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When Competitors Collaborate: How Eight Impact-First Investors Came Together to Confront the Valley of Death
The “Valley of Death” — the gap between early-stage capital and the scale-ready financing that social enterprises need to grow — is a perennial challenge in development finance. But according to Brigit Helms at Miller Center for Global Impact, investors rarely slow down enough to unpack why it persists, and what role they can play in closing it. She discusses the initial findings of a unique collaborative study conducted by eight leading impact investors — organizations that are both peers and competitors — who each contributed individual fund data to identify the cost of maintaining their impact-first models. As Helms argues, this expense is not an inefficiency to optimize away, but rather the true cost of closing the Valley of Death.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing, research
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BTG Pactual TIG Raises Over $1.2 Billion for Reforestation and Restoration Strategy
The firm’s Latin American billion reforestation and restoration strategy, which includes nature protection organization Conservation International as Impact Advisor, focuses on the conservation, restoration, and planting of deforested and degraded properties.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Region
- Latin America
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Press Release: Ant International, IFC, GCash Pioneer First-Of-Its-Kind Sustainability Impact Scorecard to Expand MSME Access to Sustainable Financing
The Scorecard provides Filipino MSMEs with trusted, clear, and accessible pathways to measure sustainability performance, strengthen credibility, and unlock opportunities aligned with global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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Press Release: British International Investment Targets £15 Billion of Capital for Developing Economies as It Launches Climate Initiative as Part of New Five-Year Strategy
British Climate Partners will target highest emitting developing economies with over £1 billion in climate finance.
- Categories
- Environment, Finance
- Region
- Global
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Regional Leaders Launch Blended Finance Initiative to Expand Surgical Care Across Latin America and the Caribbean
An estimated 5 billion people worldwide lack access to safe, timely, and affordable surgical care, with disproportionate impact in low- and middle-income countries.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- Latin America
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Bayer Foundation and UNCDF Announce Inaugural Investments of the Food Systems Innovation Finance Facility in Agri-Businesses Omia and SokoFresh
As concessional resources contract, the need to mobilize additional capital into high-impact sectors such as food systems has become increasingly urgent.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Region
- Global
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Viewpoint: Impact Investing’s New Discipline
Impact investors are not asking for less impact — they are asking for more discipline. Drawing on conversations with investors across Miller Center’s network, Brigit Helms explores why execution, unit economics, additionality, and impact-revenue alignment are becoming central to the next phase of social enterprise finance.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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Getting the Most out of Monitoring Data: An Impact Investor Explores the Value of a Unified Approach
Monitoring data is a source of frustration for many impact-focused organizations, as many see it as another line item in their budgets, a task required for funder compliance, or a backward-looking tool that isn’t necessarily relevant to future programming. But as Juan Taborda Burgos, Scott Caple and Jorge Bouchot at Root Capital argue, this paradigm fails to recognize the power of monitoring data to inform strategy and insights. They explore how Root Capital has standardized its monitoring system across its global programs, and highlight the value of taking a unified approach to collecting and utilizing this data.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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