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☎️ Agents of Impact Call: Crafting a positive agenda for faith-based impact investors. Can faith-aligned investors become known for what they are for, not just what they’re against? To help such investors move beyond negative screens to a positive agenda, Impact Evaluation Lab’s Terry Keeley and John Coleman of Sovereign’s Capital have developed metrics for “human flourishing” for both fund managers and portfolio companies. Sue Ernster of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and Jean Baptiste de Franssu, recent president of Vatican Bank, will join Keeley and Coleman, in conversation with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank, Wednesday, July 15, at 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm London. RSVP today.
In this week’s LP/GP:
- For Generation, sustainable AI is a generational opportunity
- Ramping up solar and wind energy in India
- Just Climate’s bet on Brazilian data centers
- Toolkit explores expanding ‘alternative ownership’ ecosystem
Featured: Shaping the Algorithm
Generation Investment Management seeks to stamp AI with a mandate for sustainability. Artificial intelligence has been called the technology shift of a lifetime. For Generation Investment Management, it could also be the sustainability shift of, well, a generation. Call it the inconvenient truth about artificial intelligence. Amid the rush of frontier models and data center construction, questions of sustainability are rising to the top of investors’ diligence and estimations. Generation’s Al Gore, who two decades ago brought climate change into the mainstream with “An Inconvenient Truth,” is urging investors to take on the sustainability of the AI transformation, including energy and water impacts, and governance and equity as well. At the SuperReturn conference in Berlin last month, Gore told investors, “We really have to face up to the fact that this technology is advancing so quickly that it is going to challenge not only business models but societal models, civilization models, cultural models.”
- Foundational pillars. The $33 billion asset manager is treating AI like climate: a cross-cutting, systems-level shift that brings both risks and opportunities. It is among the biggest investment firms to make responsible and sustainable AI a cornerstone of its investment strategy and its institutional fundraising. “You’re going to have to have sustainable foundations – like technology stacks, governance of information and private data, safe, secure and protected private foundations – behind these products and services that are solving problems,” Generation’s Lila Preston tells ImpactAlpha. Preston, who co-heads Generation’s growth equity strategy from New York, joined Gore in Berlin to make the investor case for sustainable AI. “The words sustainability and AI aren’t being put together a lot on main stages around the world at conferences with LPs and GPs, which is why we thought it was so important to do that,” she says. “This is a time where we can lend our 20-plus years of experience to one of the biggest system problems we’ve ever encountered.”
- Betting on Brazil. Just Climate, Generation’s investment group for carbon abatement in high-emitting industries, last week invested an undisclosed amount in Twenty Four Seven Data Centers, a São Paulo-based data center developer and operator founded by private equity firm Arch Capital. Generation Investment Management is betting on the market for its potential to power surging global data and AI infrastructure with renewable energy. “Brazil’s clean, abundant energy and rising demand for digital infrastructure make it one of the best places in the world to build a new generation of efficient data centers,” said Just Climate’s Eduardo Mufarej of Just Climate. “We are investing to help it scale a platform that meets demand with a fraction of the carbon footprint of most leading hubs.” Learn more.
- AI for good. The impact of AI on jobs is a “massive question,” that Generation is discussing with its LPs, Preston says. “AI’s net impact will depend on governance, incentives and capital allocation decisions made now,” Generation’s growth equity team writes in its just-released sustainability and impact report. “We aim to allocate capital to ensure it advances human and planetary wellbeing rather than undermining it.” AI could be harnessed to fulfill the sustainability goals that Gore and Generation have been charting for years. A recent study by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Systemiq found that if AI is effectively applied to sectors such as energy, transportation and food systems, it would “outweigh increases from global power consumption of data centers and AI.” As Preston told the SuperReturn crowd: “The sustainability transition is underway. AI is an accelerant. And investors who take a systems lens to understand the intersection of the two will be in the best position.”
- Keep reading, “Generation Investment Management seeks to stamp AI with a mandate for sustainability,” by Amy Cortese.
Live on Edge: Responsible Tech
GPs and LPs investing in ethical and responsible tech. ImpactAlpha is tracking more than 40 GPs with funds investing in responsible tech, good AI and deep tech. Investor appetite is growing, with over 70 LPs backing those funds through 100 allocations.
Dealflow: Energy Transition
CalPERS-backed Inox Clean Energy gets funding from Indian family office to ramp up renewables development. Inox Clean Energy is the renewable energy business of Indian conglomerate INOXGFL Group. The energy company manufactures solar modules and cells, then feeds those into a pipeline of renewable projects that supply power to commercial and industrial customers, energy exchanges and other buyers. Within the next two years, the company is looking to expand its solar manufacturing capacity from about six gigawatts to more than 11 gigawatts, and its portfolio of solar and wind assets from about three gigawatts to 15 gigawatts. To support its growth plans, Inox Clean Energy has been snapping up companies, land and capital. Its latest backer is the family office of Adar Poonawalla, whose father founded the global vaccine giant Serum Institute of India (Adar is the current CEO). The family office invested seven billion rupees ($73.3 million) in Inox Clean Energy via its investment group Rising Sun Holdings.
- Equity and acquisitions. The capital infusion follows a $345 million equity round in January, where CalPERS, the US’s largest public pension, was one of Inox Clean Energy’s primary investors. The pension fund has set a goal of investing $100 billion of its assets into climate-aligned investments by 2030; it has surpassed 60% of its target. CalPERS investment in Inox Clean Energy has supported Inox’s strategic acquisitions, which includes a deal in June to acquire Vena Energy India. Vena has a gigawatt of wind, solar and energy storage assets, as well as seven gigawatts of assets in its development pipeline. In May, Inox inked a deal to acquire the solar manufacturing assets of US-based Boviet Solar Technology. Half of Inox’s solar module manufacturing capacity is now based in the US.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Kuramo Capital Management secured $500 million in new commitments from African pension funds and development finance institutions. They include investments from the Bank of Industry for Kuramo’s Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises vehicle, and backing from Nigerian pensions for Africa Opportunity Fund IV Nigeria. (Kuramo Capital)
- Paris-based RGreen Invest secured €500 million for its fourth Infrabridge infrastructure debt fund, which invests in Europe’s energy transition. The fund attracted commitments from 20 institutional investors, including many new LPs. (RGreen Invest)
- Denmark-based Climentum Capital raised €60 million toward a €100 million goal for its second fund. The fund invests in hardware companies supporting industrial decarbonization, clean energy and manufacturing, and other climate solutions. (Tech.EU)
- Tennessee-based Standard Nuclear, a fuel producer for small-scale nuclear reactors, announced plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The year-old company has raised more than $180 million from Decisive Point, Andreessen Horowitz, Chevron Technology Ventures, StepStone Group, climate and energy transition-focused MCJ Collective and others. (Standard Nuclear)
Impact Voices: Ownership Economy
New and bigger funds expand the ‘alternative ownership’ ecosystem. An updated database of “alternative ownership enterprises” reflects a financing ecosystem that is ever more varied in the types of capital deployed, the scale of vehicles, and the places they serve. Since 2024, Transform Finance has built a fund database for such AOEs – firms that significantly shift economic value and decision-making power to the non-investor stakeholders they impact, such as workers, producers, consumers, community members or even a non-financial purpose. “Its variety – many models, many kinds of capital, many scales and places – that will help [the ecosystem] innovate, endure and let more workers, producers and communities share in the ownership of the businesses that influence their lives,” Transform Finance’s Julie Menter writes in a guest post. Transform Finance and ImpactAlpha have worked together to build out a dataset of Ownership Economy funds on ImpactAlpha Edge, including home ownership, community ownership and employee ownership.
- Varied strategies. Among the new funds in the database is The Mezzanine Fund, based in Cleveland, Ohio, which is a commercial lender that finances ESOP conversions alongside its other middle-market work. AllHold Capital in Philadelphia pairs employee ownership trusts with real estate, aiming to keep both the businesses and the buildings in the hands of workers and their communities. Meroka brings employee ownership to independent physician practices as an alternative to private equity roll ups. Teamshares, which buys small businesses from retiring owners and helps their employees earn company stock over time, trades on the Nasdaq. In addition, several established funds have grown over the past year. Apis & Heritage, which finances conversions to ESOPs for businesses that employ low- and moderate-income workers, surpassed its $250 million target for its second fund, a considerable step up from its first fund of $58 million. Established financiers like LEAF, Evergreen Cooperatives and the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast each added several million dollars to their assets under management.
- Keep reading, “New and bigger funds expand the ‘alternative ownership’ ecosystem,” by Julie Menter of Transform Finance. Catch up on all of ImpactAlpha’s coverage of the Ownership Economy.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
🍻 Agents of Impact Happy Hour. If you’re in New York this Thursday, July 9, join ImpactAlpha’s Dennis Price, Amy Cortese, Joe Whitwell, Brian Walsh and Erik Stein for a drink with fellow Agents of Impact at The Standard near the High Line. RSVP.
Michelle Hassan and Peter Gross are promoted to co-executive directors of BFA Global. Hassan takes on the role of global portfolio executive director, while Gross will lead partnerships and growth… DIV Fund, launched by the team that ran the Development Innovation Ventures program at USAID, is hiring a director of evidence and impact analytics, an investment manager and an investment associate.
The Collaborative for Frontier Finance is recruiting an investment and learning associate in Kenya… The Netherlands’ Invest International is looking for an intern, based in The Hague… Australia-based Beanstalk AgTech is launching a venture studio for tech companies supporting smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia. It’s hiring a head of studio, a partnerships lead, and a venture lead.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– July 8, 2026