Profit with Purpose investment firm LeapFrog Investments has held the final close of its fourth fund (Fund IV) with capital commitments and designated co-investments totalling $1.02bn, ahead of its original $1bn target.
The fundraise includes $808m of primary fund commitments and up to $210m of pre-allocated co-investment to accelerate high-impact healthcare and financial services companies in global growth markets. Alongside an additional partnership with Prudential Financial (to invest in leading African financial services firm Alexander Forbes), this brings new allocations to the firm’s healthcare and financial services strategies across the recent fundraising cycle to over $1.15bn.
Separately, LeapFrog also recently launched a new climate investing strategy to provide green tools and technologies across Africa and Asia.
Cornerstone investors for LeapFrog’s latest fund include top-tier institutional limited partners such as Temasek, AIA, Prudential Financial, and development financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank and the US International Development Finance Corporation. LeapFrog also drew significant commitments from global asset managers such as Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and Van Lanschot Kempen, healthcare strategic investor Eli Lilly and Company, and foundations and endowments such as the Ford Foundation and the IMAS Foundation, a purpose-led independent asset manager supporting INGKA Foundation’s key objective to fund IKEA Foundation’s long-term philanthropic programmes.
In addition to strong support from long-standing LeapFrog investors in prior funds, Fund IV also raised a significant amount of capital from new investors and broadened its investor base into new markets including Singapore, China, Japan, Austria, Norway, Oman, and Turkey.
Fund IV aims to support emerging consumers and producers to build better lives and has already invested in five initial companies.
Redcliffe Labs, the first investment from Fund IV, has rapidly grown into one of India’s largest and lowest cost diagnostics businesses, conducting over 20 million tests for Indian patients, using a decentralised network of 76 labs and over 1600 collection centres.
Sun King, the second investment from Fund IV, is the world’s largest off-grid solar financier and has provided 118 million people with access to solar energy, in the process saving low-income households over $7.2bn in energy expenses that would otherwise have paid for biomass, kerosene lamps, and diesel generators.
Insurtech innovator bolttech, the Fund’s third investment, has pioneered the use of embedded insurance to offer tailored and low-cost policies across 35 markets, including Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Electronica Finance, another recent Fund investment, is helping power rapid MSME growth in India with loans for machines, equipment, rooftop solar, and other purposes, and has tripled assets under management over the last five years as it supports some of the 40 million Indian MSMEs that collectively deliver 30% of the country’s annual GDP.
Most recently, Fund IV invested in Auxilo Finserve, a higher-education lender in South Asia that has seen 75% compounded annual growth in its loan book across the last three years, as more of India’s +700 million people under the age of thirty seek training and education to enhance their skills and future earning potential.
