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:
- Nippon Life’s system-level investing in Japan
- Commercializing deep tech in Europe
- Infrastructure private credit fund in Canada
- Unlocking pension fund capital for impact in Africa
Featured: LP Profile
With ‘people x planet,’ Nippon Life Insurance steps up to system-level investing. With more than 15 million policyholders and $675 billion in assets, Nippon Life Insurance Company sits at the center of Japan’s economic life. Its balance sheet of nearly 100 trillion yen makes the Osaka-based company Japan’s largest private asset owner. The insurance giant is invested in roughly 3,300 companies in japan, with significant positions in major companies, giving it unusual leverage over the country’s business ecosystem. With those household savings at stake and that “system-level” responsibility, Nippon in recent years has had to reconsider what its sustainable investing portfolio should look like. “When financial wellbeing is under strain, people have to prioritize today’s bills over tomorrow’s sustainability,” Nippon Life’s Takeshi Kimura tells ImpactAlpha, laying out a new framework for what the company calls “P-squared investing,” short for people times planet. “If we fix the planet but fail the people, or vice versa, it’s like multiplying by zero,” Kimura says. “The outcome is zero.”
- Beyond ESG. P-squared is part of Nippon Life’s broader embrace of “system-level investing” across its portfolio, as outlined this month in a case study produced with The Investment Integration Project. Traditional ESG integration tends to address environmental and social issues separately, Kimura says, and focuses primarily on risks at the company or fund level. “An environment-only approach can produce inflation and worsen social conditions, because system-level challenges are deeply interconnected,” Kimura says. “That thinking reinforced our recognition that entity-level ESG needs to be complemented by investor collaboration, common standards and market-wide norms.” Nippon Life has deployed at least 3.3 trillion yen to investment opportunities aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals; its goal is five trillion yen ($35 billion) by 2030.
- Active stewardship. Nippon Life works directly with portfolio companies – particularly its most carbon-intensive ones – on climate transition plans and emission targets. On the financing side, Nippon Life has expanded its use of sustainability-linked loans, including recent loans for Osaka Gas and Sumitomo Chemical that linked interest rates with each company’s decarbonization efforts. Nippon Life’s Nissay Capital Sustainability Solutions Fund invests in decarbonization-focused tech funds and startups. “Until now, the dominant approach assumed society as a given and tried to manage the risks that emerged from it,” Kimura says. “What’s changing is the idea that investors can help shape outcomes, not just respond to them.”
- Keep reading, “With ‘people x planet’, Nippon Life Insurance steps up to system-level investing,” by Erik Stein.
Dealflow: Impact Tech
Daphni raises €260 million to commercialize scientific research in Europe. The Paris-based venture capital firm wants to turn breakthroughs from Europe’s scientific researchers into viable commercial companies. “In a world where technology is increasingly commoditized and AI is redefining how innovation is built, we’re convinced the strongest long-term value comes from deep scientific breakthroughs,” writes Daphni’s Pierre-Eric Leibovici. The firm reached a final close of €260 million ($307 million) for its Blue Fund to invest in early-stage deep tech and sustainability startups on the continent (“blue” is not related to an ocean or water theme). Leibovici touted “strong investor support for a strategy focused on unlocking the potential of European science to serve entrepreneurship and address the major societal and environmental challenges of our time.”
- Early innovations. Blue Fund has closed nine deals, including EverDye, which is developing a sustainable dying process for textiles. Paris-based Karavela is identifying brain biomarkers to detect neurological diseases. Owlo, also in Paris, is developing alternatives to invasive microscopes for fertility and pharmaceutical research. The fund will invest in up to 40 companies. French banking and insurance group Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, public bank Bpifrance, pension provider Pro BTP, private equity firm Swen Capital Partners, the European Investment Fund and several family offices backed the fund.
- Share this post.
Power Sustainable’s infrastructure credit strategy reaches $1 billion in committed capital. Canada–based Power Sustainable raised $800 million in new commitments for its first infrastructure private credit fund and separately managed accounts, bringing the strategy’s total amount raised to $1 billion. The alternative investment manager is a unit of Power Corporation of Canada, a publicly traded holding company controlled by the wealthy Desmarais family. Since 2019, Power Sustainable has set out to raise capital from global pension funds, family offices and other institutional investors. “We have a strong conviction in the opportunity for private credit in infrastructure across the core sectors of the economy,” said Power Sustainable’s Thomas Murray, who joined the firm from Apollo Global Management.
- Green infrastructure. The Power Sustainable team said it sees investor interest in follow-on infrastructure credit vehicles in energy and decarbonization, transportation and logistics, and utilities and recycling. The firm also operates a private equity infrastructure business focused on renewable energy assets, and a decarbonization strategy investing in mid-sized companies in the US and Canada. That private credit strategy is backed by Canada Life, Export Development Canada, Fonds de solidarité FTQ and parent company Power Corp.
- Share this post.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Swen Capital Partners reached a €440 million ($480 million) close for its third transition fund, which invests in renewable gas and molecule production in Europe and North America. (Swen Capital Partners)
- Oslo-based Verdane and Scott Capital Partners took a majority stake in UK-based Bluewater Bio, a tech company supporting water reuse and wastewater treatment. (Verdane)
- Brazil’s Eco Invest program mobilized $53 billion reais ($10.6 billion) in sustainable investments with the support of the country’s National Treasury to crowd in private investors. (Forbes Brasil)
Overheard at the Pan-African Fund Managers’ Alliance
This regulatory reform could unlock African pension capital for impact fund managers. A push to mobilize local institutional capital in Africa could open much-needed financing channels for the kind of local businesses that power job creation. But before pension funds, insurance companies and high net-worth individuals can lean into such opportunities, they need to be able to allocate assets to “alternatives” more broadly. National regulators, in the name of reduced risk, have become a major bottleneck to the deployment of local institutional capital outside of government paper and global stock markets. At the Pan-African Fund Managers’ Alliance convening in Nairobi last week, institutional fund administrators, board members, trustees, regulators and fund managers called for new regulations that include minimum allocations to alternative assets, such as private equity, venture capital and private debt. “To get the depth that we want for our markets, there are certain things that just have to be done, like minimums,” argued Tokunboh Ishmael of Lagos-based Alitheia Capital. “You’re not allocating a minimum so that people can just play the lottery with it. It’s to allow that allocation to be patient capital.”
- Test case. Last April, the Ghana Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, in partnership with fund managers like Oasis Capital and Savannah Impact Advisory, proposed a minimum 5% allocation of institutional assets to venture capital and private equity. In November, the government approved the mandate, which is set to go into effect this year. A group of Ghanaian pension funds have backed Ci-Gaba, a local fund of funds that invests in small business fund managers in West Africa (see, “African investors warm to regional funds of funds to finance small business growth“). Omolola Oloworaran of Nigeria’s National Pension Commission took issue with mandatory minimums. “I do not think that putting in place a minimum investment criteria would be good for contributors. It sounds like an easy way out, but what that essentially leads to is poor allocation of capital and pricing issues.” She argued instead for the development by fund managers of a stronger pipeline of bankable projects.
- Risk perceptions. Africa’s alternative asset fund managers are finding no shortage of investable deals. To ease local institutional investors’ risk perceptions, they’re showcasing liquidity, exits and portfolio performance, and also blending finance to buffer risks. The infrastructure private equity firm African Infrastructure Investment Managers raised almost $1 billion in 2024, with about half coming from African institutional investors protected by a first-loss layer in the fund. “There is a level of misperception on the risk. I don’t necessarily think it’s a wholesale misperception,” said AIIM’s Paul Frankish. “A lot of African strategies have fewer levers to drive returns than you see in some developed markets. We also have the ability to drive stronger impact than we see in other markets.”
- Keep reading, “This regulatory reform could unlock African pension capital for impact fund managers,” by Lucy Ngige.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Tai Neal is promoted to head of community and impact at Foot Locker… Community Vision has an opening for a senior strategic initiatives officer and a senior loan officer in San Francisco… Woodlands Community Lenders is hiring a deputy director in West Virginia… CapShift is on the hunt for an impact investing fellow in Boston… The National Center for Employee Ownership is recruiting a contractor for fundraising and grant development… CenterSquare Investment Management seeks a senior analyst for real estate research and sustainability.
The Circular Action Alliance is hiring a strategic communications director… ThirdWay Partners is looking for an investment associate in Colombia… New Forests is looking for an associate director of investor relations in the UK… Santander Alternatives Investments is looking for a Madrid-based associate for its climate venture fund… Impact for Breakfast DC will host a discussion on gender-lens investing dinner with a focus on emerging markets.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Feb. 4, 2026
