BlueMark, a NYC-based provider of impact verification services for investors and companies, raised $3.75m in funding.
As part of the capital raise, BlueMark has now closed its seed round with $2.25 million in equity funding with the Ford Foundation as the lead investor and Radicle Impact as a co-investor. BlueMark has also received a combined $1.35 million in recoverable grants from The Rockefeller Foundation. In July 2021, BlueMark also received a grant from the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing, a donor collaborative with a mission of scaling the impact investing market with integrity, to support research and development around best practices for impact performance reporting.
The company intends to use the funds to expand its verification services across different industries and geographies.
Led by Christina Leijonhufvud, CEO, BlueMark is a provider of impact verification with a mission to strengthen trust in impact investing and to increase accountability for impact. Its verification services are structured around two key pillars of accountability for impact:
- Impact Management Practice, in which BlueMark verifies the systems and processes used by an investor or company to manage their impact
- Impact Performance, in which BlueMark verifies the reporting approach used by an investor or company to communicate their impact strategy, goals and results
To date, BlueMark has completed more than 60 impact verifications for a wide range of investors, including asset managers (e.g., private equity, private credit, infrastructure, fixed income, public equity, and multi-asset managers) and asset owners (e.g., institutional investors, development finance institutions, foundations, and wealth management firms).
BlueMark’s verification services also extend to other key aspects of sustainable and impact investing, including impact labeling and classification—for example in alignment with the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requirements in Europe and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—as well as ESG practices and performance reporting by portfolio companies and fund managers.
The company is an independent subsidiary of Tideline, a certified women-owned advisory firm in impact investing.
FinSMEs
27/01/2022