Almost all 305 impact investments included in a survey by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), are meeting or exceeding expected financial and impact performance targets, states the Financial Times (FT).

The investments are also meeting or exceeding their impact targets. The findings are in line with GIIN’s research over the past 10 years and are included in the organisation’s upcoming 2024 impact investor survey.

The top areas for impact investment amongst those surveyed are communications technology and affordable housing. The largest pool of impact assests under management in the survey is USD $255m at Circulate Capital, a company headquartered in Singapore.

The new research publishes data collected collected by GIIN in the first three months of 2024. A total of 118 of the companies representing USD $140b assets under mamagment have agreed to be listed. Information on the amount they have in impact investing, which geographies and in which sectors, is included. 

Tech is big impact investment sector

The top areas of investment in the list are information and communications technology, followed by affordable housing, education and infrastructure. 

The biggest amount under management in impact investing – more than USD $255 million – is with Circulate Capital, headquartered in Singapore. The company invests in North America, South Asia and Southeast Asia in sectors including information and communications tech, infrastructure and manufacturing. 

In a series of pieces on the survey, the FT notes the growth in impact investing in developed markets, as compared with emerging markets. It says developed markets allocations have increased by nearly 30 per cent over five years. In emerging markets that figure is eight per cent.

Shift towards bigger impact investment deals

Speaking to the newspaper, GIIN’s research director, Dean Hand’s said there had been a shift towards fewer deals, but a greater volume of allocations, with average deal size increasing by seven per cent over the past five years, and larger investors allocating USD $12m per deal on average. 

However, Amit Bouri, chief executive of GIIN said that the USD $1 trillion invested globally in impact investments – about one per cent of global assets under management – is not enough.

He credited this to scepticism about impact investings financial returns and concerns about greenwashing, as well as a “lack of defined strategies for impact investing via listed equities”. ‘However, these three factors are being addressed,’ he added. 

A spokesperson for the GIIN, told Alliance: ‘The GIIN will be publishing our biannual Market Sizing Report this fall, which will give readers a better idea of the impact investing market as a whole’.