Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Quality of Life Improving; Tolerance, Inclusion Declining, Report Says

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Source: Social Progress Index Report 2017

Quality of life across the world is improving, but tolerance, personal safety and inclusion are declining, says this year’s 2017 Social Progress Index (or SPI), an annual score that compares 128 countries using various key indicators in the areas of basic human needs, well-being and opportunities for advancement.

Is It a Happiness Index?

What the SPI Is

“The SPI is designed so that ordinary citizens can get a very quick read on how well or poorly their countries are performing in areas that matter to them: health care, education, rights,” says Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation.

“The tool can also provoke citizens to demand accountability from the decision-makers responsible for strengthening institutions they care about.”

Notable Trends

While there is a strong correlation between GDP per capita and SPI, economic development and social progress is not exactly linear. Among G20 nations, SPI scores are flatlining. The reports attribute the flatlining trend to “increasing social inequity arising from the concentration of wealth and power into fewer hands, a greater divide between the very rich and the very poor, and a stagnating middle class.”

How Countries Ranked

Social Progress Ranking by Country. Source: Social Progress Index 2017

Northern European countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway topped the rankings. Yemen, Guinea and Afghanistan were among the lowest countries ranked.

The United States came in at #18 behind Spain and Japan, but ahead of France and Portugal.

A small group of 15 countries, mainly in Central America or sub-Saharan Africa, declined in their overall score. Hungary stood out with the largest decline among European countries, driven largely by changes in tolerance and inclusion.

Michael Green: What the Social Progress Index can reveal about your country. Click or Tap to Watch the Video. Source: TED Talks

Social Economies in Asia Need to Improve, Report Says

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Southeast Asia's most challenging SDG is the footprint or the impact of human activity on its land and water areas. Source: Asian Venture Philanthropy Network

The Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) conference in Bangkok, Thailand this month in June saw several hundred attendees huddle over three days to get a sense of the social investment opportunities in Asia.

One key takeaway from the event is the need for the region to march its social economies and SDG scores in lockstep with its noteworthy economic growth in past decades.

During the conference, two reports by AVPN evidenced the need – one covering north and south Asia (China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Taiwan) and the other covering southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

Who Scored High Vs Low

How Countries in the Region Scored

Singapore, India and South Korea have the most mature social economies while Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia have the most opportunities to improve. For a country to have a “mature” social economy, AVPN says, a number of “actors” must be in play in its social ecosystem – government, social investors, social ventures and intermediaries.

Asia SDG Goal Dashboard. South Korea topped the charts. Source: Asian Venture Philanthropy Network

Southeast Asia’s most challenging SDG is the footprint or the impact of human activity on its land areas.  A dashboard of the report – a sea of red scores – notes that environmental issues are numerous – climate risk, natural resources management, sustainable management of its forests, management of energy access and infrastructure.

Government involvement varies widely across the region. A number of organizations suffer formal state or legal entity recognition and thus find it very difficult to attract investment. Instead, intermediaries have been taking up government’s mantle whether those activities have involved partnerships, incubations or collaborations.

One bright spot – South Korea is the only east Asian country that legally recognizes social enterprises. The country offers a number of useful incentives including payroll subsidies, sales channel partnerships and preferential procurement from social enterprises.

The South Korean government is also the largest social investor and incubator in the small country. The Korean Social Enterprise Promotion Agency (KoSEA), a state-run incubator for social enterprises, the Korea Social Investment Fund (KSIF), the Korean Poverty Reduction Fund (KPRF), the Seoul Social Economy Network, are well established. (see TechCrunch’s coverage in 2016)

South Korea is also among advanced Asian economies like Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore that are starting to practice ESG when making investment decisions, and paving the way for practicing responsible investments, making more types of investments more mainstream.

Some of the vehicles that are emerging include ESG bonds, socially responsible exchange traded funds (ETFs), corporate sustainability indices and green bonds.

Wealth Changing Hands

Social economies aside, the Asian region remains a substantial magnet for wealth management.

The region’s aging billionaires will at some point pass the wealth baton, Wayne Ma and Jake Watts of the Wall Street Journal assert. Opportunities are sure to be found as younger heirs to that wealth face new challenges.

Sources: AVPN, Techcrunch, Wall Street Journal

Matter Ventures Selects 12 Media-For-Good Startups

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Linsly Donnelly's SmartFeed makes navigating the world of digital media a whole lot easier for parents, offering better control over what their kids watch, play and share. Source: Smartfeed.

San Francisco-based accelerator and investor Matter Ventures has announced 12 startups in New York and in San Francisco for its intensive five-month accelerator program focusing on media-for-good.

The startups each gets $50,000 in seed funding plus $75,000 to cover the program costs, and will get opportunities to refine their offerings, present entrepreneurial ventures at monthly design/sprint reviews, and pitch to audiences on both coasts at a final Demo Day event.

Media For Good

Why This Matters in 2017

In a year when public trust in the media is at an all-time low, with a new administration that often refers to the news media as “the enemy of the American people,” Matter Venture’s 2017 cohort calls for more “experiments to help create a more informed, inclusive, and empathetic society.”

“The seeds of the next great media institutions will be planted this year by courageous entrepreneurs who make the leap to build ventures that speak truth to power, close the empathy gap, and take a radically inclusive approach to amplifying the voices of all people,” the announcement added.

“Media is probably at its most dynamic, most evolutionary time in its history,” says Shane Smith CEO of Vice Media, after raising $450 million from TPG this past week to “build the largest millenial video library in the world.”

“With Facebook and Google taking an ever-growing piece of the online advertising pie, looming ‘skinny bundles’ and OTT/DTC offerings exploding the media status quo – networks have to be nimble, smart and fast moving,” Smith added

The Cohort

In San Francisco:

CivNet – its stated mission with its media platform is to empower individuals to make change and to help groups and organizations collaborate across siloes.

The Establishment – aims to provide a platform to anyone who’s been shut out of the conversation, underrepresented or excluded from journalism, or denied representation in the mainstream media.

In the Room – building an app that’s focused on the micro – connecting people closer to communities in which they live.

Nametag – secure platform to have safe conversations with people you trust.

Smartfeed – “good media” platform tailored for kids. This post’s spotlight photo. Started by two moms.

Signl.fm – platform to help improve social sharing and discovery of podcasts which has been increasing in popularity.

In New York:

DADA – social media platform for “visual people and art that spans the world.”

Grafiti – smarter social media conversations, “tool-for-truth” platform.

Rewire – secure and private communications platform for a “free and democratic society.

Purple – platform to directly connect audiences to trustworthy sources of news via messaging.

Multimer – empathy maps analytics platform using novel biosensor technology, building wearables to measure emotional impact in cities. See Wired Magazine’s profile of the technology used to build a bike map called “MindRider.”

Vigilant – single public records search interface, accessible via an API, of data ranging from governmental legislation, to court decisions and budgeting in the U.S. Over 194,000 data sets are being mined.

Is Philanthropy Anti-Populist?

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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David Callahan, Founder of Inside Philanthropy. Credit: Kuow Photo/ David Hyde

Populism that is sweeping parts of the U.S. nation and the world may be starting to creep into philanthropy.

“Elites often know best about how to advance the common good,” David Callahan argues at Inside Philanthropy. “But if funders won’t say such a thing aloud, the truth is that many believe exactly that … [except] America is in the midst of an epic backlash against elites, one that’s put a reality TV maestro in the White House.”

What's At Stake

Kristin A. Goss and Jeffrey M. Berry similarly argues at HistPhil that the populist surge now poses at least 3 challenges to elite philanthropy. “Will philanthropies reorient their giving – and their public voice – in a sustained way to counter threats to a high-functioning, civil, and inclusive democracy?

As this larger debate swirls around us, few leading foundations and philanthropists appear to be grasping what may be at stake.”

Why These Emerging Views Matter

The act of impact investing, intentionally investing for the purpose of change, positive good and financial return, is seen by many as a type of natural evolution of Philanthropy 2.0.

“Philanthropy is transitioning to impact investing, which is really having a Theory of Change around an idea, using your institution’s resources, to really have a focus area, have an impact, measure those results, and hold yourselves accountable for driving change,” former Goldman Sachs executive and now Whitehouse adviser Dina Habib Powell explained last year.

Dina Habib Powell, head of Goldman Sachs’ Impact Investing business and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, and former assistant secretary of state, discuss the private sector’s crucial role in job creation, female empowerment, and the global spread of economic development and opportunity. Click or Tap to watch the video. Source: American Enterprise Institute.

A populist-driven backlash against perceptions of philanthropy as “elitist” may touch impact investing as likewise a “haven for the elites.”

In many ways, this evolution is unavoidable. Modern philanthropy, dubbed “Philanthropy 2.0” in some circles, recognizes that yesterday’s Rockefeller and Carnegie solo approaches make it harder to make impact that scales and is sustainable.

Today’s networked approaches to philanthropy and investing with intentionality acknowledge that to solve big problems like malaria, hunger or climate change, it is not only necessary to deploy large funding but also the right levels of infrastructure that allows organizations, like the Gates Foundation for example, to double their impact output.

Redefining Roles

David Callahan suggests these are good reasons enough for the sector to engage in its own introspection about elite power.

“The larger backdrop here, of course, is that America is in the midst of an epic backlash against elites, one that’s put a reality TV maestro in the White House. So far, philanthropy has been insulated from this broader convulsion, but there are good reasons for the sector to engage in its own introspection about elite power. Some of that introspection is already occurring, to be sure, with new conversations underway about how philanthropoids and coastal do-gooders might get out of their supposed “bubbles.”

Still, there’s not yet much discussion about the bigger question regarding how much sway private philanthropy—and a growing class of savvy “super-citizens”—should have over public life in a democratic society like ours.”

As do Goss and Berry.

“Philanthropy is a critical element in the American system of interest articulation and representation. Philanthropic dollars support civil society organizations, which provide a voice to everyday people.

The election has provoked a surge in democratic engagement as evidenced by large and sustained protest marches, booming membership in legacy organizations such as the League of Women Voters, and the formation of political organizations urging constituents to speak out and even run against their elected officials.

Spontaneous individual donations of money and time have fueled this surge in engagement, yet thus far there is little evidence that leading foundations see a new or expanded role for themselves in these movements.

To be sure, some leading philanthropies and their donors have responded to the times. They have done so by verbally affirming their support for progressive causes, by providing new funds to organizations representing those commitments, or both.

In terms of funding, the Rockefeller Foundation has given $1.5 million to buttress civil rights and liberties; the California Endowment has allocated $25-million to support health care for vulnerable children; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $20-million for reproductive health organizations harmed by the revived “global gag rule.” Pierre Omidyar has announced a $100 million effort to shore up journalism, and George Soros has pledged $10 million to combat hate crimes.

Likewise, the Center for Effective Philanthropy found in a recent survey that almost 30 percent of 162 foundation CEOs intended to make changes in light of Trump administration initiatives.

It’s possible that such changes haven’t been implemented yet. Perhaps America’s foundations are lumbering giants that just move slowly.”

Sources: Inside Philanthropy, HistPhil, New York Times, Alliance Magazine

Impact Investing Deal Report – June 21, 2017

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Julia combines the versatility of Python and R with the speed of C, its makers claim. Source: Juliacomputing

Open-source language Julia’s creator Julia Computing snags $4.6 million, ride-hail services Grab’s $1.5 billion (in talks) and Ola’s $50 million were among this past week’s notable deal news, but perhaps not as big as news of Whole Foods’ acquisition by Amazon.

Long vs Short

Freshly, a New York-based prepared meal delivery service, has raised $77 million in Series C funding. Co-founder and CEO Michael Wystrach has pitched the startup as a way to get healthy, on-demand meals. Based in New York, New York.

Goodera – a platform that connects companies with nonprofits, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding. Goodera’s platform allows companies and non-profit organisations complete visibility over the progress of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, as well as measure-impact assessment. Based in Bengaluru, India.

Julia Computing –  this week’s spotlight, the creator of open source programming language Julia, has raised $4.6 million. Julia is an emerging, modern open-source language for data science, machine learning and scientific computing, and which is now being used in areas like healthcare to model cancer genomes or like transportation to simulate self-driving cars and aviation safety. Julia combines the functionality, ease-of-use and syntax of other languages like R, Python, Matlab, SAS or Stata with the speed, capacity and performance of C, C++ or Java. Based in Bengaluru, India and Berkeley, California.

Grab – a ride-hail company focused on Southeast Asia, is in talks with Alibaba new $1.5 billion funding round. Based in Singapore.

Lingokids – a language learning platform to teach young kids a second or third language, has raised $4 million in new VC funding. Based in Madrid, Spain.

Mobike – Chinese bike-sharing startup announced last week that it has raised $600 million in new funding led by Tencent ― on top of the $300 million that Mobike raised just a few months back. Based in Shanghai, China. [See the related post of bike-sharing provider Limebike in March]

Modacruz – a leading mobile, online and social marketplace of second hand women fashion items in Turkey, has raised $2 million in Series B funding. Based in Istanbul, Turkey.

Ola – ride-hail and cab aggregator company reportedly has raised $50 million in new funding. Based in Bengaluru, India. Softbank, which also funded Grab this past week, led the raise and now has a 40% stake in the company.

Syntimmune – a biotech startup working on rare immune diseases, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. Syntimmune’s leaders believe their company has found a way to block the immune system’s attack on the body. Based in New York, New York.

Wonderschool – a new platform that aims to solve America’s expensive daycare quagmire by enabling qualified childcare providers to open in-home daycares and preschools, has raised $2 million in seed funding. Based in San Francisco, California.

Other relevant news

Travis Kalanick has resigned from Uber, the same week that Grab in SE Asia is poised to grab an additional $1.5 billion in funding from investors like Softbank.

Source: ValuePenguin.

At least one report says that Grab has a better ride-hailing experience, and is cheaper, than Uber in Asia.

The main reason is that Grab charges a lower base fare than Uber does. Consequently, Grab has consistently beat Uber in terms of download ranking, according to data collected from the Apple App Store.

Amazon is buying its “first customer” by buying Whole Foods in a $13.7 billion deal announced last Friday – and in a good analysis why by Ben Thompson of Stratechery.  In separate news, Amazon is also interested in workplace productivity software maker Slack.

Sources: Crunchbase, TechCrunch, SEC, New York Times

Carbon Tax Plan Announced by Big Oil

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Source: Climate Leadership Council

Big oil companies and other American corporations have endorsed a carbon “tax and dividend” plan that has been suggested by some elder leaders of the Republican Party as the “most efficient and effective way” to tackle climate change.

The Idea

By making energy derived from fossil fuels more expensive, the free market will move more quickly and effectively toward renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions.

Pollution or Tax Shield?

Pollution Shield?

While the proposal has been touted as a free market, “conservative climate solution,” it also calls for the rolling back of Obama-era climate regulations and shields polluting companies from lawsuits over their contribution to climate change.

“It would scrap many existing pollution controls,” according to Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.

What the Idea Assumes

A market-driven approach will have the same effect in reducing emissions as regulations would.

Its Backers

Laurene Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs and philathropist, James A. Baker III and George P. Shultz, both former secretaries of state, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton. Four major oil companies, environmental groups and other leaders – see the full list.  And the full ad on the Wall Street Journal.

Key Message

“We expect that when the moment is right, the companies will lend their lobbying weight to our plan,” Ted Halstead, the chief executive of the Climate Leadership Council, who also said the group did not accept or is seeking corporate contributions. It will instead seek funding from philanthropies, donors and other possible private [investing] parties.

Sources: New York Times, EcoWatch, Axios, CLC Council, Phys.org

Finding Talent A Bottleneck, Shortlist Founder Asserts

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Paul Breloff of Shortlist

Human talent has become a bottleneck and impediment to impact investing’s growth, argues Paul Breloff, Yale Law School alumni, former Managing Director of the Accion Venture Lab, and now CEO of Shortlist, who helps source and screen high-performing talent in emerging markets.

A number of factors, Mr. Breloff explains, could explain the issue (paraphrased):

Why? Read More
  • No owner: Most funders are issue- or sector-specific, and talent who belongs to neither often slips through the cracks.
  • No comfort zone: Most impact investors come from financial backgrounds and are more comfortable talking money than people.
  • No easy answers: Structural issues like local education systems and globalization; individual differences in personality, circumstances and abilities; firm-level differences in organizational context and culture resist easy fixes.
  • No success stories: There hasn’t been human capital poster children yet but impact-oriented talent players like RippleWorks, Omidyar Network’s human capital team, African Leadership Network, Spire, and Breloff’s own company Shortlist can start to change this.
  • No convening body: Lack of centralized talent network focusing on entrepreneurs, and impact investor communities.

Opportunities to Action

“We need more pioneering investors to see this as an area of great opportunity.

Omidyar Network has been a leader here, setting up an in-house “human capital” team to help their investees attract, develop and retain top talent – but I’m not aware of other impact investors who have shown such commitment.

Organizations like Argidius Foundation, Blue Haven Initiative and AHL Venture Partners (all funders of ours) have made human capital a focus area, but they are the exceptions (unless the broad bucket of “education” or “edtech” counts).

At Shortlist, we just went through a fundraising process and heard a similar refrain from many impact investors: “Human capital is not within scope or is not a mandate fit,” or “human capital only counts as ‘impact’ if focused on people making less than $2 a day.” I’m hoping more investors and funders start to see this as an important issue with the promise of system-level impact, up and down the salary scale.

Even for investors who don’t start investing in human capital companies, I hope they can focus more actively on human capital issues within portfolio companies. When making an investment, go deeper than assessing the co-founder biographies: Spend time understanding the organizational structure, staffing plans, recruitment strategies, training programs and the company’s values.

I’ve seen impact investors spend weeks digging through financial models, formation documents and board minutes, but not ask a single question about the culture and sub-C-suite team.

If investors cared more about people, so would entrepreneurs – you can help entrepreneurs prioritize people just by asking about them.

We also have an opportunity to learn from mainstream global trends around the future of work and the evolving higher education landscape. It’s a heady time with many calling for the unbundling and disruption of higher education, the digitization of economic opportunity, and new tools to help companies find, recruit, manage and train talent. Let’s learn from the best and bring these new practices and technologies into our markets and investments.”

About Shortlist

After helping businesses launch in Kenya and other emerging markets for 12 years, Paul Breloff co-founded Shortlist after he saw that there was little to no way for companies to acquire the talent to help propel those same firms to growth.

The company has been operating in Kenya for about a year. Read a short profile of Shortlist and Paul Breloff at TheFounder.

Vodafone’s WIP 2017 Winners Announced in Chicago

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Wiper, a wireless anti-poaching collar, was among the Vodaphone Wireless Innovation Project's winners. Source: Vodaphone WIP

Vodafone Americas Foundation’s ninth annual Wireless Innovation Project (WIP), a competition for life-changing connected innovations, announced the winners of its contest in June at Landmark Venture’s Social Innovation Summit 2017 event in Chicago.

Meet the Winners

PathVis – a smartphone-based platform that helps detects and help track infectious disease outbreaks, gets the $300,000 first place prize.

WIPER – a wireless anti-poaching collar gets the $200,000 second place prize.

DreamSave – a mobile financial services solution gets the third-place prize of $100,000.

***
The Announcement

“The winners of this year’s Wireless Innovation Project continue the program’s reputation of honoring promising wireless and mobile innovations designed to impact the global community,” said Andrew Morawski, Board of Directors Chairman and President, Vodafone Americas Foundation.

“PathVis, WIPER, and DreamSave represent the vast possibilities that technology can bring to solving critical issues such as diseases, wildlife, and financial inclusion. They join the 24 previous winners who have received Vodafone Americas Foundation support through the competition to help bring their innovation to scale.

• First Place (US $300,000) PathVis – A smartphone-based detection platform built to directly detect and help track infectious diseases afflicting over 250 million people world-wide. This detection technology uses a novel, breakthrough method to obtain results in less than 30 minutes- which can provide health organizations with real-time surveillance data to decrease costs and increase efficiency in identifying outbreaks and preventing further spread of disease. PathVis plans to leverage the prize money to specifically fight against cholera, as it is a highly infectious disease affecting roughly 1.3 to 4 million people each year, resulting in 21,000 to 143,000 deaths worldwide.

• Second Place (US $200,000) WIPER – A wireless anti-poaching collar for elephants and other animals across Africa that uniquely combines tracking and gunshot detection technology to automatically send the location of poaching events to authorities in real time. WIPER hopes to be a strong asset in combating poaching and saving rapidly declining elephant and rhino populations. The African elephant population sharply decreased by 20 percent over the past 10 years2 , primarily due to illegal poaching, while the rhino population has plummeted more than 97 percent since 1960.3 WIPER can disrupt poaching and prevent irreparable damages to the environmental ecosystem through pioneering ballistic shockwave detection, a tool that cannot be tricked by gun mufflers regularly used by poachers.

• Third Place (US $100,000) DreamSave – An innovative mobile solution with the potential to help millions of unbanked members of informal savings groups around the world break the cycle of poverty. With this tool, people who have been invisible to the global economy will have direct access to a wide range of modern financial services, even if they live miles from the nearest bank. DreamSave will leverage mobile money integration, machine learning, behavioral science, and ground breaking new technology optimized for remote areas with limited internet access. By designing DreamSave as part of a broader digitally-connected community, users will also have access to a wide range of related services, unlocking their potential to create lasting social and economic change.

Generation’s Deliberative Process for Choosing Deals

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Al Gore and David Blood, in Generation’s New York City Office. August 25, 2015. Photo by: Christopher Griffith

By at least one report, the largest sustainable investment strategy is “exclusionary screening,” $15 trillion or 65% of the $23 trillion managed globally.

Viewing “ethics” essentially as a minus, or a “negative” unavoidable cost of doing the right thing, it is the opposite approach of how people at Generation Investment Management, a company that is rarely mentioned in mainstream media coverage of former Vice President Al Gore, chooses its deals.

The Al Gore Approach

Generation’s “Narrow” Spectrum

Until 200 years ago, Al Gore contends, in a warm profile of Generation in the November 2015 issue of The Atlantic by James Fallows, that most people could not see and hence did not think that the non-visible parts of the light spectrum even existed.

“We were blind and didn’t know what we couldn’t see,” Gore suggests.

Most of what is called “financial” analysis today — price-to-earnings ratios, market caps, CNBC punditry, Federal Reserve speculation — is equivalent to the same tiny slice of the entire spectrum the human eyes can see, Gore believes.

It involves subtly shifting investment optics from “negative screening” to “holistic” and “sustainable” view as business plusses, “in the service of long-term greed.” The new approach helps better meet investor appetites for profitability and seeking alpha, as well as today’s proclivities for seeking sustainability.

Backed By Research

Source: Arabesque Partners

The most comprehensive recent research in this field, the Atlantic article acknowledges, was released last year by economists at Oxford University in collaboration with the investment firm Arabesque.

The study discussed the notion of materiality, like SASB’s implementation, and of ESG, the notion that in addition to normal profit-and-loss calculations, a firm ought to consider the environmental, social, and governance effects of what it does.

The Oxford/Arabesque report found strong evidence that “it is in the best economic interest for corporate managers and investors to incorporate sustainability considerations into decision-making processes.”

Theory to Practice

The road map. Generation originates candidate investment decisions via a set of “road map” reports, long-term views of business, environmental, and social aspects of emerging technologies or markets.

The focus list. Generation next researches specific firms, based on outputs of the roadmapping process and other inputs.

Active ownership. Generation then makes the deals, and actively participates in strategic and tactical operational reponsibilities to help the firms it invests in realize their potential.

Sample Recent Deals

– $55 million investment into Proterra, the EV bus maker.

– 5.25 million shares long into Cerner Corp, healthcare network software maker and recent awardee of a VA contract in June.

– 15.5 thousand shares long into Ansys Inc., maker of engineering simulation software used in the creation of rockets, cars, and even smartphones.

– 1.02 million shares long into Cooper Cos Inc., manufacturer of specialty healthcare products through its CooperVision and CooperSurgical units.

Read Some More -> The Atlantic, Oxford-Arabesque ESG

Impact Investing Deal Report – June 14, 2017

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Proterra's all electric buses have a range of 350 miles. Firms like Tesla are not far behind if not in front. Source: Proterra

Transportation innovators Proterra, Ponycar, Supr Daily and Mercadoni are among the notable investing deals this past week. Nearly $85 million was raised for the 4 firms this week.

Proterra was among the investments profiled in the Atlantic by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management firm.

Long vs Short

Alto Pharmacy – provides a digital pharmacy backend and technology platform, has raised $23 million in Series B funding. Formerly known as ScriptDash, the startup is based in San Francisco, California.

Mercadoni– a grocery delivery app and service startup based in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina, has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding. The startup claims its platform helps avoid for its approximately 250,000 customers about 4 hours per week in Latin American cities ranked by Waze as among having the most chaotic traffic in the world.

Neosurgical – developer of medical devices for laparoscopic abdominal surgery, or wound healing system, has raised $5.5 million in new equity funding. Based in Dublin, Ireland.

Eloxx Pharmaceuticals – develops therapeutics to treat complex and incurable genetic diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis, Cystinosis, Duchene Muscular Dystrophy and Rett Syndrome, has raised $24 million in VC funding. Based in Israel.

Platelet BioGenesis – for its platform to produce human platelets from stem cells for therapeutic applications, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ponycar – electric vehicle rental company (see last week’s Yibuyongche), has raised around $22 million in new VC funding. Phonemaker Oppo was notably among the investors. Based in Shenzhen, China.

Proterra – this week’s spotlight, an all-electric zero-emission EV bus maker, has raised $55 million in a sixth-round funding from BMW i Ventures and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management. It was among who was profiled in Atlantic’s warm coverage of Al Gore and Generation in 2015. Based in Greenville, South Carolina, and Burlingame, California.

Source: MarketWatch

“Tesla managed to surpass Ford’s market cap in part because investors value the potential of its electric drivetrain technology,” analyst and co-head of Growth Equity Colin LeDuc. says. “Proterra offers a similar value for the bus market.”

Proterra buses claim a range of 350 miles (comparable to Tesla’s now top range of 335 miles in its Model S 100D or its rumored semi-truck that is expected to debut later this year).

With battery costs falling and EV technology improving, Proterra is poised to deliver. The company has sold more than 375 vehicles to municipal, university and commercial transit agencies throughout the U.S. See another video on why Worcester Transit chose Proterra.

Supr Daily – a dairy and grocery delivery service in India, has raised $1.5 million in VC funding. Like Mercadoni, it aims to bring more order to India’s chaotic system of morning milk deliveries, made complex because of urbanized traffic and milk’s short shelf life (see our brief on Dodla). Based in Mumbai, India.

Other Relevant News of Interest

Apple issues a $1 billion green bond (see our short brief) to continue its push to utilize renewable energy sources.

Johan Jörgensen, a Swedish entrepreneur, investor and once named as Sweden’s venture capitalist of the year, is building a food tech ecosystem in Sweden.

Swedish private equity firm AP2 sets $50 million for the TPG Rise Fund.

Soda giant Coca-Cola will contribute $1.7 billion to boost India’s agribusiness throughout the next five years through “grove to glass Fruit Circular Economy” sustainable agricultural practices.

Rabobank and MIT announces the winners and the top honors at the second annual Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize, a student food and agribusiness plan.

Why Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams just invested in a frozen food startup.

Major pork producer Smithfield has launched its first-ever Spanish website to engage Hispanic consumers. Its Sustainability Report also received an Innovation award in June.

SoftBank has agreed to acquire the robotics company Boston Dynamics from Google parent Alphabet.

Sources: Crunchbase, TechCrunch, AgFunder

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