Acumen

More businesses in East Africa are looking for affordable, reliable power. Orb Energy is meeting that need by helping commercial and industrial businesses switch to solar. Acumen first backed Orb Energy in India in 2011 as its first institutional investor and saw it grow over the next 9 years before exiting. Now, KawiSafi Ventures' investment will support its expansion across East Africa.

There's a business story we don't tell enough. Not the venture-backed unicorns, not the household names, but the companies rebuilding entire industries in places most capital never reaches. These businesses rarely get profiled. Their founders rarely get interviewed. And yet they're solving harder problems, with fewer resources, than almost anyone in the traditional startup world. We created Build Different to close that gap. The first story is about Hatch Africa, the company that turned 30,000 rural entrepreneurs into a continent-wide food revolution. It's a story of trial, failure, and the resolve it takes to find a model that actually works. Not another unicorn story. A chicken story. We invite you to Build Different. Read Hatch's story: https://lnkd.in/dKTkz6sd David Ellis  | Joseph Shields | Daniel Waldron  | Kristi Chon | Madeo

In an Acumen-hosted event during New York Climate Week, we put founders, funders, and practitioners in one room and asked a single question: What do climate entrepreneurs really need from investors? Here's what people were still thinking about on the way out. Ehime Eigbe | Patricia Maina | Duda Slawek | Jacob Winiecki #ClimateWeekNYC #ClimateFinance

Acumen will be at Building Bridges 2026 in Geneva from Oct. 6 to 8, joining the sustainable finance community to dive into the question that sits at the center of Acumen's work: how do we redesign capital so it reaches the founders, markets, and solutions that conventional finance passes over? Acumen's Yasmina Zaidman , Sandra H., and Zoya Shabir will be in conversation about the tools that make this possible: catalytic and blended finance, de-risking, and impact-linked finance. We look forward to returning to Geneva to help shape the global sustainable finance agenda alongside regulators, business, public and private finance, and the multilateral system. Will you be attending? Reach out to our team; we would like to meet you there. #BuildingBridges2026 #CatalyticCapital #ImpactInvesting

How do we move from intelligence to impact? On stage at the SDG Media Zone at the United Nations, Acumen's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Alexandra Gordon shared how Acumen is using AI while still centering human dignity.

Off-grid energy access has more in common with your subway commute than you may think.  We caught up with Sun King CEO T. Patrick Walsh before he hopped on the A train during NY Climate Week. He explained what it takes to make clean energy affordable to millions of people living without electricity. #newyork #subway #energyaccess

Announced in New York during #ClimateWeekNYC: Acumen's Hardest-to-Reach Catalyze is backing Sun King's expansion in Zambia! The investment aims to support Sun King’s electrification of nearly 5.6 million people over the next five years, including up to 4.5 million people gaining access to electricity for the first time. Swipe to find out what the investment is expected to unlock. Learn more here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dWMVphmg

Uzoamaka Izukanne Igweike looked at the global chocolate brands filling shelves in Nigeria and thought: why not us? Now she’s building Loom Craft Chocolate to take them on, while creating more value and opportunity at home. See how she’s doing it. Full story: https://lnkd.in/dFrVd4Ku

Ahead of Climate Week NYC, Sarah Bieber, Director of Climate Strategy at Acumen, reflects on three themes she's carrying from London Climate Action Week: resilience, AI, and the gap between a commitment and a disbursement. What links them, she argues, is a design problem rather than a money problem. Learn more: