Investors plan to commit $25.9 billion in assets to impact investment deals this year, a 17% increase from the year before, found a survey by the Global Impact Investing Network.
The seventh Annual Impact Investor Survey received responses from 209 investors around the world, and reported a total $114 billion in impact investing assets. GIIN said this was a “new best available floor for the size of the impact investing market.”
In 2016, participants committed a total $22.1 billion across 7,951 impact investment deals. In response to the 2016 survey, participants said they planned to commit a total of $17.7 billion in 2016 across 11,722 deals.
For 2017, the number of deals is expected to grow to 9,557.
Money managers raised $11.1 billion in 2016 for impact investing, up from $6.7 billion in 2015. In the 2015 survey, money managers said they planned to up fundraising to $12.4 billion in 2016. Respondents to the 2017 survey said they plan to raise $18.5 billion this year.
The survey also questioned respondents on returns, with 98% reporting returns met or exceeded their expectations in terms of impact, and 91% reporting this was the case in terms of performance.
Of the 209 respondents, 58% were for-profit money managers, 11% were foundations; 9% not-for-profit money managers, 4% banks, 3% each family offices, development finance institutions, and pension funds or insurance companies, 1% permanent investment companies and the remaining 8% were classified as other. There were 159 respondents to last year’s survey.
Within the pension fund and insurance company segment, which made up six of the respondents, $1.5 billion was committed in 2016 across 33 investments. They said they plan to increase capital committed to $1.9 billion across 36 investments in 2017.
Among the 23 foundation respondents, $550 million was committed across 112 deals. They expect to increase capital to $730 million across 133 deals.
The survey and associated report are available on the GIIN website.