How are mission-driven investors responding to today’s market? Among the topics: How are institutional allocators’ preferences and requirements shifting? Is interest diverging by region, investor type or sector, and theme? How can capital be directed to underserved but promising opportunities? What is the role of the climate transition in an impact portfolio? Join the webinar, Tuesday, June 10 at 8am PT / 11am ET. RSVP now.

Dealflow: Emerging Managers

Delta Air Lines Pension Fund leads LPs in Zeal Capital’s $82 million second fund. Zeal Capital Partners, launched five years ago by Nasir Qadree to invest in narrowing the health, wealth and skills gaps, is thriving despite a difficult fundraising environment. The Washington, DC-based venture capital firm secured its first major pension allocation from Delta Air Lines Pension Fund, the airline’s $16 billion private pension. The commitment “is a powerful signal for an early firm,” Qadree told ImpactAlpha. “It’s a testament to how much we’ve evolved.” Delta leads a group of new limited partners in Zeal, including Spelman College, MassMutual, Wells Fargo, M&T Bank, Citibank and Zaffre Investments. The fund also secured new commitments from LPs in Zeal’s $54 million first fund, including Capricorn Investments and Hampton University, Qadree’s alma mater (see, “Nasir Qadree: Democratizing entrepreneurship“). 

  • Mission-driven portfolio. From the new fund, Zeal will write checks up to $2.3 million in two-dozen or so companies over four years and reserve half the capital for follow-on investments. Qadree’s goal: “Become the most active early stage, mission-driven venture capital firm that’s laser focused on narrowing the wealth and skills gap” in financial technology, the future of learning and work, and healthcare. The fund has backed five companies, including Seven Starling, a New York-based maternal mental health care provider, and Debbie, a Miami-based financial wellness app. 
  • Bridging wealth and skills gaps. The second fund triples Zeal’s total assets under management to $186 million. The firm manages Barclays’ Black Formation Investments, a $50 million pre-seed fund on the bank’s balance sheet that invests in Black founders narrowing wealth and skills gaps. The entrepreneurs represent a pipeline for investments from Zeal, which has invested in more than 40 companies. Zeal’s first fund has not yet made an exit. Zeal was an early backer of New York-based Esusu, which helps people leverage rent payments to improve their credit scores and became one of the first Black-led unicorns.
  • Gift this post.

Finland’s Volare raises €26 million for insect-based protein and fertilizers. Finnish startup Volare, a maker of insect-based animal feed, oil and fertilizers, raised €26 million ($28.6 million) in a mix of equity, mezzanine and senior loans, and public funding. The raise suggests investors are willing to look beyond the bankruptcy filing in February of Ÿnsect, the French insect-based protein producer, to invest in the insect farming sector. Volare’s investors include Maki.vc, Firstminute Capital, Springvest, Norion Bank and others. The state-owned Finnish Climate Fund also participated. Volare cultivates black soldier flies, which it calls “nature’s most efficient bioreactor,” to convert food waste into protein ingredients used in fishmeal, pet food and poultry feed. 

  • Protein sufficiency. Volare’s Jarna Hyvönen said the company’s process generates lower emissions than conventional feeds, many of which are made from farmed fish. Volare is building a plant capable of producing the protein-equivalent of 200 million Baltic herring annually, or more than a fifth of Finland’s annual commercial fish catch. Volare has inked an offtake agreement with Norway’s Skretting, which produces over three million tons of aquafeed annually. The startup last year partnered with three Finnish fish farms, which will use its sustainable protein to raise around 150 tons of rainbow trout. 

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • SparkCharge, a Somerville, Mass.-based EV charging service provider, raised $15.5 million from Monte’s Farm, Collab Capital, Elemental Impact, Cleveland Avenue and others. Horizon Technology Finance Corporation provided a $15 million venture loan facility. (SparkChange)
  • Italy’s Snam, which provides infrastructure for natural gas transportation, raised $2 billion via a sustainability-linked bond issuance to cut emissions and invest in blue hydrogen, carbon capture and biomethane projects. (ESG Today)
  • Novastar Ventures’ third Africa People and Planet fund secured a $10 million commitment from Swedfund to invest in climate solutions that serve low-income populations in East and West Africa. (Swedfund)
  • Gridcare, a startup that reduces power waste from the grid, clinched $13.5 million, led by Temasek’s deep tech venture firm, Xora. (TechCrunch)

Signals: Impact in the Andes

At CLIIQ, adapting the tools of finance for deeper, localized impact in Latin America. When the first Latin American Impact Investment Summit took place in 2018, the region’s impact investing ecosystem was dominated by the major markets of Mexico and Brazil and established fund managers in the US and Europe. Now, local fund managers are designing new investment theses based on their knowledge of smaller ecosystems. “It’s about developing the next generation of fund managers,” says Justin Schwartz of Impaqto Capital, the Quito-based fund manager that organizes the convening, known as CLIIQ. “Investors are realizing that their impact could be deeper with more proximate fund managers because of the types of companies and opportunities those fund managers can access.” 

  • Innovative impact finance. Local managers such as Corina Marion from Bolivia-based Babasú Ventures, Carmen de la Cerda of Ecuador-based BuenTrip Ventures, and Abigail Napsuciale of Costa Rica-based Atta Impact Capital, will be front and center at next week’s convening in Quito (ImpactAlpha is a media partner). “There’s a realization that the tools of market-rate finance are often not the right ones,” says Schwartz. “The tools of finance need to be expanded and adapted to the realities of local markets.” With the COP30 climate summit in Brazil later this year, financing the preservation and restoration of the Amazon rainforest will be a major topic. Schwartz spoke with ImpactAlpha to sketch out Latin America’s evolving impact landscape. “There’s definitely appetite from investors for new models.”
  • LP look. Schwartz can speak to that appetite first hand. Impaqto in January closed its first fund for high-impact businesses in smaller Andean markets – Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia – as well as Colombia. About 40% of the $2.1 million came from regional investors. “The majority of capital still comes from the outside, but we’re seeing progress in terms of local corporates and foundations investing in funds here,” says Schwartz. A notable player this year is the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which fronted $1 billion to IDB Invest to create the JICA Trust Fund Achieving Development of Latin America and the Caribbean, or TADAC (watch ImpactAlpha’s interview with JICA’s Michiko Kogure). ImpactAlpha is keeping tabs on nearly two dozen investors – from institutional LPs to small foundations – that have been active this year in just as many impact investment strategies in Latin America. Go deeper. 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Raise Up’s Liezl Van Riper, ePesos’ Oscar Robles, and Rilwan Meeran of American Student Assistance join the board of Village Capital…. Nafisa Bhikhoo, previously with Dalberg, joins 2X Global as programme lead… Doménica Good, Nalee Yang, Walther Morales Rios and William Tsoules join the Boston Impact Initiative… Health Forward Foundation has an opening for a chief financial officer… Bridges Outcomes Partnerships seeks a social investment associate in London. 

CrossBoundary is looking for an investment advisor in Johannesburg… Align Impact seeks an advisor and client services associate in New York…. Palladium is hiring an investment coordinator for The Nature Catalyst in Cambodia… Aqua for All is looking for an impact and knowledge officer in The Hague…. Pensions with Purpose is hiring a non-executive director in Hampshire, UK… ImpactAssets Capital Partners is hiring a senior associate of portfolio management and monitoring… Propeller Ventures opened applications for its “Ocean MBA.”

Mission Investors Exchange is hosting “Investing in ownership to address the wealth gap” on Wednesday, June 11 with WES’ Smitha Das, Gary Community’s Santosh Ramdoss, and MIE’s James Wahls and Katheryn Witt… The State of New York seeks proposals from financial organizations to provide environmental, social and governance-based global equity management services for the New York State Deferred Compensation Plan.

👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

Thank you for your impact!

– May 28, 2025