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In this week’s LP/GP:
- Overheard at Milken Global Conference
- Renewable energy demand fuels PE performance
- Ocean-powered AI
- GP spotlight: Disability-lens investing in Africa
- LPs and GPs investing in disability as an asset
Featured: Alternative Assets
Fear and frenzy at the Milken Global Conference. No one knows anything. Speaker after speaker at this week’s gathering of the financial elite in Beverly Hills, Calif., admitted to being flummoxed by the convergence of geopolitical risks, market volatility and especially the disruption driven by artificial intelligence. “There are so many things we don’t know,” said Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital Group, a real assets manager with $130 billion under management. “I’ve never been more excited about opportunities – and more scared and terrified.” The International Monetary Fund’s Kristalina Georgieva said projections of global growth issued just weeks ago are unreliable. “I don’t know what the next shock is going to be. I just know it’s going to come,” she said. “And when it comes, it is always the poorest, the most vulnerable families and countries that take the biggest hit.” The stock market’s amazing run has made many investors complacent. “I think there are a lot of market participants who’ve been lulled to sleep,” said GCM Grosvenor’s Frederick Pollock. “I don’t know what the event will be, but that will eventually get tested, and there will be people who don’t react well in that environment.” Kim Lew, head of Columbia University’s investment management company said even the popular advice to “buy the dip” may not work next time. “As long-term investors, I think that this time there’s a chance that what has changed is structural and not cyclical,” she said. “People are going to have to make a reset and adjust for that.” – David Bank
Demand for energy security lifts fundraising and dealmaking for private equity giants. The on-again, off-again conflict in Iran is hitting consumers at the pump, raising fertilizer prices for farmers, and frustrating the best laid plans of corporate chieftains. For big alternative asset managers, that spells opportunity. “The Strait of Hormuz may be bad for many things, but it’s good for our business,” TPG’s Jim Coulter said on the firm’s first-quarter earnings call. Some of the biggest PE and buyout firms are reporting soaring demand for renewable energy infrastructure amid a heightened focus on energy security. “People are concerned about their energy supply chain, and renewables is one way to address that around the world,” Coulter said. TPG’s new clean energy funds have drawn in $9 billion through April. Rise Climate Fund II, which targets energy transition investments, has collected $6.8 billion, while the smaller Rise Climate Global South Initiative raised $808 million for emerging market climate solutions. TPG expects both funds to close this summer.
- Monetizing assets. The spotlight on energy security is “reinforcing investments in renewables, which are the lowest cost form of generation today,” Conor Teskey at Brookfield Asset Management told analysts. Brookfield is orchestrating mega-deals to deploy some of its $100 billion in dry powder, even as it looks to free up cash. In the first quarter, Brookfield brought 1.8 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity online and contracted 1.7 gigawatts from projects in development. In March, the firm teamed up with La Caisse in a take-private deal for Boralex, a Canadian renewable energy developer. It partnered with British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and Norges Bank Investment Management to launch Northview Energy, with renewable power assets from several Brookfield portfolio companies. The deal, said Teskey, helped Brookfield monetize its assets “to some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated private investors.”
- Keep reading, “Demand for energy security lifts fundraising and dealmaking for private equity giants,” by Amy Cortese and Erik Stein.
Dealflow: Energy Transition
Climate investors team up with Peter Thiel to back ocean power startup Panthalassa. It’s not often you see Peter Thiel team up with climate investors in a promising clean power startup. The investor and Palantir co-founder has dismissed climate science and likened Greta Thunberg to an antichrist. He also led the $140 million Series B equity round for Oregon-based Panthalassa, which makes floating energy systems that generate energy from ocean waves. Other investors in the round include Marc Benioff’s Time Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Planetary VC, Chris Anderson’s Resilience Reserve and Fortescue Ventures. The appeal: a novel way to power AI computing without straining the grid or provoking community opposition. Panthalassa’s autonomous energy systems power onboard AI chips that perform inference computing deep at sea, which offers natural cooling. The computing results are transmitted back to land via satellite. “Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier,” Thiel said in a statement.
- Terrawatt potential. Ocean power represents a potential source of abundant clean energy, on par with solar and nuclear, said Panthalassa’s Garth Sheldon-Coulson. “We’ve built a technology platform that operates in the planet’s most energy-dense wave regions, far from shore, and turns that resource into reliable clean power. We’re now ready to build factories, deploy fleets and provide a sustainable new source of energy for humanity.”
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Sanlam Investments notches an exit, of sorts, from solar company Wetility. Sandton-based Wetility has provided lease-to-own rooftop solar and battery storage solutions to South African households and businesses since 2019. The company’s One Bill, launched late last year, combines grid and solar electricity to streamline customer billing. Sanlam Investments, a Black-owned South African investment manager, completed its debt financing in Wetility, getting repaid ahead of schedule. Sanlam had participated in Wetility’s 930 million rand ($48 million) mixed equity and debt raise in 2023. Sanlam was part of a consortium of lenders including Metier Sustainable Capital II and the Industrial Development Corporation that provided a 600 million rand debt facility. Sanlam says it was attracted by the opportunity to “harness South Africa’s untapped youth” and upskill them for the fast-growing solar sector.
- Impact debt. Sanlam’s investment came from its 104+ SMME Growth and Empowerment Solutions program, a 240 million rand initiative using grants and loans to support Black-owned, youth-led and women-led businesses in South Africa, as well as the fund managers backing them. Nearly 70% of Wetility’s staff is under the age of 35, and almost half are women. “By using impact-driven debt capital, Wetility has grown quickly while staying true to its values of affordability, local focus and inclusion,” said Sanlam’s Phuti Senyatsi. “The financing model shows that youth-led businesses are not just viable, but vital – especially when capital is designed to unlock, not constrain.”
- More.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- The International Finance Corp. and Standard Chartered bank rolled out a $300 million supply chain financing facility to support trade within eight African markets. (Standard Chartered)
- Nigeria-based Sabou Capital landed anchor from the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund to invest in agriculture, renewable energy, supply chain and logistics in Central and West Africa. (TechCabal)
- London-based Gresham House is raising €1 billion ($1.2 billion) to invest in battery-storage projects across Europe. (Bloomberg)
- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development provided 250 million Egyptian pounds ($4.7 million) to Fawry MSME Finance to lend to rural and underserved entrepreneurs. (EBRD)
GP Snapshot: Disability-Lens Investing
AT4D applies a disability lens to products and services in Africa. Africans with disabilities confront major hurdles in navigating day to day life. Disability solutions haven’t attracted much attention or capital from private investors, because they are largely lumped in with humanitarian issues. “It’s very charity oriented,” says Bernard Chiira of Nairobi-based impact investor Assistive Technologies for Disability Trust, or AT4D. Chiira and his team are out to convince investors that investing in Africa with a disability lens is not only a viable fund strategy, it’s a way to improve infrastructure, products and services for the broader population. The organization, spun out of an accelerator at the University College London Engineering’s Global Disability Innovation Hub, is testing the thesis with its Momentous Fund for early-stage disability tech. “When you include or you solve for accessibility, you’re not just preparing a small group of people, you’re benefiting everyone,” Chiira tells ImpactAlpha.
- Curb cut effect. The dips built into sidewalks, known as curb cuts, help wheelchair users navigate and cross the street, but they also benefit parents with strollers and delivery workers with dollies. Disability-lens investors, such as Enable Ventures in the US, as evidence, cite the “curb cut effect” as evidence that seemingly niche solutions have broader benefits. Momentus Fund provides SAFE notes, convertible debt and other flexible financing instruments to disability tech startups building solutions for mobility, logistics and customer services. The fund builds on support from AT4D’s accelerator program offered to startups like Signvrse in Kenya, which is enabling real-time digital sign language translation, and South Africa-based HearX, which manufactures hearing aids and diagnostic devices. Momentus has raised $650,000 from the Judith Neilson Foundation. Said Chiira, “The fund was inspired by understanding the needs of early-stage innovators, and also the need to change the mindset that it’s charity.”
- Check it out.
🟢 Live on Edge: Disability-Lens LPs and GPs
More than two dozen LPs and GPs investing with a disability lens. The Nairobi-based Momentous Fund, launched by Assistive Technologies for Disability, is the latest fund advancing solutions to expand access and opportunity for people with disabilities on ImpactAlpha Edge. Edge now features nine GPs that are deploying capital to disability-focused ventures, including CSD Social Ventures Fund, Enable Ventures and the Autism Impact Fund, which recently reached a first close on its second fund. Our data also includes a growing base of LPs backing these strategies, including Sorenson Impact Group, Frist Family Office and Liberty Mutual Investments, signaling increasing institutional interest in disability inclusion as an investable impact theme.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Amanda Koppang Willfors joins Swedfund as senior impact manager… Catherine Covington steps down from MCE Social Capital as managing director… Ron Cordes is appointed strategic advisor at Developing World Markets… Amy Sorensen Ben Dov is appointed chair of the board of trustees for the Nathan Cummings Foundation… Kirstine Lund Christiansen joins Nykredit as head of sustainable finance.
The Center for Impact Finance will become an official center of the Lincoln Land Institute, starting in June. The Center has been housed within the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy since 2009… The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is hiring an analyst… Octavia Carbon is on the hunt for a chief financial officer.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– May 6, 2026
