Hello ImpactAlpha readers!

#Featured: Open Mic

How will impact investing fare in the Trump administration? The elements that make impact investing so robust today are the same characteristics that will allow it to succeed moving forward. Rehana Nathoo, vice president of social innovation at the Case Foundation, argues that impact investing is poised to survive — maybe even thrive — in the uncertain political climate.

“With or without government — though preferably with — I maintain my belief that our combined efforts to grow this field will carry us through the next four years, and beyond,” she writes in a guest post on ImpactAlpha.

Read “The Path Forward for Impact Investing in the Trump Presidency” by Rehana Nathoo.

#Sponsored Content from Cornerstone Capital Group

Webinar: How can impact investors combat wage stagnation and income inequality? Economic inequality creates social and political unrest. It also creates long-term systemic risk for investors. How can available investment strategies address inequities based on age, race, gender and geography? Learn about investing to address income inequality in a complimentary one-hour webinar on April 18th at noon ET. Hosted by Phil Kirshman, Cornerstone Capital’s investment chief, the webinar will feature Beth Bafford of Calvert Foundation, Cornerstone’s Craig Metrick and John Wilson, and Brian Trelstad, a partner at Bridges Fund Management. Register here.

#Dealflow: Follow the Money

Agrisoma Biosciences raises $15.4 million for plant-based jet fuel. Biofuels cut particle emissions from jets by 50 to 70 percent, reducing damaging contrails, according to a new report from NASA. But there’s a market shortage of about 30 billion gallons. Quebec-based Agrisoma has raised $15.4 million to ramp up commercial production of carinata, a mustard oilseed used in bio-jetfuel and animal feed. The funding, committed by Canadian investment firm Groupe Lune Rouge and clean tech investors Cycle Capital Management and BDC Venture Capital, will expand Agrisoma’s South American operations. Agrisoma wants food crops to be phased out of biofuel production; the company’s varieties of carinata grow in regions and weather conditions unsuited for food crops. Separately, researchers at Egypt’s National Research Center have produced a bio jetfuel from jatropha plants grown with sewage water. Commercialization of jatropha has a mixed history.

Indian electric “Smart Scooter” maker raises prototype funding. Twenty Two Motors, launched last August to develop an affordable electric vehicle for the Indian masses, has raised $1.6 million to prototype its electric “Smart Scooter.” The early-stage financing came from Ishwar Singh, CEO of Haryana Industries, an auto-parts maker, and former Harley-Davidson executive Farhaan Shabbir. Twenty Two Motors, based in Gurgaon, hopes to launch its scooter early next year, with new battery technology adapted to India’s heat.

Edtech startup Smart Sparrow rakes in $4 million in new funding. The company has raised $14 million since it launched in Australia in 2014. The company, now based in San Francisco, is part of a movement to help educators create digital content that is interactive and adaptive (see “Nearpod lands $21 million for tools for teachers using tablets and virtual reality”). Smart Sparrow’s platform helps instructors track problem areas and revise content. The company has enrolled 150 universities and 50 companies and organizations and offers 20,000 online courses. Moelis Australia Asset Management led the round with participation from OneVentures and Uniseed.

Unicorn India Ventures makes its first fintech investment in SmartCoin. The early-stage venture fund has now made seven investments from its first fund, which it expects to close by mid-year. Unicorn expects to make up to 30 investments in media, pharmaceuticals and financial tech startups over the seven-year life of the fund. SmartCoin is a smartphone-based lending app that caters to Indians with limited credit histories. It determines creditworthiness by aggregating potential borrowers’ smartphone data, including financial transactions and app behavior, then offers unsecured loans of up to 50,000 rupees ($775). The platform launched in Gurgaon last year and has disbursed 3,000 loans.

And then there were 73. Take a peek at the list of 73 finalists for 2017 Echoing Green fellowships, and takeaways from a review of all 2,879 applicants, 44 percent of them women. One trend: a heightened focus on civil and human rights, especially for refugees and immigrants. Winners will be announced in June.

See all of ImpactAlpha’s recent #dealflow.

#Signals: Ahead of the Curve

There is evidence about the results of social programs – and we need more. “There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results,” President Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney said in proposing budget cuts to afterschool programs and Meals on Wheels. In fact, there’s ample evidence of the results of those programs and many others, argue Nonprofit Finance Fund’s Antony Bugg-Levine and Independent Sector’s Dan Cardinali. In Los Angeles, supportive housing has been shown to lower hospital costs of treating homeless patients. The Nurse-Family Partnership has shown how inexpensive services improve the long-term health of young mothers and their babies. Most government grants and contracts, however, require short-term outputs (like beds filled or meals served) with little attention to long-term results (like ending homelessness), the pair write. “We are proud to be part of a growing, cross-sector and bipartisan movement of service providers, funders and impact investors working to collectively reorient around outcomes and results.”

Black lives matter in investing (and divesting). The economic platform of the Movement for Black Lives includes demands for progressive tax policy, job creation, environmental restoration and the reallocation of federal, state and local budgets from incarceration to education, employment and restorative justice. The broad set of principles reimagines black communities’ relationship with land and economic development and argues for systemic policy changes and long-term investments in communities of color. The Transform Finance Investor Network and authors of the Movement for Black Lives economic platform will explore how investors can engage the movement’s principles and goals in a webinar at 10 am Pacific / 1 pm Eastern today.

#2030: Long-Termism

Future of education: Give your bot an apple. The future of education may be bots beamed by video that can give you full attention, learn your study habits and teach you at four to 10 times the rate of traditional teachers. Online bots will use algorithms to tailor lessons to students’ strengths and weaknesses (see, “Can artificial intelligence help Johnny learn?”)

“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Thomas Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, told Business Insider. “Nobody has quite cracked the code for the future of education.”

Onward! Please send any news and comments to TheBrief@impactalpha.com.