Dealflow | June 2, 2020

Blue Like an Orange closes $200 million for Latin America fund

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, June 2 – Debt investor Blue Like an Orange was founded by former World Bank officials to finance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (listen to the ImpactAlpha podcast interview, “Blue Like an Orange offers a report card for the Sustainable Development Goals). It has raised $200 for its first Latin America fund, backed by 25 investors backing the fund include AXA, HSBC, CNP Assurances, BNP Paribas Cardif, SG Insurance, MACSF, and the family offices of Sir Ronald Cohen and Ray Chambers, founder of Wesray Capital Corp.

The fund has so far invested $80 million, backing small business lender Produbanco, ride hailing company Cabify, small business IT services firm Cimcorp/Qintess, and fintech venture Movii.

Blue like an Orange has an agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank’s IDB Invest to “jointly to originate, structure and execute transactions.” IDB Invest has committed $40 million to Blue like an Orange deals and intends to co-invest an additional $50 million.

The pandemic “puts an exclamation point” on the need for capital mobilization, and “underscores the role of private credit in the impact/sustainability space to help companies through such challenging times,” Blue like an Orange’s Suprotik Basu told ImpactAlpha.