The Brief

The Brief: Moving money in Mérida at the Latin American Impact Investing Forum

ImpactAlpha · March 5, 2026

Greetings Agents of Impact!

☎️ Agents of Impact Call: Building an investment portfolio that makes aging an asset. At 1843 Capital, Tracy Chadwell is investing in “AgeTech” solutions for the workplace, health care and consumer goods. At Next50, Peter Kaldes is aligning the Denver-based foundation’s $265 million endowment around an “aging investment framework” that steps up from age-friendly to age-inclusive to age-centered. On Call No. 79, Chadwell, Kaldes and Preeti Bhattacharji, head of sustainable investing for J.P. Morgan’s US Private Bank, will join other Agents of Impact to share tips for building investment portfolios across asset classes that value and support aging, Wednesday, March 11 at 10am PT / 1pm ET. RSVP today.

In today’s Brief:

Moving money in Mérida at the FLII
Mexico’s climate investment opportunities
Brookfield, Norges and BCI launch Northview Energy
Overcoming foundations’ objections to impact investing

Featured: Overheard at FLII

In Mérida, dealmaking takes center stage as impact investors gather for FLII (video). When Chicago options trader Hans-Christian Lauer built a data-driven model to identify the strongest markets for early-stage venture investing, Latin America ranked at the top of the list. Lauer ditched trading options, stood up Zenani Capital and launched a pilot fund to invest in impact ventures across the region. Late last year, Zenani backed BioPlaster Research, a Yucatán-based startup that turns sargassum, the brown seaweed piling up on Caribbean coastlines, into biodegradable packaging materials. “The level of adaptability and tenacity that founders have in the region is bar none,” Lauer told ImpactAlpha at last week’s Latin American Impact Investing Forum, or FLII (video). The more than 1,000 capital allocators, founders and ecosystem builders who converged on Mérida, Mexico embodied the FLII’s mandate: Move more money, more effectively, across the region.

Impact marketplace. A newly launched fund of funds backed by members of the Buffett family, Abundance Circle, is rolling out a $100 million evergreen vehicle to deploy catalytic capital into impact funds across Latin America, Asia and Africa. New Ventures and the IDB Lab launched a fund focused on Latin America’s silver economy (see, “Solutions for healthy aging in Latin America’s ‘silver economy’”). New Ventures also partnered with Spain’s Ship2B Ventures to stand up the New BSocial LatAm Fund, a $60 million vehicle targeting climate and quality-of-life startups across the region, with a focus on Mexico and Colombia. Sonen Capital, Mexico’s Fondo de Fondos and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, or CAF, announced a partnership to catalyze impact capital across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Climate investing in Mexico. Mexico offers a full suite of investable opportunities across the climate solutions space, argues contributing editor Marilyn Waite in her latest ImpactAlpha column. The Climate Solutions Stocks open-access database contains listed equity opportunities across Project Drawdown climate solutions for Mexican companies. Nearly half of all Mexican bond issuances have an ESG label. VC firms with a climate thesis in Mexico include ALLVP, Amplifica Capital, Regenera Ventures, Savia Ventures, Dalus Capital, and Fundamental Venture Studio. And Mexico is shaping up as an attractive market for distributed renewable energy, electric vehicles, and plant-based alternatives. In Mexico, says Waite, investors from the risk tolerant to the risk averse, “will find a rich landscape for a diversified climate portfolio.” Read Marilyn’s column, “How climate investors can build a diversified portfolio in Mexico.”

Keep reading, “Dealmaking takes center stage as impact investors gather in Mérida for FLII,” by Erik Stein.

Dealflow: Energy Transition

BCI and Norges team up with Brookfield to hold renewable energy assets. A trio of powerhouse investors has teamed up to create a renewable energy company that will generate steady cash flow in a turbulent market. British Columbia Investment Management Corp., Norges Bank Investment Management and Brookfield Asset Management have launched Northview Energy, a private company that will acquire and own wind, solar and battery storage assets in the US and Canada. The new company will kick off with a portfolio of energy assets acquired from Brookfield portfolio companies, including Deriva Energy, Scout Clean Energy and Urban Grid, with the option to acquire up to $1.5 billion more in Brookfield-managed assets. “We see a compelling opportunity to build a scaled platform focused on long-term value creation in the energy sector,” said Brookfield’s Jeh Vevaina on LinkedIn. The deal also creates liquidity for Brookfield.

Risk off. Northview’s initial portfolio includes a “de-risked” mix of US-based utility scale solar and onshore wind operations with long-term offtakers, totalling 2.3 gigawatts of energy across six fast-growing power markets. It will look to acquire similar assets with predictable cash flows and long-term contracts with investment grade counterparties. “The platform is designed to be resilient in an evolving energy landscape,” said Lincoln Webb of BCI, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors with $216 billion in assets. For Norges, which manages the $2.1 trillion Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, the deal marks the firm’s foray into renewable energy infrastructure in North America.
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French impact firm Alter Equity backs Shellworks’ eco-friendly cosmetics packaging. London-based Shellworks ferments plant waste to make biodegradable plastic and pigment alternatives for the cosmetics industry. The company raised £11 million ($15 million) in a Series A round led by Paris-based impact firm Alter Equity. Also investing: JamJar Investments, Founder Collective, LocalGlobe, Third Sphere and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. Shellworks says it has reached cost-parity with glass, aluminum and other non-plastic packaging materials. “The conversation around sustainable materials has been dominated by the perception that they’re too expensive for mass adoption,” said Shellworks’ Insiya Jafferjee. “As we scale further, we’ll only get more competitive.” Shellworks’ packaging is used by natural make-up brands, including Wild which was acquired by Unilever last year, Hair by Sam McKnight, Pamela Anderson’s Sonsie.

Policy push. Shellworks is responding to global demand for sustainable packaging, which hit nearly $314 billion last year and is expected to nearly double by 2035. In Europe, new packaging regulations mandate greater use of recycling and recycled materials; the EU is mulling policy additions to support bio-based alternatives. Separately, University of Cambridge spin-out Sparxell last month raised €4.2 million ($5 million) in pre-Series A funding led by Swen Capital Partners to make plant-based pigments for packaging, cosmetics and textiles. And beauty group L’Oréal selected startups developing packaging from seaweed, sugarcane and other plant-based materials as part of the €100 million ($116 million) accelerator it runs in partnership with Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
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PlasmaLeap raises $21 million to build green fertilizer plants on Australian farms. Sydney-based PlasmaLeap builds modular reactors that produce ammonia, nitric acid and other chemicals using air, water and renewable electricity. The carbon-free process targets hard-to-abate sectors that rely on the chemicals, such as agriculture, energy and transportation. PlasmaLeap’s latest A$30 million (about $21 million) raise will support the development of first-of-a-kind plants in Australia that can produce nitrogen fertilizer using its “green” ammonia at local hubs or directly on the farms that need it. The local production also eliminates transportation emissions and ensures a reliable supply of fertilizer. The Series A round “allows us to move from successful trials into real-world deployment, demonstrating how clean, decentralized fertilizer and chemical production can transform agriculture, reduce emissions and guarantee sovereign security of critical resources like food and fuel,” said PlasmaLeap’s Frere Byrne.

Low-carbon transition. “PlasmaLeap has developed a breakthrough platform for fertilizer with lower CO2 emissions,” said Stian Nygaard of Yara Growth Ventures, which led the Series A round with the Gates Foundation and Investible. SVG Ventures, Twynam, Agnition Ventures, part of a New Zealand fertilizer co-operative, and others also invested. Yara Growth Ventures is the venture arm of Yara International, a Norwegian chemical giant that supplies nitrogen fertilizer to global farmers. “We see strong potential for this technology to scale competitively and reduce the climate impact of farming,” Nygaard said. PlasmaLeap is exploring ways to generate carbon credits from its green chemicals production, as well as produce synthetic hydrocarbons used in sustainable aviation and other green fuels.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

TPG’s Rise Fund invested $250 million in Austin-based Findhelp, a “social care technology platform” that links people to verified community services including food, housing and transportation. (TPG)
Aurum Impact, Capricorn Partners, SwissHealth Ventures and other investors backed an €11 million ($12.8 million) seed round for Frankfurt-based Oska Health. The company provides AI-enabled digital medical care for persons with chronic diseases like kidney disease, diabetes and hypertension. (tech.eu)
XeleratedFifty acquired Singapore-based carbon and sustainability management platform Terrascope, from Nupo Ventures, the venture arm of agribusiness group Olam. (XeleratedFifty)
Belgian impact investor Incofin Investment Management secured an exit from Montenegro small business lender Lovćen Banka. Incofin’s stake was sold to real estate developer and existing investor Zetagradnja. (Incofin)
Phatisa’s African Agriculture Fund has sold its majority stake in Zambian affordable egg supplier Goldenlay to Belgium-based feed and protein manufacturer Vanden Avenne Group. The deal will also give an exit to AgDevCo, a long-term debt backer of Goldenlay. (Phatisa)

Impact Voices: Aligning Endowments

Six barriers keeping foundations from impact investing – and how to overcome them. Foundation leaders and other impact investing practitioners gathered in Asheville, NC, this week for Confluence Philanthropy’s 16th annual gathering. One such leader, Stacey Faella of the $90 million Woodcock Foundation, wondered why impact investing continues to be a niche activity among philanthropies, with the largest foundations committing a fraction of their capital to impact, and many foundations engaging in no impact investing at all. “Given the promise and demonstrated results of impact investing, why has it not become standard practice for mission-driven institutions?” Faella asks in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. Among the barriers cited by her peers, and her responses:

“Our investment advisors are the problem.” A lack of advisor expertise is not a structural barrier — it’s a capacity gap, Faella says. Woodcock engages Pathstone, an outsourced chief investment officer, or OCIO, firm to advise and manage its endowment. Firms like Veris Wealth Partners and Sonen Capital have deep expertise in impact investing. Westfuller Advisors partners with Bivium to provide OCIO services to foundations. CapShift has advisory relationships with other RIAs, such as Abacus Wealth Partners. Advisors like Social Finance and ImpactAssets Capital Partners can provide custom, impact-first investment solutions, Faella says. ValuesAdvisor’s online platform can help identify advisors based on geography, portfolio size and impact themes. For more tips, see ImpactAlpha’s Advisors’ Corner.
“We can’t engage because of our fiduciary duty.” Considering the organization’s mission in investment decision-making is not in contradiction to fiduciary duty, Faella says. “It’s actually part of it.” She cites a 2015 notice from the IRS that confirms that foundations can consider how an investment advances its charitable purposes as long as it also exercises prudence. “Fiduciary duty requires prudence, not profit maximization,” Faella writes. “Considering the mission is absolutely allowed.”
“We’re too small” or “We’re place-based.” Faella’s response: A smaller size or a place-based funding focus may confer advantages in impact investing due to proximity to community. She cites the AJL Foundation, with a roughly $16 million endowment and a place-based focus on Colorado in its direct investments and strong shareholder engagement in its public equities portfolio. The Russell Family Foundation – a climate finance leader with roughly $100 million – maintains a focus on the Pacific Northwest for its catalytic investments while prioritizing climate across its globally invested endowment (for more see, “This family foundation is trying to ‘meet the moment’ with all of its $100 million in assets”).
Keep reading, “Six barriers keeping foundations from impact investing – and how to overcome them,” by Stacey Faella.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

The Global Private Capital Association adds four members to its board of directors: Mohamed Gouled of International Finance Corp., Horizon Capital’s Lenna Koszarny, Lucy Heintz of Actis and Michael Buchanan of Temasek… Claire Mongeau, former investor at Founders Factory, joins LGBTQ+ founders-focused venture firm identity.vc as an investment manager… Preston L. James II steps down as CEO of Divinc… Meta Enklaar is stepping down as director of strategy at FMO.

Apollo Agriculture has an opening for a growth associate in Zambia… Swedfund is recruiting an impact analyst in Stockholm… The Earthshot Prize seeks a senior portfolio manager in London… Sustainability-focused digital marketplace Gephra is looking for a founding partner and sustainability and impact lead in Rwanda… Pula is accepting applications for the Pula Xcelerator from companies providing farmer insurance, traceability, identity and registry technology. The application deadline is Friday, March 20… Technoserve is accepting applications for the Growth and Investment Program from agribusinesses in Zambia.