Thanks to Dennis Price and Amy Cortese for this week's #impinv recap.
The Week in impact investing: Abundance agenda
?? Build with us. As a scarcity mindset grips Washington, abundance is catching on as an alternative framework. In?“Abundance,”?the book, Ezra Klein?and?Derek Thompson?argue that?increasing the supply?and decreasing the costs of housing, energy, healthcare, and education can give people more of what they need and want. Trump-friendly elements of Silicon Valley have jumped on board. “It’s time to build for America,” was the theme of?Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamism conference this week.
Agents of Impact have long been busy building for an abundant future. Impact investors have allocated $1.5 trillion+ to deploy clean energy faster and to build more of what people need and want.
Bay Area Equity Fund (now DBL Partners) was among the earliest to invest in a fledgling EV startup called Tesla, as was the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Loan Programs Office. Today’s impact investors are developing new models to finance business transitions to employee ownership. Roodgally Senatus reported on Canada’s?first employee ownership trust.
Abundance was an organizing principle behind Biden-era policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which spurred massive private sector investment in chips, EVs and included channels to finance faster, better, cheaper green infrastructure.
In a tough market, PE fund managers are?differentiating themselves on impact, as Amy reported from SuperReturn. But federal financing for that abundance agenda is rapidly being rooted out. Community lenders fought back against Trump’s effort to terminate?the nation’s virtual “green bank,” over a judge’s objection, and new?efforts to slash?the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund), despite bipartisan support.
Humanitarian aid from the US has helped build vulnerable countries’ ability to combat diseases and support refugee populations. Ellen Brooks?of the International Rescue Committee acknowledges some aid programs were inefficient or flawed.?Her plan:?“build from the ground up as partners,” and “co-design solutions with Indigenous knowledge and communities.”
In emerging markets, fund managers are rethinking how to raise and deploy capital. Altree Capital is offering revenue-based financing?and convertible debt to small businesses addressing climate and gender challenges, as?Lucy Ngige?reported. Fund managers also are betting on biochar in Texas, alt-proteins in Asia and impact tech in Brazil,?wrote Jessica Pothering.
Impact investors looking to go beyond point solutions are building, or rebuilding, whole systems, wrote?Falko Paetzold?of the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth and?Jason Jay of?the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. Systems to deliver sustainable and inclusive abundance for all is an agenda we should all get behind.
https://lnkd.in/gTU-r-Ui
