This week, Temasek, the Singapore city-state wealth fund with $214 billion in sovereign assets under management, announced that it has entered a $500 million strategic partnership with global impact investment group LeapFrog Investments. LeapFrog, which invests according to a “Profit With Purpose” ethos, backs and scales insurance, finance, pension, and banking companies in Africa and Asia to achieve “leaps” of profitability, growth and impact.
The Temasek-Leapfrog team-up will be structured as a multi-fund investment by Temasek that will anchor LeapFrog’s future funds. Temasek will also take a minority stake in LeapFrog and provide growth capital to support the expansion of LeapFrog’s investment capabilities and team across Asia and Africa. Temasek will also take a non-executive seat on LeapFrog’s Management Board.
“There is an urgent and pressing need to address the critical social and environmental challenges that the world is facing,” Temasek’s Head of Impact Investing, Benoit Valentin, said in announcing the partnership. “We believe in the potential of impact investing to unlock the capital to meet these challenges. Our partnership with LeapFrog, with its focus on serving underserved markets, underscores Temasek’s commitment to investing for impact, and the contributions these investments make towards shaping a better world for our communities.”
The new commitment from Temasek brings LeapFrog’s total institutional investor commitments to more than $2 billion since its inception in 2007. Current investors include the world’s largest insurance company (and life insurer), major institutional investors from the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, eight of the world’s largest Development Finance Institutions, and three of the top four global investment banks, as well as the world’s leading sustainability bank.
Across LeapFrog’s four private equity funds, its companies have averaged growth of 30 per cent per year. LeapFrog portfolio companies now reach 212 million people with healthcare or financial services, and directly provide employment to over 130,000 people.
“When we launched LeapFrog, the impact industry did not exist, but we believed that Profit with Purpose was the future of business and investment,” said LeapFrog founder and CEO Dr Andy Kuper. “For almost 15 years, we have worked to build a values-driven firm, co-creating a thriving industry that now stands at $715 billion and is projected to grow to up to $26 trillion. Through this landmark commitment, Temasek joins in our vision to build an enduring and exemplary investment institution. We will continue to open the gates of the capital markets to purpose-driven businesses.”
Amit Bouri, CEO and Co-Founder of the Global Impact Investing Network, said, “This commitment reflects a new level of scale for the global impact investing industry. World-leading investors are prioritising measurable impact alongside financial returns, demonstrating that each can enhance the other. It is imperative that investors step up the scale of capital they are deploying now, to make it possible for billions of people to lead their families, businesses, and communities to brighter futures.”
LeapFrog has scaled market-leading and digital companies that have been sold to the likes of Prudential Plc, Allianz X, AXA-XL, Swiss Re, Fidelity’s Eight Roads and Standard Chartered. Among its current companies are global digital remittance provider, WorldRemit, GoodLife, one of the largest pharmacy chains and healthcare providers in Africa, and digital insurance and tele-health provider BIMA.
Temasek’s commitment to LeapFrog is aligned across its four areas of thematic investment focus: Transforming Economies; Growing Middle Income Populations; Deepening Comparative Advantages; and Emerging Champions.
