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:
- Backing impact GPs with wholesale capital
- Bridge financing for solar in buildings
- Commonwealth Fusion’s latest haul
- Family offices investing in fusion energy
📞 Get PluggedIn, today. Funding community power-building for climate action, with Harrison Wallace. Community power is a precondition for inclusive clean energy markets. On the next PluggedIn, host Sherrell Dorsey will speak with Harrison Wallace of the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund to discuss how the organization is helping build equitable climate solutions, from the bottom up. Plug in today at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London.
Featured: Capital Wholesalers
Canada’s Social Finance Fund aims to build an investment ecosystem with ‘wholesale’ impact capital. Vancouver-based Misfit Ventures’ fundraising was doubly difficult as a first-time fund manager and Canada’s first LGBTQ-focused venture fund. British Columbia-based Scale Institute’s Catalytic Capital Lab might have scrounged for capital for a loan guarantee pool for Canada’s community lenders. Both found backing this year from funds with mandates to seed Canada’s impact economy from Canada’s Social Finance Fund, launched in 2023 to jumpstart the country’s social finance market. The CA$755 million (US$550 million) initiative, created under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has committed more than CA$155 million in nearly three dozen investments. The capital is being deployed by three impact investment “wholesalers” tasked with leveraging the federal funds to attract additional private investment. The managers, Boann Social Impact, Realize Capital Partners and Cap Finance, operate as a kind of fund of funds, channeling capital to impact fund managers that in turn back nonprofits, cooperatives and social enterprises. “We view our role as trying to develop and mature the Canadian impact investing market,” Realize Capital’s Lars Boggild tells ImpactAlpha. “We’ve been able to use the scale and de-risking nature of the Social Finance Fund to attract net new institutional participation.”
- Better societies. The wholesaler model, pioneered by Better Society Capital in the UK, has appeal for governments grappling with constrained financing and growing demand for social services. Japan and Portugal are among the countries considering public funding for private capital-market development. Better Society Capital, initially called Big Society Capital, was launched in 2012 leverage dormant bank accounts for social good. “It was seen as very important not to be just an investor but to be a wholesaler,” says Better Society’s James Westhead. “We want to scale managers that have already emerged, and we also want to support existing scaled managers who want to move toward impact.” Better Society has recycled its initial £400 million in dormant account funds to £1 billion in investments and crowded in nearly £3 billion. Proposed legislation to tap non-cash assets could generate a fresh £1 billion for deployment.
- Breaking barriers. The UK impact investing market has surpassed £10 billion. Canada hopes for similar gains. Toronto-based Realize Capital, a joint venture of Rally Assets and early stage VC Relay Ventures, has committed CA$67.7 million to 16 investments this year – many women-led or first-time funds. Portfolio managers include Misfit Ventures and Indigenous-owned Flowing River Capital Partners. “As a first-time fund manager, one of the biggest challenges is building early credibility and momentum in a space where institutional capital has historically been slow to back underrepresented managers,” says Mandy Potter of Misfit, which also raised capital from Realize and Boann. “Support through the Social Finance funds has been pivotal in addressing that barrier.”
- Keep reading, “Canada’s Social Finance Fund aims to build an investment ecosystem with ‘wholesale’ impact capital,” by Erik Stein, Roodgally Senatus and Amy Cortese.
Dealflow: Just Transition
GP snapshot: Enterprise Community Partners provides bridge financing for solar projects before credits expire. Enterprise’s Renewable Energy Bridge Fund will provide short-term financing for affordable housing owners and developers that are eligible for solar tax credits in the US. Throwing a wrench in those deals are the US Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to cancel the $7 billion Solar for All program. Enterprise had counted on its borrowers being able to tap into the Biden-era solar incentives. With rising energy costs placing new burdens on affordable housing owners, the Enterprise is moving forward with or without the Solar for All incentives. “With federal funding at risk or sunsetting, there is now the immediacy to establish this fund,” Enterprise’s Anna Smukowski told ImpactAlpha. Developers and building owners will be able to tap federal investment tax credits, or ITCs, to offset renewable energy costs until July 2026, at which point they will be phased out under the recent Republican spending bill. The bridge fund will cover building owners’ solar costs while waiting to be reimbursed. Enterprise aims to finance solar projects on properties housing a combined 10,000 individuals and families. Read on.
Check out other new GP snapshots on ImpactAlpha this week:
- Investing in health. Delaware-based FrissOn Capital is looking to invest $20 million in early-stage health tech founders bringing more accessible, better quality and more affordable healthcare to communities across Latin America. The general partners are looking to address “systematic underinvestment” in Latino founders working on healthcare solutions. The firm has raised $5 million for the strategy from Be Ventures and others. More.
- Returns on inclusion. BuenTrip Ventures in Ecuador is addressing a capital gap for female and other diverse founders in Latin America and the region’s diaspora communities. The women-led investment firm is looking to bring a fresh $10 million in equity funding to promising B2B software startups run by entrepreneurs overlooked by other investors. Go deeper.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Green Create secured funding from Norfund to treat wastewater in South Africa and Mauritius and to process agricultural waste into biogas. (Norfund)
- Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale Capital led an $11.5 million seed equity round for Terraton, which develops biochar carbon removal projects in Ghana, Kenya and other emerging markets. (Terraton)
- Deftpower, a Dutch EV charging charging developer and operator, raised €12.5 million ($14.6 million) from Endeit Capital, Proeza Ventures, 4impact capital and Rethink Mobility. (EU-Startups)
Signals: Investing in Fusion
Building commercial fusion reactors and the capital stack to bring them to market. There are plenty of technical challenges to solve before abundant and clean fusion energy becomes a reality. But it is increasingly a financial game. Exhibit A: Commonwealth Fusion System’s blockbuster $863 million raise last week. The Massachusetts-based company has raised at least $3 billion to date and broken ground on its prototype plant outside of Boston. All told, fusion energy hopefuls have raised more than $12 billion in the last 10 years – capital that has brought down early basic-science risk. “Fusion is entering its critical decade,” David Siap of family office network CREO tells ImpactAlpha. With $100 billion or so needed to reach commercialization over the next decade, he says, “the sector is entering a fundamental shift where the bottlenecks are increasingly financial in nature.” Siap is the author of “Capital stack formation for commercial fusion,” from CREO, which was shared exclusively with ImpactAlpha.
- Fusion families. Wealthy individuals and families have been early investors in fusion, touted as the holy grail of clean energy. Because they can be patient investors, they are well-matched for fusion, which has taken decades to develop (see, “Long coming but slow to arrive, fusion energy approaches a milestone on path to commercial deployment”). “These folks aren’t on a 10-year cycle, so they can hang on for liquidity,” says Siap. Of 28 fusion startups tracked by CREO, the network’s members were direct investors in 18. They have also participated as limited partners in funds backing fusion startups.
- Bold-faced investors. Commonwealth Fusion Systems’s big raise includes new investors, such as Nvidia’s venture group NVentures, Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, Planet First Partners and a consortium of 12 Japanese investors including Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, John Doerr, Marc Benioff, Robert Downey Jr., Stanley Druckenmiller and Jonathan Soros have all invested in Commonwealth personally or via family offices or funds they control. “CFS has a significant amount of support from ultra high net worth individuals and family offices, both in this round and in previous rounds,” a CFS spokesperson told ImpactAlpha.
- Capital needs. The fusion energy capital stack is evolving from early-stage government funding to family offices and venture capital when a company has a credible path to commercial fusion. Sovereign wealth funds, project finance, and strategic and growth investors will be needed to finance first-of-a kind, or FOAK, plants, expected in the mid-2030s. Infrastructure investors could ultimately back grid-connected commercial fusion, says CREO. Fusion companies may be able to tap public markets via IPOs with valuations of as much as $50 to $100 billion once they meet key milestones – particularly “net energy gain,” which is when they produce more energy than required to ignite a reaction. Those with successful FOAK plants could provide even bigger rewards for early investors, commanding valuations of $200 billion or more, projects CREO.
- Keep reading.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Eric Meissner steps down as head of investment services of ImpactAssets to advise the impact organization through his new consulting firm… LeapFrog Investments welcomes Anna Robertson, formerly with Australia’s Sefa, as strategy manager. Cindy Chen and Joel Bird will step into her former role at Sefa as impact and engagement managers… Big Issue Invest promotes Holger Westphely to managing director.
Ownership Works adds Garrison Turner, previously with SecondMuse Capital, as a senior manager on its client advisory services team… Rachel Eva Merfalen, previously with San Diego Workforce Partnership, joins the Tennessee Center for Employee Ownership as interim executive director… Colorado Health Foundation seeks an impact investing senior officer… Shell Foundation is recruiting an investment director and East Africa regional lead in Nairobi.
The GIIN seeks a research manager and a research associate in New York… Also in New York, MSCI has an opening for a sustainability and climate specialist, and Alumni Ventures is on the hunt for a senior associate… Global Fund Search, which connects institutional investors with global asset managers, is on the hunt for a global equity impact fund manager, a passive global equity screened fund manager, and a multi-asset equity screened fund manager to each manage £60 million on behalf of a UK endowment.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Sept. 2, 2025
