Catalytic Capital @ SOCAP

Below, we've highlighted sessions from the catalytic capital equity track at SOCAP19, including recorded videos of certain sessions.

 

Sessions co-presented by Mission Investors Exchange and the Catalytic Capital Consortium (MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Rockefeller Foundation):

 

Fighting Climate Change While Growing Markets (Click for Recording)

While the growth in impact investing activity among mainstream investors may be an encouraging sign, investments willing to accept either disproportionate risk or concessionary return remain critical for unlocking additional investment dollars and maximizing positive impact. Grounded in frameworks put forth in Tideline’s report, “Catalytic Capital: Unlocking More Investment and Impact,” this introductory session will explore the experiences of two impact-driven companies and the ways in which catalytic capital has been critical to their success.
Brian Hill, Edovo 
Alycia Kellman, SunFunder
Christina Leijonhufvud, Tideline

 

This session will look at a number of barriers often cited when investors seek to deploy capital into underinvested areas, including: structural limitations on underwriting models, regulatory challenges, lack of benchmarks and historical performance data, deal pipeline and deal size, and misunderstanding of impact business models. The discussion will showcase practitioner strategies for addressing these barriers, proven approaches for introducing these products to investors, and ways catalytic capital can play a role in accelerating investment.
David Bank, Impact Alpha
Julia Shin, Enterprise Community Investments, Inc
Sunwoo Hwang, Sixup
Daniel Gura, Habitat for Humanity
Margret Trilli, Impact Assets
 

The impact investing market is neither all commercial nor all concessionary. In this session, leading impact investors make the case that the full spectrum of capital is essential to achieve bold and lasting change. They will share the market segments in which impact investors can and do achieve substantial impact alongside market-rate returns, but also where they can’t – where the impact they seek forces them to accept greater risk, longer time horizons, or lower returns.
Robynn Steffen, Omidyar
Reuben Teague, Prudential
Candice Hampson, Big Society Capital
Christine Looney, Ford Foundation
 

Increased transparency is an essential step toward improving the coordination, accountability, and effectiveness of blended finance. Yet the field faces misapprehensions regarding what and how information should be disclosed and why reporting standards differ across investor types from Family offices, to Foundations and Development Finance Institutions. During this interactive session, participants will be challenged to ask themselves: What’s holding us back from greater transparency, and what are we willing to do differently to achieve greater impact?
Joan Larea, Convergence Finance
Catherine Pax, Open Society Foundations
Jaime Garcia Alba, IADB
Sarah Alexander, Blue Haven Initiative
Yasmine Saltuk Lamy, CDC Group plc
 

While surveys point to rapid growth of dollars invested for impact, what portion of those dollars are delivering meaningful change on the ground? Institutional investors seek quantified risk and returns, multi-year track records and large ticket sizes. Yet by definition delivering impact often requires developing new models in unknown markets, as impact investments frequently address market failures or monetize new assets. Can you be an impact investor if you aren’t willing to wear new risk?
Charlotte Kaiser, NatureVest
Peter Kelly, Goldman Sachs
Debra Schwartz, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Rekha Unnithan, Nuveen

While most of the impact investing sector seeks to embrace the idea of double-bottom line investments that demand limited financial sacrifice, significant market gaps persist in sectors and geographies that require lower costs of capital to succeed. This panel highlighted impact-first investors that have relaxed their own constraints to achieve market-rate returns that are filling these global gaps, and how funds and enterprises in these markets are delivering impact in regions where commercial investors cannot venture.
Rick Beckett, Global Partnerships
Richard Greenberg, OPIC
Lynne Hoey, Candide Group
Diane Isenberg, Ceniarth
Greg Neichin, Ceniarth

 

 

Investing in frontier and emerging markets presents significant opportunity to advance global development. Yet deploying capital into such markets is often associated with high costs. This session will explore the ins and outs of using grant capital and other strategies in these markets.
Paul Basil, Villgro Innovations Foundation
Michelle de Rijk, DOEN Participaties B.V.
Maggie Flanagan, The Lemelson Foundation
Katrina Ngo, Global Impact Investing Network

 

How Can Family Offices Catalyze Impact?

Climate Finance: Offering a Better Climate for Using Blended Finance Approaches

Catalytic Capital: Science and Engineering Innovation is a Critical and Under-Pulled Lever

A profound capital gap persists for early stage, science-based companies with promising solutions to social problems. Catalytic capital is the right fit for addressing this need, with its ability to accept disproportionate risk, longer-time horizons and an impact-first lens. This panel will feature speakers that have successfully mobilized catalytic capital into investment transactions that advance science as a primary driver of social advancement, sharing their lessons learned and vision for the future.
Sarah Kearney, Prime Coalition 
Ryan Macpherson, Autodesk Foundation