The Pipeline is There
What's missing is visibility
Day one at Impacta Mais 2026, during a panel called “O que falta é pipeline?” (Is a pipeline what’s missing?) a partner at one of Brazil’s most respected impact investment firms described out loud the problem I’ve been thinking about.
She said the pipeline is there.
Investors hunt for impact businesses worth backing. Impact businesses hunt for investors who understand and believe in them. But both sides lose time digging through scattered information, personal relationships, and word-of-mouth networks just to find each other.
It gets even more complicated at the international level—where capital flows across borders, into ecosystems where the public-facing data is thinner, where the local context lives in other languages, where many active funds are newly formed or unknown on the global scene.
The pipeline isn’t missing. It’s just hard to see.
O que falta é visibilidade.
On day one, I talked to entrepreneurs.
If enthusiasm for my Map platform were a cruise ship (sorry I don’t have a more sustainable analogy), then entrepreneurs would be the passengers ready to set sail. We’re on board.
These founders are scouting for capital and ways to be found. The platform’s premise didn’t need defending. They’ve lived inside the visibility problem long enough to see it instantly.
The most consistent feedback from entrepreneurs was: you should show the names of the businesses receiving capital, not just the funds deploying it. They want a way for their business’s name and profile to appear on the platform.
On day two, I talked to impact investors.
If the entrepreneurs were cruise ship passengers, the investors were the health and safety inspectors. They want the platform to set sail, but they won’t put their name behind it if it doesn’t look sound.
They had sharper questions and probes into my plans and methodology.
I’m grateful they didn’t just smile and walk away. They acknowledged that a platform like this could matter. But they were also working out whether this version is the one they’d back.
They were interested enough that I’m inspired to keep building. They were tentative enough that I’m inspired to keep building.
I had one chat with a veteran impact investor over an açai bowl.
The conversation did two things—deepened my thinking and told me I need to sharpen my pitch.
I was describing the platform from the inside out: what it does, how it works, why it matters. After that conversation, I’m clearer on what people need to hear first. The problem. Then the product-market fit.
Then, finally, the solution—the ins-and-outs of the platform are last to bat.
Four things I’m carrying back into the build
1 — Investees get featured. Recipient-side visibility moves up the roadmap. The impact entrepreneurs were all interested in having profiles on the Map platform. My açai connection told me the sweet spot for investors would be businesses that are big enough to warrant investment and small enough to slip under the radar—series A, maybe series B companies.
2 — The platform is more than capital flows. Capital is the first layer. Underneath are problems, solutions, actors, and the relationships between them. The architecture has to leave room not only for data and intelligence, but (further down the line) also for education and knowledge.
3 — Don’t pitch. Ask for feedback. “Selling” something is never the best way to sell something. Asking for feedback turns a possible rejection into a relationship. Some lean into a conversation about all possibilities. Some are critical, giving fodder I can use to sharpen my pitch and my platform.
4 — The road from DEMO, to BETA, to launch — I’m going to keep designing the DEMO platform as I’d imagined it—as the best source of intelligence about the impact investing field. Once I’m happy with my front-end interface and back-end data pipeline, I’ll shift into BETA and start testing the product-market fit of various solutions, on my way to an official launch in 2027.
More on this roadmap next week.
The GivingTree Money Map platform leaves Impacta Mais 2026 sharper than it arrived. Investors and entrepreneurs alike, in different registers, looking for similar things from different sides of the deal.
My job is to keep listening and keep building.
Mais em breve.