Zero Gap Fund's Catalytic Capital Keeps Multiplying: $30M Sustains $1.05B for the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The Rockefeller Foundation-led impact investing collaboration with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation releases its 7 ^th annual report, showing impact investing remains a critical bridge for advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals amid cuts to official development assistance.

Since 2019, $30 million in catalytic capital has mobilized $1.05 billion in private investment — a 35x leverage ratio.

NEW YORK, July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid sharp cuts to development assistance over the past year, The Rockefeller Foundation today released its annual Zero Gap Fund: 2025 State of the Portfolio report, highlighting the critical role of catalytic capital in addressing the world's most pressing challenges. As of December 2025, the Zero Gap Fund (ZGF or the Fund) had facilitated the mobilization of more than $1.05 billion—about a 35x leverage—in private finance across 12 high-impact investments spanning food and nutrition security, climate adaptation, healthcare access, U.S. jobs and more. To date, the Fund has fully committed $30 million, $28 million of which has been deployed, with four of its investments exited.

The Zero Gap Fund was launched in 2019 in partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to promote investment in scalable and innovative impact-driven investment solutions. The fund deploys patient, risk-tolerant, and flexible capital into promising financial strategies and mechanisms aimed at increasing large-scale private investment to advance the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were established in 2015 to bring countries together to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure global peace and prosperity by 2030.

"The Zero Gap Fund: 2025 State of the Portfolio report reinforces an important lesson: strategic, catalytic capital can unlock resources far beyond its size to empower vulnerable people," said Slav Gatchev, Vice President of Innovative Finance at The Rockefeller Foundation. "At a time when many countries are slashing their foreign assistance budgets, the Zero Gap Fund shows how philanthropy and private capital can work together to create job opportunities, shore up climate resilience, and improve lives around the world. Building on our long history in impact investing, the Rockefeller Foundation is committed to working with partners to continue and expand this important work."

"The Zero Gap Fund continues to demonstrate the power of catalytic capital to drive impact across sectors and geographies," said Debra Schwartz, Managing Director for Impact Investments at MacArthur. "The fund's innovative and scaled co-investment model allows more capital to be deployed rapidly and efficiently to impact-driven enterprises and funds around the world."

ZGF was created to help close the financing gap to achieve the SDGs, which at the Fund's creation was estimated at $2.5 trillion annually. The gap persists because public budgets, foreign aid, and developing country revenues cannot cover the need, preventing countries with fewer resources to invest in education, healthcare, renewable energy, or social protection. Last year, that gap widened significantly, now totaling more than $4 trillion annually, according to recent estimates from the United Nations.

Against this challenging backdrop, the results in this year's Zero Gap Fund: 2025 State of the Portfolio show that impact investing remains a much-needed force for progress across a range of impact areas and that the ZGF offers a replicable model for closing the gap at scale. Through investments focused on underserved markets and communities, ZGF shows that private capital can play an important role in achieving the SDGs and help lift up millions of people in the United States and around the world.

ZGF's eight open investments span eight regions, with several funds working across multiple geographies at once. Key examples through December 2025 include: 

• LeapFrog's Emerging Consumer Fund III (Fund III) is a growth equity fund serving low-income consumers in Asia and Africa, incorporating a blended finance insurance product to mitigate tail-end risks. Fund III has supported more than 173,000 jobs and reached 361 million consumers – 345 million through financial services and 16 million healthcare consumers.
  
  
• Lightsmith's CRAFT facility focuses on climate adaptation, mobilizing capital for innovative companies delivering technologies that build community resilience. CRAFT has helped provide 28 million liters of clean water and helped reduce 2.7 million metric tons of CO2e.
  
  
• Founders First Capital Partners (FFCP) is an alternative credit provider that uses revenue-based financing to grow underinvested service-based companies. FFCP has deployed $19.5 million in capital across 68 loans.
  
  
• Apis & Heritage's Legacy Fund I finances the conversion of companies with majority low- and moderate-income workforces into employee-owned businesses using an employee-led buyout structure. Legacy Fund I has helped transition 6 businesses into 100% employee-owned, leading to more than 1,500 new employee owners.
  
  
• Seedstars International Ventures II (Fund II) invests in seed-stage tech-enabled startups across emerging and frontier markets and helps them scale. Fund II has committed $13.7 million across 56 companies, helping create more than 1,500 net new full-time jobs.
  
  
• Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV (HCGF IV) invests in innovative, export-oriented asset-light technology companies in Ukraine that are more resilient to volatile macro environments. HCGF IV has invested more than $120 million across six Ukraine-based companies, supporting more than 5,100 jobs.
  
  
• Blue Forest's FRB Catalyst Facility leverages the public-private partnership structure of the Forest Resilience Bond to create a pooled, revolving investment facility that mobilizes capital to accelerate the financing of critical ecological restoration projects. FRB Catalyst Facility has begun protection efforts in 10 locations helping protect more than 31,000 acres of terrestrial ecosystems.
  
  
• Trailhead Capital Regeneration Fund I invests in early-stage businesses providing innovative, scalable, tech-enabled solutions for regenerative food and agriculture. Regeneration Fund I has invested in 30 companies, impacting 42.3 million acres of land and counting. 

The Rockefeller Foundation has long recognized the importance of mobilizing private sector capital for public good. It played a pivotal role in the origin of the impact investing field in 2007. That next year, the Foundation brought the impact investing industry into the mainstream by launching a $38 million initiative, Harnessing the Power of Impact Investing, which has since evolved into the Foundation's Innovative Finance program. By 2015, the Innovative Finance program created the Zero Gap grant portfolio to provide seed funding to address the world's most pressing challenges, as defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today, The Rockefeller Foundation's Innovative Finance team manages $100 million in active Program Related Investment commitments and has provided a total of $65 million of grant funding across the Zero Gap portfolio and climate finance.

About The Rockefeller Foundation 

Investing $30 billion over the last 113 years to promote the well-being of humanity, The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on unlikely partnerships and innovative solutions that deliver measurable results for people in the United States and around the world, including in association with RF Catalytic Capital Inc (RFCC). We leverage scientific breakthroughs, artificial intelligence, and new technologies to make big bets across energy, food, health, and finance. For more information, follow us on LinkedIn @the-rockefeller-foundation, X @RockefellerFdn, Instagram @rockefellerfdn, and YouTube @rockefellerfound, and sign up for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org/subscribe.

About the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur's Impact Investment program is working to build the field of impact investing and provide catalytic capital to address social and environmental challenges around the world. To demonstrate the power of catalytic capital and to expand its use, MacArthur developed the Catalytic Capital Consortium, an initiative supported by a dozen philanthropic leaders including The Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network. For more information, sign up for MacArthur's newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn. 

SOURCE The Rockefeller Foundation