Ten years after the term “impact investment” was coined, this type of finance is taking off in a new way. Small-scale impact deals have built a successful track record—both in financial terms and social impact—that is attracting follow-on capital and has caught the attention of major private equity firms including TPG and Bain Capital. These firms are beginning to aggregate such deals into larger funds that can scale and repeat investments. NatureVest, TNC’s conservation investing unit, is carrying this trend forward in the conservation space specifically, as it looks to start bringing forth its own transactions that aggregate deals in several different areas, including food and water security, and climate resilience. If this trend continues, private investments could start to make a dent in the estimated $300-400 billion gap (€240-325 billion) that currently exists in annual funding for global conservation needs.
