Impact Management | February 26, 2019

First look at ImpactAssets’ 2019 list of 50 impact fund managers

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

ImpactAlpha, February 26 – ImpactAssets, the San Francisco-based financial services firm, is out with its annual list of fund managers “meant to demonstrate a wide range of impact investing activities across geographies, sectors and asset classes.”

The “IA50,” now in its eighth year, has become a Who’s Who of impact fund managers.

This year’s list again features a half dozen fund managers with more than $1 billion in assets. But albeit a slightly different set. Kairos Investment Management Company ($1.1B), North Sky Capital ($1.2B), LeapFrog Investments ($1.2B) and Enterprise Community Partners ($12.9B) repeat as billion-dollar fund managers on the ImpactAssets 50 list. Turner Impact Capital ($1B) and Low income Investment Fund ($1B) round out 2019’s list (Bridges Fund Management and Finance in Motion appeared the list last year). A full 22 fund managers manage more than $250 million in assets.

Newcomers to this year’s ImpactAssets 50 include Western Europe-based small-business lender Advance Global Capital; Chicago’s women-owned and led Impact Engine, which invests in U.S and Canadian companies tackling social and environmental challenges; SunFunder, the Nairobi-based solar financing company that has raised more than $100 million across its fund to lend to solar businesses in Africa (see “SunFunder secures $42.5 million for its largest energy access fund); Strategic Development Solutions, a woman-owned manager of U.S and Canada-based real estate and private equity funds targeting low-income communities; and WaterEquity, co-founded by actor Matt Damon, which deploys capital to water and sanitation enterprises in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Long-time IA 50 annual stalwarts are back again the year, including HCAP Partner, DBL Partners and SJF Ventures. On again, off again, now back on again: Developing World Markets, Alterfin, Craft3 and RSF Social Finance.

Criteria for inclusion on the list includes: three years of impact investing experience; at least $10 million in assets; a commitment to impact (and to measuring it). ImpactAssets is quick to point out that the list is not an index, nor a competition. “It is an information resource to begin research on the impact investing sector.”