Over $172 Billion Committed to PE Funds Between 2015 and 2023, Says: Report

As much as $172.65 billion has been committed to private equity (PE) funds between 2015 and 2023, Phenix Capital Group, an impact investment consultant that enables institutional investors to make impact investments, said.

In its Impact Report entitled “Private Equity Funds at a Glance,”, the Amsterdam-based consultancy firm’s Impact Funds Database, said that the PE funds which were currently open for investments have targeted a total of $91.79 billion.

Additionally, the number of PE impact funds in the Impact Database has grown by 191%, more than trebling to 1,258, since 2015.

According to the report, PE continues to be the most popular asset class for impact investing with 48% of the impact fund database dedicated to this strategy, marginally down from 54% last year. The themes of funds in the database reflect the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with SDG3: Good Health & Wellbeing, appearing as the most popular theme with both fund managers and investors.

“For this reason, this month we have a dedicated thematic deep dive into PE impact investing specifically focusing on the multi trillion-dollar healthcare sector,” Phenix Capital said.

Next to the insights and analytics provided by Phenix Capital’s Impact Fund Database, the report also featured interviews with Mediterrania Capital Partners, a Sub Saharan Africa specialist, one of whose core areas of investment focus is healthcare and Philips Foundation, whose mission is to reduce healthcare inequality by providing access to quality healthcare for disadvantaged communities.

Albert Alsina, Founder & CEO, Mediterriana Capital Partners, said that they firmly believed that equity in healthcare cannot be achieved if people dependent on donations and charity were left, knowing there is no consistent donor base.

Margot Cooijmans, Director of Philips Foundation Impact Investments, said that after a few years, they decided to spend their limited annual budget more efficiently so that it could truly make impact, and, wanted to align the activities with the new focus of Philips as a healthcare technology company.

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure was the second most popular SDG with private equity funds (435). Investing in advanced technologies, lower carbon emissions and increased mobile broadband access.

SDG2: Zero hunger is a key SDG for 426 funds and it remained a top three theme, closely linked to food security as a global risk.

There are currently 1,258 PE impact funds from 604 different fund managers tracked on Phenix Capital’s Impact Database. Out of these, 382 funds from 334 organisations are currently open for investments.

Phenix Capital Group enables institutional investors to make impact investments and the company, which was founded in 2012, is dedicated to building a solid knowledge base of the impact investing industry, educating asset owners, and catalysing institutional capital to impact investing.

The Impact Database, which has a detailed overview of 2,200 funds, provides investors with access to and intelligence on the impact fund market opportunities available to them. It has been tracking the allocation of capital to impact investing since 2015, and now includes new data sets of outcome-based investable themes mapped against the SDGs.