Investment

In Finland, social impact bonds are showing success in tackling long-term employment. Jussi Nykänen, a co-founder of FIM Impact Investment, the first impact investment fund management company in the Nordics, explains how.

Crowdfunding has emerged as an interesting tool for impact businesses to find venture capital. According to some Dutch crowdfunding platforms, more investors are willing to invest even without interest.

Sustainable investor Impax Asset Management topped the milestone of £30bn of assets under management in March as it continues to grow exponentially. “Covid has reinforced our investment case,” said founder and CEO Ian Simm.

Goodwell Investments, the oldest impact investor in the Netherlands, has started a €50mn fund aimed at fast-growing small and medium-sized companies in Africa.

Investors who want to get into impact tend to focus too much on which investment products they should go for, according to Patrick Briaud of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Instead, start with what impact you want to make.

Artificial intelligence, combined with the boom in cloud computing, has huge investor potential in a wide variety of areas, from identifying and treating diseases to managing environmental impacts in industry and farming.

Buoyed by a successful rollout of its data protection laws, or GDPR, the European Union has now set its sights on regulating artificial intelligence (AI). Impact Investor explores the implications.

Many European impact fund managers delayed the launch of new funds as a result of the global pandemic last year, but will go to market this year.

The job market for sustainable investment roles has become so overheated that some firms are being priced out of the market for the best talent.
Impact investment funds, however, can still pick and choose. “I’ve got a plethora of candidates that really want to get into impact.”

No need to reinvent the wheel: in our regular column ‘The Expert’ impact investing pros share their lessons from the field. This week, Alexander Gangnus of Dennemeyer IP Consulting on assessing impact in company valuations.