Temasek Trust Capital has joined three family offices — Blue Haven Initiative, Gunung Capital and Tsao Family Office — in a US$10 million ($13.36 million) Series A funding round into BlueMark, a New York-based verification and intelligence provider for the impact and sustainable investing market.
S&P Global is the lead investor in a group of seven, which also includes seed round funders Ford Foundation and Radicle Impact. The January 2022 round raised US$2.25 million in equity financing.
According to an April 19 press release, the latest round of funding will be used to accelerate BlueMark's position as a premier provider of impact verification, benchmarks and analytics to institutional investors of all types.
Founded in January 2020, BlueMark has completed 125 verifications to date for investors with a combined US$206 billion in impact assets under management (AUM).
“By providing insightful and comparable interpretations of investor impact performance, BlueMark helps optimise capital allocations towards impact,” says the company. “BlueMark also plans to expand its presence across different industries and geographies, with a particular focus on Asia where three of its investors are based.”
Christina Leijonhufvud, CEO of BlueMark, says: “This latest funding round shows how strong the appetite is for greater transparency, accountability, and integrity in the impact and sustainable investing market. BlueMark’s distinctive approach to impact verification, benchmarking, and analytics continually raises the bar on best practice impact management and reporting among investment managers and also helps asset allocators identify and engage with managers driving impact.”
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The latest funding for BlueMark comes at a pivotal time in the maturation of the impact investing industry. According to the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), there is now more than US$1 trillion in impact AUM globally.
BlueMark says its impact verification service encompasses an analysis of an investor’s impact management practice (the policies, tools, and processes necessary to execute on their impact strategy) and impact reporting (the completeness and reliability of their reported impact performance).
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BlueMark’s verification methodologies draw on a range of industry standards, frameworks, and regulations, including the Impact Management Project (IMP), the Operating Principles for Impact Management (Impact Principles), the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), SDG Impact and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
By aggregating data from these verifications, BlueMark says it can generate a wealth of insights into industry trends, market challenges and emerging best practices.
The company shares these insights in a research series on impact management practices called “Making the Mark”, and a series on impact reporting called “Raising the Bar”. These research reports, which have been supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing, are shared across the impact investing industry and can be used as a guideline to best practices for both new and established impact investors, says BlueMark.
Dawn Chan, managing director of investments at Temasek Trust Capital, says: “Impact and sustainable investing is a focus at Temasek Trust Capital. We see significant growth opportunities for impact investing in Asia and around the world. Independent experts are vital in assessing and assuring that investors are delivering on their impact claims and commitments. BlueMark is a leader in this space, and we look forward to working with the BlueMark team to expand their verification and market intelligence services to new geographies and sectors.”
Kelvin Fu, managing partner of the Singapore-based Gunung Capital, says: “We are excited to partner with BlueMark in expanding their impact verification and intelligence capabilities in Asia, a market where we see growing demand for sustainable investments and impact verification services. Having gone through our own journey of establishing impact and sustainable frameworks for investment, we view BlueMark’s methodologies, capabilities and team as world-class.”
