Blue Earth Capital, a specialist global impact investor, has announced the first close of its dedicated impact secondaries strategy, with commitments exceeding $100m from leading institutional investors from Europe and the United States.

The close marks the launch of Blue Earth Capital’s first dedicated impact secondaries offering and a pivotal milestone in the firm’s mission to drive innovation and scale efficient impact capital deployment globally.

Philipp Mueller, CEO of Blue Earth Capital, said: “Thanks to the strong support of some of the most sophisticated impact allocators, we are proud to launch our dedicated impact secondaries strategy. This innovative offering leverages our strong secondaries and impact capabilities, as well as our extensive network. It fills a crucial gap in the impact sector and presents an attractive opportunity to generate both impact and returns.”

At launch, the strategy includes commitments from institutional investors such as the Ursimone Wietlisbach Foundation, a Swiss-based foundation, and Stella, the investment entity of a German family foundation, in addition to Proparco.

While secondary transactions have long been a feature of traditional private equity portfolios, impact investors have historically not been able to include secondaries in their portfolios due to a lack of offerings. 

Impact secondaries aim to offer investors access to seasoned, high-impact assets while helping to mitigate blind-pool, concentration, and duration risks. 

The development of a functioning and efficient impact secondary market is essential to mainstream secondary transactions and attract asset owners to what is still seen as an illiquid part of the market.

Secondary investments can appeal to more risk-sensitive investors, have the potential to enhance portfolio construction through earlier distributions and potential pricing advantages, and serve as an entry point for new participants in the impact investing market. 

By introducing liquidity, secondaries also enable existing investors to recycle capital into new impactful opportunities, acting as a catalyst for growth and efficiency across the broader impact ecosystem.

Blue Earth Capital aims to be catalytic in establishing an efficient market for impact secondaries. With this offering, BlueEarth builds on its existing secondaries platform, which has seen rapid growth since 2021 and received backing from leading institutional investors, to provide qualified investors with access to this asset class.

Nicolas Muller, Head of Private Equity Partnerships at Blue Earth Capital, said: “Blue Earth Capital has played a crucial role in shaping the impact secondaries asset class for several years. The first close of our dedicated impact secondaries offering marks an important milestone, underscoring our role as a catalytic player in addressing a key challenge in impact investing: liquidity.”

The strategy will invest globally across developed and emerging markets, targeting sectors such as climate action, circular economy, financial inclusion, healthcare, and education.

The introduction of a dedicated sleeve focused on emerging markets only represents a pioneering step in the development of impact secondary transactions and paves the way for a more structured and accessible secondary market in regions where activity has historically been limited and largely opportunistic. 

The development of a secondary market in emerging economies is expected to enhance liquidity for fund managers and provide investors with practical tools to actively manage their portfolios, ultimately increasing the attractiveness of emerging economies for private investors.

The strategy’s early portfolio reflects its dual focus on developed and emerging markets and its commitment to investing with the goal of achieving measurable impact alongside financial returns. It includes a continuation transaction (GP-led secondary) established by Suma Capital, which acquired Gestcompost, the largest organic waste treatment manager in Spain. 

The second investment is an LP-led transaction, where Blue Earth Capital, through its investment vehicles, acquired a stake in four impact funds across India and Africa. These initial transactions showcase the breadth of the opportunities available across transaction types and geographies.

Proparco has supported the strategy in emerging markets from the outset, recognizing its alignment with the institution’s goal of mobilizing private capital to drive development and impact in these economies. 

The emerging-markets allocation includes a first-loss tranche provided by Proparco and supported by the European Union through the EFSD+, designed to catalyze private investment and enhance risk-adjusted returns in underserved regions.

Françoise Lombard, CEO of Proparco: “We are proud to support Blue Earth Capital’s innovative mission to build a more efficient market for impact secondaries in emerging economies. As an anchor investor in this inaugural initiative, our objective is to enhance market liquidity, strengthen exit pathways, and ultimately reinforce long-term investor confidence in these regions. Over time, we are convinced that this strategy will help channel sustainable private capital more effectively to where it can generate the greatest impact.”

Urs Wietlisbach, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder of Blue Earth Capital, said: “We see this strategy as deeply catalytic: it demonstrates how targeted secondary investments can mobilize new pools of capital, expand access to mature impact opportunities, and strengthen the overall market infrastructure for impact investing. By proving that financial discipline and measurable impact can go hand in hand, initiatives like this help shift impact investing from the margins to the mainstream.”

Blue Earth Capital engaged BlueMark to independently assess the alignment of the strategy with impact investing and ESG best practices. 

BlueMark assessed the impact approach across three key pillars of impact accountability: strategy, governance and management. Blue Earth Capital is proud to have been issued the Platinum rating for its impact secondaries strategy as a result of BlueMark’s Fund ID verification process, the highest possible rating.