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    Impact & Blended Finance

    Impact and blended finance is capital from impact funds, foundations and development finance institutions for companies whose business creates a measurable social or environmental outcome.

    A small amount of patient money, placed correctly, changes the price and availability of all the capital above it. (read where we wrote it)

    In Growth Strategy: Fund the Plan

    Mainly for

    4Kinds of funder, each judging a company differently

    How does an impact raise run, from first test to reporting?

    First, a test of whether you are an impact company. Then which money, from which funder, backed by which evidence, and the reporting after the close.

    The bigger the circle, the more raises are won or lost there.

    1. The four gates

      Theme, intentionality, additionality and measurability. Most founders fail the third: would commercial money have served you anyway?

      Capital Roadmap DiagnosticAre you an impact company?

    2. The layers

      Split what the money is for, then match each part to the cheapest layer that will fund it: grants, guarantees, soft loans, equity.

      The capital stack

    3. The funders

      Foundations, impact funds, development finance institutions and corporate programmes each run on their own clock. Start the slowest first.

      Who funds impact in India

    4. The evidence

      One honest set of numbers, cut for each kind of funder. A claim you cannot back with data rules you out.

      Story is not the pitch

    5. The raise

      Run from the first conversation to the close, by the same team that built the case.

    6. Reporting

      Every year the money stays in, in each funder's own format. A starting figure not recorded at the start can never be recovered.

      Impact MeasurementImpact reporting never ends

    What changed when grants, a loan and equity were planned together?

    One plan we built that used all three, raised in stages, so the company gained time without giving up more shares. The company is not named.

    What does raising impact money take?

    Who funds impact and why, the blended structures they use, and the case your company makes to them.

    How we work

    If ordinary capital already flows here freely, no foundation will subsidise it.

    Sriram Chidambaram, in The Capital Most Founders Never See

    Where next in Impact & Blended Finance?

    Impact & Blended Finance pages

    • How we workAn impact raise starts with one test

      The first test is whether the business is an impact company at all. If it is, we find the funders who fit, build the case in their terms, and set up the measurement before anyone asks for it.

    • InsightsInsights on impact capital

      Our team has mapped a second lane of capital that most founders never see, and the test a business must pass to use it.