Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore with S$306bn ($214bn) of assets under management as at the end of March last year, identified “sustainability and climate front and centre” of its T-2030 strategy – its roadmap for the next decade.
Dilhan Pillay will formally take over as CEO from Ho Ching at the start of October but in a briefing on February 9 said: “We see four clear areas of focus for us in the context of our T-2030 strategy.
“The first is the evolving portfolio that we have, and the need for us to ensure we construct a portfolio that is relevant for the next decade and beyond. It means we have to not just see the path ahead, but as much as possible, try to predict what is around the corner.
“The second is that we have to put sustainability at the core of all we do, and we have already begun to embark on a number of initiatives in this respect. We all know that climate change is here; it is real and there is a need for all of us to address it in whichever way we can.
“The third is that we need to continue to build capabilities at Temasek that we can make available to our portfolio companies, and to derive value from them through these capabilities, and for these capabilities also to address a need that’s in the marketplace. And we’ve done some of this in the context of AI, blockchain and cyber.
“And the fourth, and not least of all, is to build the talent and the capabilities within Temasek. Over the last decade that I have been at Temasek, our talent pool has evolved and we have brought in differing talent into Temasek because of the complexity of the world we see ahead of us.”
There is an interesting debate on the similarities or otherwise between state-backed investment vehicles, such as Vækstfonden (Denmark’s growth fund), Enterprise Ireland, or High-Tech Gründerfonds (Germany’s state and corporate-backed early-stage investor) and corporate venturing but Pillay’s points, on added value to portfolio companies and market or strategic need, brings the investors together.
This combination of interests was the reason we set up GCV’s sister publication, Global Government Venturing (GGV), in 2014 and the nexus point is increasingly around the United Nations’ 17 sustainability development goals (SDGs), which is why we renamed GGV as Global Impact Venturing a few years ago.
As Benoit Valentin, head of impact investing at Temasek, said: “There is an urgent and pressing need to address the critical social and environmental challenges that the world is facing. 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.”
LeapFrog now manages $2bn – with Temasek’s investment buying a stake in its management company as well as cornerstone commitments to new funds – and its companies now reach 212 million people with healthcare or financial services, and directly provide employment to over 130,000 people.
Andrew Kuper, founder and CEO of LeapFrog, added: “When we launched LeapFrog, the impact industry did not exist, but we believed that profit with purpose was the future of business and investment.”
Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia and a LeapFrog Global Leadership Council member, in a testimonial on LeapFrog’s site summed up the potential: “As the impact investing industry scales from the billions to the trillions, the success and authenticity of LeapFrog’s methods and companies will be crucial.”
GCV and its sister titles will be focused on the sustainability issues heading into the COP26 discussions on climate action in early November with its London symposium on November 3 and 4.
