Investment fund co-designed with USAID and CIAT embarks on second phase
May, 2022 - The Amazon Biodiversity Fund (ABF), an impact investment fund, signed with its second investor, the ASN Biodiversity Fund, a fund of funds managed by ASN Impact Investors, a member of the ASN Bank group. Further information can be found in ASN’s press here.
This is the first investor to join ABF after CIAT, an important milestone that marks the beginning of the second phase of ABF’s development. ABF is a Mirova Natural Capital fund jointly designed with USAID/Brazil, and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
“USAID supported the development of ABF in order to foment an increase in innovative mechanisms for financing biodiversity conservation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. One of our objectives was to leverage private sector resources. Companies have a fundamental role to incentivize this type of innovation. Our team celebrates this great announcement”, said Patricia Benthien, USAID’s Project Management and Biodiversity Specialist.
ABF seeks to overcome financial challenges faced by startups and early-stage projects in the Amazon, offering long-term impact investment to finance sustainable businesses and projects. The fund intends to address deep-rooted economic obstacles by providing flexible, long-term, patient capital for sustainable businesses that seek transformational, positive impact on Amazon biodiversity and communities.
“In terms of biodiversity, nothing in the world compares to the Amazon. Because two-thirds of it is in Brazil, we decided to focus our strategy on that country. With this fund, we select the companies that have the greatest impact on biodiversity, often through new business models, and want to accelerate their growth. They serve as examples of a new generation of companies at the heart of the Amazon bioeconomy”, said fund manager Nick Oakes, creator and designer of the ABF.
New products - Since launched, the fund closed deals with several Amazon impact businesses, including: INOCAS, a company that produced Macaúba oil in consortium with other plants in agroforestry systems on previously degraded areas; Manioca, a business that promotes Amazon food products and supports smallholders in its supply chain; Horta da Terra, a producer of dehydrated non-conventional Amazonian food plants using an outgrower model; and Amazonia Agroflorestal, a REDD+ project that implements agroforestry coffee and conservation in the Southern Amazonas.
In 2020, ABF received the Fund of the Year award in the Environmental Finance Impact Awards multi-asset category.
