ImpactAlpha LP / GP

ImpactAlpha LP/GP: Apollo Global’s five-year search for impact collinearity

ImpactAlpha · June 17, 2025

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.

🎉 You’re invited: Agents of Impact Call No. 72: Policy action for shared prosperity. Abundant economic opportunity. Uplifted community ecosystems. Access to clean air and water. They require not only investment but effective public policy and incentives. Join Opportunity Finance Network’s Dafina Williams, the US Impact Investing Alliance’s Fran Seegull, and other Agents of Impact working in a challenging environment to advance policies for shared prosperity in Washington, DC, and in the states. Tuesday, June 24, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP now.

In this week’s newsletter:

  • Apollo’s collinearity strategy five years on
  • Pano’s AI-powered wildfire detection
  • Generation’s bet on industrial decarbonization 
  • “Transformative 25” impact-first funds

Ownership, collinearity and KPIs: Apollo Global’s impact strategy turns five. When Apollo Global launched its impact strategy five years ago, it brought in impact investing industry veteran Lisa Hall to help shape the private equity giant’s approach. “There is an expectation, more and more, that impact approaches will infiltrate the firm,” Hall told ImpactAlpha at the time. Apollo’s impact report on its $1 billion impact fund opens with a tribute to Hall, who died in March (see, “Remembering Lisa Hall”). Apollo has often been in the hot seat for its private equity industry practices, and the firm was called out in a Senate committee report earlier this year for prioritizing “profits over patients” at a hospital chain it owned. But the seeds of impact that Hall helped plant may be taking root in Apollo’s broader business. Apollo in 2022 launched its Sustainable Investing Platform, a cross-asset class strategy that has invested $30 billion toward a pledged  $100 billion by 2030. It was a founding partner of Ownership Works, a consortium of private equity firms that have committed to creating broad-based ownership opportunities for workers at their portfolio companies. Its Empower program provides financial wellness, retirement programs and upskilling opportunities to promote workers’ financial security. The impact fund, and even the broader sustainable investing platform, represent a small slice of Apollo’s more than a half-trillion dollars in assets under management but may be having outsized impact. “We believe expanding opportunity for workers across our funds’ portfolios is fundamental to value creation,” says Joanna Reiss, who has co-headed Apollo Impact Mission, or AIM, since it was launched. 

  • Impact collinearity. A key criteria for AIM is “collinearity” – when a company’s impact is intrinsic to its business model and drives financial performance. “We’re setting out to grow the company’s impact and grow the investors’ capital, and so finding companies where that is mutually reinforcing is absolutely essential,” says Reiss. One example: Heritage Grocers Group, which operates 115 grocery stores in underserved communities. “The better we’re doing at selling fruits and vegetables, which is one of our KPIs for that company, the more profitable we’ll be,” says Reiss “At the same time, that community is eating healthier foods that are true to their culture, served in an environment that is deeply respectful of their traditions.” The 2022 acquisition drew on Apollo’s long track record with grocery investments and a thesis around food deserts and underserved communities.
  • Embedding impact. Apollo aims to instill an impact mindset at its portfolio companies. Take Texas-based Accent, a maker of baling wire, an overlooked but integral part of the recycling value chain. The company’s wire and strapping machines compress and hold crushed cardboard, plastic, aluminum and other recyclables, enabling the materials to be transported more cost effectively. The company, says Reiss, had never articulated its sustainability value to its 5,000 customers or to its employees. When employees understand the bigger mission behind their work, they are more motivated to engage and recommend improvements. AIM has rolled out an employee ownership program at Accent. “We had never bought a company that had thought of itself as impactful, that had any sort of impact practices instilled in it,” she says. “Now we have seven companies who get it, that focusing on impact can help them to be more successful.”
  • Keep reading, “Ownership, collinearity and KPIs: Apollo’s impact strategy turns five,” by Amy Cortese.

Dealflow: AI for Impact

Corporate VCs power Pano AI’s $44 million raise to improve wildfire detection. More than 30,000 wildfires have burned through nearly 1.3 million acres in the US since the start of this year. Forest fires are becoming more severe and harder to contain. In Southern California, gusting winds fueled the flames that burned Los Angeles neighborhoods for 24 straight days earlier this year. “The time to adapt to extreme weather events is now,” said Sonia Kastner of Pano AI, which since 2020 has worked with electric utilities, local government agencies and other first responders in the US, Canada and Australia to detect where wildfires are being sparked. Pano AI uses cameras, satellite feeds and artificial intelligence to pinpoint fires, alerting firefighters and other first responders to their locations. The San Francisco-based company is part of a wave of wildfire tech startups pushing early-detection hardware and software, which could help contain some fires, but not all (see, “In the age of fire, tech solutions can help but not heal”). Pano AI has helped launch the Association of Firetech Innovation to support next-generation technology for wildfire detection, prevention and response. 

  • Corporate impact. Pano AI’s Series B financing was led by Giant Ventures. Corporate backers include Salesforce Ventures, the Tokio Marine Future Fund of global insurance conglomerate Tokio Marine Holdings, and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, which invested via its $200 million fund. One of Pano AI’s earlier backers was T-Mobile Ventures. Pano AI uses T-Mobile’s 5G network, which covers over two million square miles in the US, to collect and analyze data in real-time for faster wildfire detection and response. 
  • Use cases. “In today’s wildfire environment, every minute counts,” said Mike Alexander, who led Colorado’s Douglas County’s emergency response last June when a lightning strike ignited a mountain fire. “Pano AI gave us early confirmation and precise coordinates that allowed us to launch a rapid aerial and ground attack in a remote watershed that provides drinking water to over one million people,” Alexander said. “That critical lead time helped us contain the Bear Creek Fire before it became a more destructive event.”
  • Gift this post.

Generation acquires a stake in IFS to decarbonize heavy industry. London-based IFS makes industrial automation software that helps manufacturers, construction firms and other asset-heavy organizations operate more efficiently and reduce their emissions. The investment by Generation Investment Management is the firm’s third private equity deal (for background see, “For climate fund managers with dry powder, there’s rarely been a better time to invest”). The firm’s PE strategy has also backed UK-based Octopus Energy and wealth management service provider FNZ. “IFS stands out as a clear leader in industrial software, well positioned to support asset owners and organizations that place service and sustainability at the heart of their operations,” said Generation’s Chris Ragona.

  • Potential for scale. IFS has 5,500 customers in more than 80 countries. Its AI-based software helps cut fuel and waste through predictive maintenance, optimized routing and other efficiency measures, while reducing downtime. “The path to a low-carbon future is through new technologies that deliver both commercial and sustainability benefits,” said IFS’s Sophie Graham. Generation will work with IFS to expand its sustainability-linked product offerings and boost its impact measurement and associated economic benefits to customers.
  • Gift this story.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • New on The Liist: Chennai-based Vivriti Asset Management’s debt strategy looks to capitalize India’s small lenders. (The Liist)
  • KKR will acquire Zenith Energy, an Australian power producer that specializes in sustainable off-grid power and urban microgrids. KKR’s Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors II Fund acquired the stake from Pacific Equity Partners, OPSEU Pension Trust and Foresight Group. (KKR)
  • US-based investment firm Hunter Point Capital, through its $3.3 billion GP stakes fund, invested in Equitix, a London-based investor in infrastructure assets. (Tretragon Financial)
  • Sydney-based Climate Tech Partners reached a $50 million first close for its new fund, with $15 million investments each from Australian Ethical Investments and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. BESEN Family Office anchored the fund. Qantas and Airbus each invested with a focus on aviation decarbonisation opportunities. (Climate Tech Partners)
  • San Francisco-based WorkWhile scored $23 million from Rethink Impact, Citi Impact Fund, Illumen Capital and other investors to help businesses find reliable hourly workers. (WorkWhile)

Signals: Returns on Inclusion

This year’s ‘Transformative 25’ highlights place-based, Indigenous-led, ownership-focused, and impact-first funds. The quest for market-beating returns, not to mention the broader retreat from racial equity and DEI, would seem to make quaint an annual list of funds that mostly offer returns in the low single digits. Not so, says Jennifer Astone of Collective Action for Just Finance, which this week announces its fifth cohort of funds dubbed the “Transformative 25.” The annual round-up features community-rooted funds that are shifting the flow of capital toward social, environmental and economic justice. “There is a quiet drumbeat inside philanthropy that recognizes that impact investing is not going far enough and we need to do impact-first investing,” says Astone, whose Integrated Capital Investing helps foundation clients expand their toolkits beyond grants. “If you’re only investing in market-rate funds, you’re leaving impact on the table.”

  • On the list. Seventeen of the T25 are place-based funds, seven are Indigenous-led, and eight focus on democratic ownership, such as employee ownership, homeownership, community real estate, and land access for farmers. “The first thing we look at is not the return on investment, but the impact they are making on the community. Are they creating quality jobs, enhancing community well-being, environmental well-being?” Astone told ImpactAlpha. “The mission and the outcome of the fund has to be focused on that.” Among the new cohort is Mitra BUMMA, which supports Indigenous-led businesses in Indonesia that protect the environment and preserve cultural heritage. Seacoast Trust, housed at a Native CDFI, fosters a regenerative, place-based economy for Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples in Alaska. The Fund for Jobs Worth Owning in Massachusetts offers training and mezzanine financing, deferred loans and lines of credit for businesses transitioning to worker ownership and cooperative models.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Ownership Works welcomes Ali Hijazy, previously with research group GEOAI, as a senior associate of data and impact for client advisory services… Ancora adds Ashleigh Simpson, previously with Grosvenor and MetLife Investment Management, as chief investment officer… Circular Services is looking for a finance executive vice president in New York… Gaia Impact has an opening for an investment associate in Nairobi… Also in Kenya, Aceli Africa is recruiting a  senior associate of product design. 

Convergence seeks a manager in Europe… Tablecloth.io launches “Throughlines,” a new feature on its impact reporting software platform that helps private market investors track the strategic progress of their portfolio companies… Wilson Sonsini, Spring Lane Capital and CREO have released “The basics of electric power regulation for project developers” to kick off Spring Lane’s Developer U this week in London (for background see, “Investing in climate entrepreneurs who think like project developers”). 

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

Thank you for your impact!

– June 17, 2025