Greetings Agents of Impact!
In today’s Brief:
- Turning healthy aging into a cause for impact investors
- Rural delivery in India
- Streamlining clean energy rebates for homeowners
- Next act for Climate United’s Beth Bafford
Featured: Valuing Aging
Building foundation – and personal – portfolios that value and support aging. By the end of this fall’s Denver gathering of the philanthropy network Grantmakers in Aging, it’s possible a few more foundations will choose to be known also as Impact Investors in Aging. The nearly 150 foundations in the network represent nearly $45 billion in assets. “We think we have some who will follow along and help change how we view aging and how we invest in aging,” says Peter Kaldes, who heads Denver-based Next50, the private foundation that is hosting the October conference, in part to make impact investing a major agenda topic. Next50 is on its own journey to align 100% of its approximately $265 million in assets to support aging. Kaldes will join this Wednesday’s Agents of Impact Call to present Next50’s “aging investment framework,” which sorts opportunities on a spectrum from age-friendly to age-inclusive to age-centered (RSVP now). “It’s a new way of thinking about an age-old problem,” Kaldes tells ImpactAlpha. “It’s not like we didn’t know that we’re going to need capital to bolster the infrastructure around us as we age.” ImpactAlpha and Next50 are partnering to expand coverage of investment opportunities in healthy aging, and to chronicle the foundation’s efforts to align its endowment with its programmatic mission.
- Essential products and services. Kaldes enlisted JPMorgan Chase’s private bank to build a portfolio approach for Next50 and the bank’s other clients as well. The bank now offers “support aging” as a thematic cause that can be applied across public-equities and fixed-income portfolios. “We are already talking to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of clients that have expressed serious interest in the cause,” says JPMorgan’s Preeti Bhattacharji. Bhattacharji will join The Call to share how to construct a portfolio around not both older adults and the process of aging itself. In: Grocery delivery services and other goods and services that help adults affordably “age in place.” Out: Anti-aging creams and other live-forever products that frame aging as a problem to be solved. The approach “is designed to support aging by investing in a corporate world that values older adults’ participation in the workforce, exercises responsibility and non-discrimination in its dealings with older adults, and provides essential products and services to ensure wellbeing throughout the aging process,” Bhattacharji says.
- LP/GP. A handful of private foundations are already expanding their financing toolkits with impact investments. In the UK, Vivensa Foundation, formerly the Dunhill Medical Trust, has set out an impact investing mandate for its £170 million ($228 million) endowment. The SCAN Foundation, based in Long Beach, Calif., invests in supportive services, like home care or affordable housing, as well as in “age-tech” for older adults. “They are the future: a growing demographic whose needs will reshape the economy, from healthcare and housing, to financial services and caregiving,” SCAN’s Brendan Ahern and Xenia Viragh wrote in a guest post last year. Next50 is an LP in Washington, DC-based 1843 Capital, which is focused on the changes needed in social infrastructure to “solve for the 100+ lifespan.” “Marketing to seniors is the worst approach to engage older adults,” says 1843’s Tracy Chadwell, who also will join the Call.
- Keep reading, “Building foundation – and personal – portfolios that value and support aging,” by David Bank.
- Answer the Call. Join Kaldes, Bhattacharji, Chadwell and other Agents of Impact to trade tips on compelling investment opportunities in companies and funds that value and support aging, tomorrow, March 11, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 5pm London. RSVP today.
Dealflow: Economic Inclusion
Rozana raises $31.4 million to provide rural delivery services in India. The Delhi-based startup launched in the pandemic to provide mainstream consumer goods and grocery delivery to rural households. The company’s ordering and distribution model depends on a network of more than 35,000 female agents in the thousands of villages it serves. Rozana serves more than a million households in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, and has expanded its product range to include clothing, electronics, toys and books. It raised 2.9 billion rupees ($31.4 million) in Series B equity financing, led by Bertelsmann India Investments. Fireside Ventures, Spark Growth Ventures, the Bikaji family office, FE Securities and other investors participated.
- Rural market opportunity. Bertelsmann’s argument for investing in India’s rural consumers: Nearly 200 million rural households spend on average about 20,000 rupees ($200) per month on staple products; rural consumption in the country is growing faster than urban consumption. “The rural commerce opportunity is massive and underserved,” Bertelsmann’s Rohit Sood wrote in a post. “Rozana’s model is unique in the way it embeds women entrepreneurs at the center of the supply chain, and builds consumer trust in [India’s] heartland, where traditional e-commerce has struggled.” The equity round will support Rozana’s expansion into at least two other states.
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Coral raises $7.5 million to streamline rebates for US homeowners. New York-based Coral is expanding affordable financing for green home upgrades, such as heat pumps and EV chargers, as the escalating Middle East conflict drives up household oil and gas bills. Coral’s app helps homeowners and HVAC contractors turn slow, complicated energy rebates into upfront discounts for faster installations. “Expecting the average homeowner to pay thousands up front for future energy savings just isn’t realistic,” Coral’s Samir Pendse shared on LinkedIn. “We’ve always believed that the biggest blocker to electricity was something fundamental – affordability.” Pendse says installers have used Coral for 4,000 heat pumps in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York since he launched the startup two years ago. The capital will help Coral’s work in water heaters, batteries and other upgrades and launch “new financing products that reduce the energy burden for building owners.”
- Green infrastructure. Coral’s HVAC partners have reported up to 30% lower upfront installation costs from its instant rebates and financing. Among them is Mitsubishi Electric’s HVAC unit and Watsco, which backed Coral’s $7.5 million seed round. Other investors include Accion Ventures, Twelve Below, Floating Point, Blackhorn Ventures, Remarkable Ventures and New Climate Ventures. “The transition to energy-efficient building infrastructure is one of the most critical shifts of the next decade,” said Vikas Raj of ResilienceVC, which led Coral’s round.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- France-based RGreen Invest and Austria-based Renalfa Solarpro are investing €200 million in Renalfa Power Clusters, a new joint venture for renewable energy projects in Romania and Poland. (OneStop ESG)
- Impact-linked lender Beneficial Returns made two textiles investments in Peru, ImpactAlpha has learned. A loan to Away Pallay from its Reciprocity Fund will support Indigenous Quechua women loomers. Another to Cotton Nation from its larger Main Fund will support small regenerative cotton farmers (see, “Fashion brands step into the aid gap to back regenerative cotton in Peru’s Amazon“).
- GitLab Foundation approved grants to 16 organizations supporting the inclusive use of AI in the workforce, including Accion, the Community Economic Defense Project and SkillUp Coalition. GitLab’s AI for Economic Opportunity Fund works in partnership with OpenAI, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Ballmer Group. (Accion)
- Congruent Ventures led a $25 million equity investment in Zeno, an East African maker of e-bikes and battery-swapping infrastructure. (TechCrunch)
Signals: Deploy!
Beth Bafford departs Climate United as ‘green bank’ legal battle drags on. The Trump administration’s legal war of attrition with green community lenders appears to be winning. As CEO of Climate United, Beth Bafford has been the face of lenders that were awarded $20 billion in federal green grants to stand up a distributed green bank for the US, only to see the funds frozen early last year. Bafford is leaving at the end of the month to join RBC Wealth Management as a financial advisor. Bafford will work with her mother, RBC managing director Patti Baum, whom Bafford calls her “professional and personal idol.” Bafford will continue to advise Climate United and Calvert Impact, which helped stand up the coalition and successfully bid for $7 billion in federal grants to finance community-scale green projects. Such projects could yet lower energy bills, reduce pollution and create green jobs – outcomes made all the more important from rising energy prices driven by AI demand and turmoil in the Middle East. The move is an opportunity for Bafford to “channel more capital from a broader set of investors into the real economy,” she says, as private markets open to retail investors. As for Climate United: “That work will continue. The fight is not over.”
- Writing on the wall. The move is a sign of the long odds facing community lenders against an administration hellbent on snuffing out the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF, the $27 billion Biden-era green bank plan. Climate United will not replace Bafford until the outcome of the legal battle becomes clear. Climate United sued the Environmental Protection Agency to release funds frozen in Citibank accounts since last February. A full appeals court heard the case last month; a decision is not expected for months. Employees of Climate United have moved on or been let go, or have been subsumed within Calvert Impact, where they support compliance and other work relating to the grant program. Calvert’s Jenn Pryce continues to chair Climate United’s board.
- Deal pipeline. When the funding was frozen, Climate United was on the verge of purchasing 500 electric drayage trucks to be used at ports to move shipping containers. “We’re looking at ways to fold that strategy into a broader private capital strategy where we think it might fit,” says Bafford. Without skilled lenders, most of the green infrastructure projects in the robust pipelines of the GGRF lenders have stalled. “There has not been a swell of capital deployment in those spaces,” says Bafford. Climate United hoped to raise outside funding to enable it to continue its work; instead, Bafford says that Calvert Impact is looking to finance some of those projects via its own vehicles, such as its Impact notes and Cut Carbon notes. “We’re continuing to look at the various tools in our toolkit to push the work forward.”
- Keep reading, “Beth Bafford to leave Climate United as ‘green bank’ legal battle drags on” by Amy Cortese.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Iliya Krutko is promoted to senior director of impact investments at Building Hope… Gridworks, an Africa-focused energy access company, promotes Amol Pinge and Shaun Githuku to co-heads of business development… Trust Neighborhoods is looking for an asset manager for its Central Fresno Neighborhood Trust in Fresno, Calif… ResponsAbility joins the 2X Challenge to achieve gender impact through its investment strategies… HealthSpark Foundation is accepting applications for grants from two programs supporting local Black leadership talent and storytelling in Montgomery County, Pa. Applications are open until Friday, March 27.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– March 10, 2026
