ImpactAlpha LP/GP: Apollo, Brookfield and Energy Capital Partners scoop up $2.7 billion in ‘green bank’ funds

Greetings, Agents of Impact! 

Welcome to this week’s ImpactAlpha LP/GP, where we take you inside the real business of impact investing and the dynamic relationships between owners, managers and intermediaries of impact capital.

In this week’s newsletter:

• Scoop: Coalition for Green Capital gets $2.7 billion out the door to private equity giants
• British Business Bank commits to diverse and emerging managers
• TPG Next makes the case for ‘GP stakes’ in emerging managers

Featured: Deploy!

Coalition for Green Capital places $2.7 billion in ‘green bank’ funds with Apollo, Brookfield and Energy Capital Partners. Remember the $20 billion in Biden-era “green bank” financing that’s been frozen at Citibank? Mark that down to $17 billion. It turns out the Coalition for Green Capital successfully disbursed nearly $2.65 billion in four “strategic, dedicated financial partnership vehicles” before the Trump administration could halt the transfers. ImpactAlpha has learned that those funds are now sitting with some of the world’s largest private equity firms, including Brookfield Asset Management, Apollo Global Management and Energy Capital Partners. The private equity partnerships are intended to expand lending for distributed energy and storage, particularly in low-income communities, in line with the goals of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, part of the Inflation Reduction Act. With most of the rest of the GGRF funding mired in litigation and cancelled by Congress, the Brookfield, Apollo and Energy Capital Partners vehicles may be the biggest surviving elements of what was supposed to be a distributed, nationwide green lending network. “It’s about being ready,” Richard Kauffman, the head of the coalition, tells ImpactAlpha in an interview. “We were ready to invest.”

• Ongoing litigation. That a big chunk of capital made it to three private equity giants – while funding is frozen for most of the community-based lenders that were awarded grants – is just the latest twist in the story of the nation’s “green bank” (see “Green lenders are all dressed up and ready to roll”). Awardees of the $20 billion program, including the Coalition for Green Capital, have sued the Environmental Protection Agency to unfreeze their awards; an appeals court is considering the arguments. The CGC discussed the financial partnerships generally in its February report to the EPA, but did not disclose the specific financial firms involved. The EPA did not respond to requests for comment. The Department of Justice appears to acknowledge that just $17 billion remains in the Citibank accounts. Apollo, Brookfield and Energy Capital Partners all declined to comment.
  
• Strategic partnerships. For the CGC’s three financial partners, which together manage nearly $2 trillion in assets, the community-focused GGRF vehicles may depart from their traditional strategies. The accounts are separate from the asset managers’ other funds, although the strategies may over time attract additional investors. CGC said it has a pipeline of more than 20 transactions that add up to over $3 billion for distributed infrastructure, including battery storage, community solar, building efficiency, microgrids and zero-emission transportation. Some of those sectors will be affected by the phase-out of clean energy tax credits. Other projects involve biochar, a newly hot method of carbon removal, and geothermal energy. “The idea of having some financial partners was always part of our thinking,” Kauffman tells ImpactAlpha. “$5 billion is a lot of money. It’s not that much money against the scale of the problem we’re trying to tackle. So everything we’re trying to do is transformational.” CGC expects the first projects from its financial partners to be announced in the next few months.
  
• Moving money. The Coalition for Green Capital, a network of state and local green banks, was awarded $5 billion as part of the National Clean Investment Fund, the largest part of the GGRF. Ironically, the $1.8 billion that CGC earmarked for its own sub-awardees is caught up in the Citibank freeze. The coalition was able to distribute another $180 million in smaller awards of around $10 million each to newer green banks. In January, the CGC invested $200 million in Greenie Re to facilitate insurance coverage for renewable energy projects. CGC also made available a $100 million line of credit for energy efficiency upgrades for commercial buildings, and a $75 million loan to electrify school bus fleets. CGC, along with and local government network ICLEI USA, just announced that it is disbursing another $13 million in awards to 52 communities as part of the first phase of its Municipal Investment Fund for “development pipelines of projects that will be financeable for our network,” said CGC’s Daniela Nyiri. CGC says it is funding the first phase of the Municipal Investment Fund out of its own retained revenues; the bulk of the funding for the Municipal Investment Fund remains frozen at Citibank.
  
• Keep reading, “Coalition for Green Capital places $2.65 billion in green bank funds with Apollo, Brookfield and Energy Capital Partners,” by Amy Cortese and David Bank. 

Sponsored by SOCAP

From transactions to trust: Building LP-GP alignment for deeper impact. Investing conferences are often filled with big ideas and promising connections. Follow-through can be lacking – no matter where you sit. “For LPs, that might look like hearing compelling pitches without gaining clarity on who is ready for partnership,” writes SOCAP Global’s Sarah Sterling in a post on ImpactAlpha. “For GPs, it’s the struggle to find capital partners who not only ‘get it’ but who are ready to commit and co-create new models of investment rooted in trust and long-term vision.” To facilitate deeper partnerships, SOCAP will host a Capital Connections Day at its flagship conference in San Francisco in October. “Instead of trying to simply accelerate deal flow, Capital Connections Day slows the conversation down,” Sterling says. “It offers space for LPs and GPs to engage in honest, values-forward dialogue – free from high-stakes pitches and performative networking.” 

• Keep reading, “From transactions to trust: Building LP-GP alignment for deeper impact,” by Sarah Sterling. Join Agents of Impact – and ImpactAlpha – at SOCAP25, October 27-29 in San Francisco. Get your tickets now.

The Liist: GP Snapshots

ImpactAlpha’s Liist of impact fund managers includes snapshots of strategies from more than 100 GPs, with new updates each week. Among the latest: 

• Vitality VF backs early-stage startups using biomimicry to tackle climate and resource challenges. The fund invests in hardware technologies for agriculture, materials and infrastructure, with a focus on measurable ecological impact. More.

• Spring Impact Capital invests in Canadian startups focused on climate, health and equity. The fund targets pre-seed and seed-stage ventures led by underrepresented founders, and provides follow-on support from a national accelerator network. Read on.
  
• View all profiles. 

Dealflow: Returns on Inclusion

British Business Bank commits $625 million to boost diversity in venture capital management. British Business Bank, a government-owned economic development bank, has committed £500 million ($625 million) to support diverse and emerging fund managers. The funding, provided under the bank’s Investor Pathways Capital initiative, aims to improve access to capital for underrepresented managers. A portion of the funds will be used to seed “microfunds” led by diverse founders, via the bank’s enterprise capital funds program. “The UK equity market currently experiences a significant funding gap for diverse founders, negatively impacting their ability to start a business,” said British Business Bank’s Louis Taylor. The new initiative, he said, “has the potential to unlock the UK’s full commercial potential and boost the UK economy.”

• Women-led. The British Business Bank last year committed £50 million ($62.5 million) as part of an “Invest in Women Taskforce” that included Barclays and Aviva among others. The funding was part of a £255 million ($318 million) tranche to invest in women-led funds and businesses. The bank is reupping its commitment with another £50 million. It plans to allocate half of the Investor Pathways Capital initiative’s funding to female fund managers. 

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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

• Partners Group’s infrastructure division is taking a controlling stake in German energy metering company Techem in a deal valued at $7.3 billion. The transaction brings in GIC, TPG Rise Climate and Mubadala, and offers an exit to Partner’s Group’s private equity division and Canadian pensions Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Ontario Teachers. (Private Equity Insights)
  
• Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual secured $160 million in debt financing from Emerging Markets Global Advisory to finance water and sanitation projects in Latin America. (EMGA)
  
• Mexico-based Tulum Energy raised $27 million in equity financing from TDK Ventures, CDP Venture Capital and other investors to build a pilot plant for producing hydrogen energy using “methane pyrolysis”. (TechCrunch)

Signals: GP Stakes

TPG Next spells out the financial case for taking ‘GP stakes’ in emerging managers. It’s tough for new fund managers to land investors, particularly for those raising small funds for uncharted investment strategies. Even the established private equity giant TPG has had mixed success convincing investors of the opportunity in new fund managers: fundraising for its TPG Next fund, which takes minority equity stakes in emerging and diverse managers, has stalled after a $500 million anchor investment from pension fund CalPERS in 2023. In light of the challenging fundraising environment – and political hostility to diversity and inclusion efforts – TPG Next is reframing the strategy on the upside potential of “GP stakes” in managers with less than $1 billion in assets under management. Top-performing new private equity fund managers that have raised and managed fewer than three funds “tend to outperform” established managers, “without additional downside risk,” writes the TPG Next team in a short deck on its strategy. “Many of the most successful alternatives firms in the market today, including TPG, benefited from minority capital as they scaled.”

• Untapped opportunity. Private capital markets have trended up over the past decade, despite a prolonged fundraising slump. They are projected to continue growing annually by more than 13% over the next five years, notes the TPG Next team. “Despite the rapid growth in private markets, the share of capital raised by funds with less than $1 billion in assets under management is at record lows,” the team writes. GP stakes strategies aren’t new in private equity, but most funds focus on established managers with larger funds (for background, see “Asset managers are scooping up ‘GP stakes’ in impact funds”). TPG Next has deployed capital to managers like Harlem Capital, VamosVentures and Caro Investment Managers – all diverse-led firms. It most recently invested in Ardabelle Capital, which invests in European companies building supply chains for the sustainable transition.
  
• Finding alpha. To make its case, TPG Next’s deck focuses on the financial opportunity of GP stakes for investors: “a bond-like cashflow stream—via their share of fee and performance-related earnings.” The “potential for significant equity upside” comes from exposure to a fund’s current income streams and future profits. The TPG Next team cites a study last year from Cornell University researchers that analyzed the performance and assets under management of more than 100 fund managers that had sold a stake in their businesses. “These managers attracted more investment partners, raised more capital and outperformed the public market after selling stakes.”
  
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Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Finance in Motion is hiring a fund management analyst… Private Infrastructure Development Group, or PIDG, seeks an impact advisor in Nairobi… Free People is recruiting a director of sustainability and social impact in Philadelphia… Mulago is looking for a senior principal and sourcing lead in San Francisco… Acumen is hosting “Designing capital to reward impact,” on Wednesday, July 23.

Social Finance is hosting a book launch for “Workforce realigned, volume II,” a project of the Social Finance Institute and the Federal Reserve banks of Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and Richmond, featuring nearly two dozen case studies of outcomes-based finance models in workforce development. The event, on Thursday, July 17 in Washington, DC, includes guests Claire Casey of AARP Foundation, John Colborn of Apprenticeships for America, Hector Mujica of Google.org, Amelia Nickerson of First Step Staffing, and Larry Katz of Harvard University.

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

Thank you for your impact!

– July 15, 2025