The latest additions to ImpactAlpha’s Liist of actively raising impact funds features managers in the market with strategies to accelerate shared economic ownership and community empowerment.
Seed Commons Shared Capital Pool
Seed Commons is raising its first fund to facilitate lending to worker-owned cooperatives in the US and Canada. The New York-based nonprofit’s shared capital pool will provide financing to its network of nearly three dozen community lenders, which on-lend to “businesses that create sustainable, equitable economic opportunities, prioritizing historically marginalized communities,” the fund manager says. “We provide non-extractive capital that allows cooperatives to grow while keeping wealth within their communities.”
Seed Commons has directed $70 million to worker-owned businesses since 2011. “Our approach has demonstrated that investing in worker cooperatives is both impactful and financially viable,” Seed Commons says.
The shared capital pool has a $50 million fundraising target.
Regenerative Capital Group
Canada-based Regenerative Capital Group is helping diverse entrepreneurs build equity in small businesses in need of an a succession plan or exit strategy. Through its first fund, the firm provides technical assistance and capacity support to a cohort of five entrepreneurs as they identify and diligence promising local businesses to acquire. Deals that advance will be acquired by the fund; equity will be vested back to the cohort entrepreneurs as they achieve both impact and financial growth targets.
Regenerative Capital has raised $17 million for the planned $25 million fund.
Rethink Community
Rethink Capital Partners’ real estate group is raising a $25 million fund to develop and acquire workforce housing. The firm parters with local organizations to deliver “critically needed workforce housing while generating measurable social impact alongside attractive financial returns,” the team says.
In Maryland, for example, Rethink is partnering with Morgan State University, a historically Black university, to build off-campus student housing that can accommodate nearly 475 students. In Nashville, Tenn., Rethink is developing a 48-acre mixed-use property that includes workforce housing both for purchase and rent.
Afterglow Climate Justice Fund
Candide Group is in the market with a $65 million fund to support climate resilience among low-income and climate-vulnerable communities in the US.
The Afterglow Climate Justice Fund aims to support communities’ representation and agency in the climate crisis by making debt investments to community-centered clean energy developers. The loans finance distributed generation solar installation projects, electric vehicles and green buildings in historically marginalized communities. A loan to Capital Good Fund, for example, will help non-profits and social enterprises in Georgia switch to clean energy and boost energy resilience from extreme weather events.
Afterglow is structured so that 30% of the capital is subordinated, to provide a risk buffer to senior investors. It has secured funding from seven foundations and 22 private investors.
Afterglow is Candide Group’s second fund.
