Impact verification shop BlueMark has received investment from a number of institutions as it seeks to roll its services out across different geographies and industries. The company has raised $3.75 million in total. VC firm Radicle Impact and the Ford Foundation both committed to a $2.25 million seed equity round, while The Rockefeller Foundation committed $1.35 million in recoverable grants. In 2021 the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing also allocated grant funding to BlueMark.

The context: Even as impact investing becomes big business among asset managers, the data infrastructure on which it is built – the various methodologies for measuring and reporting impact that give it credibility – are still somewhat reliant on the vision and largesse of philanthropic groups. In a previous interview with New Private Markets, Ford Foundation’s president Darren Walker said: “While we are pleased to welcome so many new entrants to this space and to witness the surge in capital invested for impact, there is also a shared obligation to support the field in order to close these critical market gaps.”

BlueMark’s role is to take a third-party “look under the hood” of impact investment strategies and “interpret what and how investors are reporting on both their positive and negatives impacts”, said Roy Swan, a director at Ford Foundation, in a statement relating to the recent funding round. BlueMark has previously worked with a long list of prominent impact managers and investors, including KKR, LeapFrog Investments, EBRD and Partners Group. You can see a fuller list here and read the individual verification reports.