Impact asset manager responsAbility has received a 200-million-euro ($239 million) private equity fund investment mandate from Stella Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH, the investment entity of the Heinz Hermann Thiele Family Foundation and Julia-Thiele Schürhoff.
The strategy will invest over the long term in growth-oriented companies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, according to a statement.
Capital will be deployed in regions where the opportunity to create impact is greatest and where private sector capital can help close critical funding gaps, through backing companies that support job creation and provide essential goods and basic services.
These investments help to protect livelihoods and reinforce social outcomes while supporting environmentally sustainable business models.
Stella said a substantial portion of its private market allocation is dedicated to growth equity impact investments, with the majority in emerging markets where the impact efficiency is higher than in developed markets, and financial returns can be attractive if investments are sourced and evaluated carefully.
“By focusing on emerging markets and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, this mandate allows us to deploy a meaningful share of our assets to where the need for impact investments is greatest,” said Thiele-Schürhoff.
responsAbility had earlier won an exclusive mandate from Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM), which committed a record $173 million in 2024. This programme, along with the combination with UK-based investment firm M&G—as Stella managing director Christoph Schlegel described—will help avoid potential future impact drift.
Earlier this month, responsAbility upped the size of its Asia Climate Strategy to $460 million, bringing new investors including Anthos Fund & Asset Management, which is also a family-owned asset manager from Europe.
Family offices are increasingly driving the sustainability focus. UBS’s Global Family Office Report 2025 showed that 46% of family offices around the world saw attractive opportunities from the space and were taking sustainability into account within their investments, slightly higher than 42% in the previous year’s survey.
