The Brief

ImpactAlpha LP/GP: How BII is mobilizing LPs around climate finance in emerging markets

ImpactAlpha · September 30, 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.

🔌 PluggedIn: Building an inclusive future for climate and capital. VC Include’s Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson joins ImpactAlpha’s Sherrell Dorsey to discuss the future of fund management. Through VC Include, Robinson is unlocking pathways for diverse leaders to drive impact alpha and accelerate climate solutions at scale. Get PluggedIn, Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP now.

In this week’s newsletter:

  • Leslie Maasdorp on British International Investment’s next five-year plan
  • Norwegian sovereign wealth fund drops $1.5 billion on Brookfield’s energy transition fund
  • AfricInvest closes $58 million for French businesses operating in Africa
  • “Dual-use” disability tech

BII wants to make climate investing in emerging markets safe for institutional LPs (podcast). Development finance institutions are often seen as “the usual suspects” when it comes to backing fund managers and infrastructure projects in emerging and frontier markets. But while the quasi-public DFIs are willing to go where others sometimes fear to tread, they have often come under fire for being too slow, too opaque and too risk-adverse to be effective market builders. Leslie Maasdorp, who took over as CEO of British International Investment last year, is pushing the UK’s development finance institution to lean into the challenge of mobilizing institutional LPs around climate and development finance in underinvested markets. “We need a commercial return,” Maasdorp tells David Bank on the latest episode of ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast. But: “There’s been a lot of introspection by the development finance system,” he insists. “We are now looking at increasing our focus on private capital mobilization. We want to see to what extent we can be more catalytic.” 

  • Catalytic capital. The tumult of the past nine months has forced a reckoning in development finance. The blow-up of USAID and reduced foreign aid budgets in other countries has made starkly clear that new approaches are required. Maasdorp sees greater opportunities for BII and its peers to make greater use of guarantees to buffer risk and junior equity to boost returns for other investors. “As DFIs, we have to play a greater role to derisk a lot of these investments,” he says. BII has for a decade been ratcheting up its mandate as a catalytic investor. It launched its experimental Catalyst initiative in 2014, which has since deployed about $2 billion through catalytic instruments and impact funds. Three years ago, it launched its more flexible and risk-tolerant Kinetic initiative. Some of BII’s more experimental investments include efforts to seed impact secondary markets, and launching “basket bonds” to enable green small-business lending at scale.
  • Institutional mobilist. The UK government in February committed an additional £100 million (then about $127 million) to its MOBILIST initiative to encourage private equity investors to invest in sustainable development in emerging markets. BII has been in talks with Brookfield, Prudential and other large private equity firms and insurers about how DFI capital could incentivize them to co-invest in its core markets. “The energy transition in Asia in particular presents a strong commercial opportunity for the entire development finance system,” says Maasdorp. With a new five-year strategy starting next year, BII is especially focused on ramping up its climate portfolio in Asia’s large, coal-dependent markets. “A lot of institutional investors would be very willing to invest alongside us,” he says, “if barriers are removed.” 

Dealflow: Energy Transition 

Brookfield’s energy transition fund nabs $1.5 billion from Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. Norges Bank Investment Management, the manager of Norway’s $2 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, is making good on its mandate to invest in clean energy infrastructure. The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund committed $1.5 billion to Brookfield Asset Management’s second Global Transition Fund. The fund, which invests in clean energy and decarbonization solutions, raised $10 billion last year and is expected to top Brookfield’s $15 billion first global transition fund. Norges Bank’s investment “will enable us to invest in projects that develop renewable energy infrastructure while also supporting the broader transition to low-carbon solutions across industries,” said the bank’s Harald von Heyden.

  • Energy infrastructure. The Government Pension Fund Global was set up in the 1990s to manage Norway’s oil wealth and act as a long-term savings vehicle for current and future generations. The diversified fund holds mostly publicly-listed equities. In 2019, the Norwegian government directed its fund manager to back unlisted clean energy infrastructure developers and projects. Such assets today make up just 0.4% of its portfolio, but have generated the highest returns, besting even a hot public equities market. The fund manager has made eight direct investments in wind, solar and energy transmission projects in Europe and has teamed up with Spanish utility company Iberdrola for projects in Spain and Portugal. The Brookfield investment is Norges’ second fund investment, following a commitment to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
  • Gift this article.

AfricInvest’s closes $58 million for its third French-African fund. AfricInvest Group reached a first close of its third French-African fund, which invests in small- and mid-sized French businesses with operations in Africa. The strategy was developed nearly a decade ago to leverage AfricInvest’s 30-year investment experience and networks on the continent. Bpifrance, Proparco, BNP Paribas, pan-African insurer Sanlam, the Central Bank of Kenya’s pension fund, and Mauritian insurer Sicom re-upped their commitment to the strategy by backing the new fund. Africa-focused investment firm Equitane, Kenyan pension funds, and European and African family offices also invested. FFA 3, as the fund is known, will invest between €5 million and €10 million each in a dozen companies.

  • Successful exits. The French-African strategy was developed with Bpifrance and is managed by AfricInvest Europe, which now has €150 million ($175 million) in assets under management. The two previous funds have supported 18 companies and notched five exits to other private equity funds since 2017. In July, AfricInvest sold its stake in precision manufacturing company Mathevon.  “We’ve made extremely decent returns on those exits.” AfricInvest’s Stéphane Colin told ImpactAlpha. The exits smoothed the fundraising process for FFA 3, which is seeking up to €120 million.
  • More.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • KKR is investing $1.2 billion for a 50% stake in TotalEnergies’ North American renewable energy portfolio. The deal covers 1.4 gigawatts of utility-scale and distributed solar. The French energy giant will keep a 50% stake and continue to operate the assets. (TotalEnergies)
  • Electric aircraft maker Beta Technologies filed for a public offering. The Burlington, Vt.-based company is backed by TPG Rise, Qatar Investment Authority, Fidelity and GE Aerospace. (Reuters) 
  • European development banks FMO and OeEB committed €30 million ($31.8 million) to the Hivos-Triodos Fonds, an impact fund managed by Triodos Investment Management. The fund makes growth-stage sustainable investments in emerging markets. (FMO)

Signals: Returns on Inclusion

‘Dual use’ disability tech attracts LPs and GPs to untapped talent and a growing market. Former SpaceX engineer Tim Balz launched Kalogon five years ago to use AI to create smarter seating for wheelchair users. He unexpectedly found demand from the US Air Force and commercial airlines; he’s scaling up to serve pilots and passengers on long-haul flights. Such “dual-use” solutions were on display at the Disability Innovation Forum in Washington, DC, this month. Hundreds of founders like Balz are building solutions with and for the disability community that have potential for mainstream market adoption. Chicago-based DeepWalk is using AI and computer vision to inspect and maintain sidewalks and other public infrastructure; Full Circle Access’s app provides detailed information on stair-free routes, noise levels, food options and charging stations at entertainment venues. Additional revenue streams coupled with a growing disabled population is fueling investor interest in such solutions. “There’s a $2 trillion hole in the global GDP where disability talent should be,” said Regina Kline of Enable Ventures, which co-hosted the event and is raising a disability tech fund (see, “Regina Kline: Closing the disability gap”).

  • GP snapshot. Kline’s impact fund has commitments from UnitedHealth Group, the Society for Human Resource Management and Liberty Mutual Investments. The $100 billion investment arm of Liberty Mutual Insurance will also co-invest with Enable. “The ability to have people who see the world in a different way is something that’s hard to find in markets,” said Ommeed Sathe, who leads Liberty Mutual’s impact and sustainable investments. Other fund managers are pressing that same advantage. 2Gether-International, a DC-based impact accelerator for entrepreneurs with disabilities, is launching a $40 million fund. K. Ventures invests in early-stage tech companies focused on individuals with intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities. Samaritan Partners is raising a public benefit VC fund for early-stage disability startups.
  • Keep reading, “Disability tech attracts LPs and GPs to untapped talent and a growing market,” by Roodgally Senatus.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Alicia DeLia of DeLia Impact Advisors joins Impact Charitable’s board of directors… Katie Naeve, previously with Tetra Tech, will become director of the Impact-Linked Finance Collaborative… Claire Wathen steps down as managing director of global alliances at the Skoll Foundation… Advantage Capital is looking for a senior associate of renewables finance… City National Bank seeks a community development investment officer in Los Angeles. 

The Inter-American Development Bank is recruiting an education portfolio operations consultant in Washington, DC… Grand Challenges Canada is hiring an investment associate… Temasek’s GenZero is on the hunt for a vice president of investments in Singapore… ICONIQ Impact and Co-Impact are co-launching the Women’s Health Co-Lab to support organizations advancing maternal and reproductive health. 

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

Thank you for your impact!

– Sept. 30, 2025