SCALED | Scaling Capital for Sustainable Development
A new level of public-private cooperation in blended finance
This website refers to the SCALED Initiative, an international public-private collaboration to mobilise private capital for sustainable development in emerging markets and developing economies. It has supported the launch of SCALED Development GmbH, a new blended finance advisory company implementing the mission of SCALED. Find out more about SCALED Development.
Press Releases
Capital for Impact
To advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) we aim to unleash the full potential of blended finance for large-scale private capital mobilisation. We strive to contribute to financing the economic transitions required for a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future.
Systemic Solution
We aim to overcome structural challenges of blended finance, i.e., the catalytic use of public funding to leverage private capital for SDG investment.
Systemic solutions are needed to simplify and accelerate the cumbersome process of capital formation between multiple public and private investors. We are therefore working towards standardisation of blended finance requirements, vehicle types, and processes.
Investment with Precision
But we don’t stop there. We are also aiming to build a specialised, first-of-its-kind entity – an engine which is capable of putting these standards immediately into practice.
This professional service provider will be dedicated to streamlining the entire development and management process of public-private cooperation for blended finance transactions.
Investor Value
SCALED will provide value for all blended finance participants, in particular private institutional investors (asset owners), donor governments, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), philanthropies, and asset managers.
Efficiency & Ease
We make blended finance easier, reducing complexity and transaction costs of setting up blended finance solutions.
We help available funds being used and allocated more efficiently.
Scalability
We make blended finance solutions easier to scale, applying standardisation and modularity.
Our built-in learning allows for replicability and continuous improvement.
Service & Execution
We take over the cumbersome process of capital formation, so investors can focus on defining suitable investment strategies. We identify and advise professional asset managers to implement transactions.
Impact
We help investors to match interests and bundle resources for enhanced impact.
We assist in steering investment strategies towards feasible impact objectives.
A crucial step toward making emerging markets investable at scale.
The Hamburg Sustainability Platform fills a structural gap in the blended finance landscape. By offering standardised, de-risked investment structures, it provides the predictability and scale we need to allocate long-term capital to sustainable opportunities in emerging markets. This is the kind of initiative institutional investors have been waiting for – practical, scalable, and built for real-world deployment.
Vorname Name | Private Investor
A crucial step toward making emerging markets investable at scale.
The Hamburg Sustainability Platform fills a structural gap in the blended finance landscape. By offering standardised, de-risked investment structures, it provides the predictability and scale we need to allocate long-term capital to sustainable opportunities in emerging markets. This is the kind of initiative institutional investors have been waiting for – practical, scalable, and built for real-world deployment.
Vorname Name | Private Investor
A crucial step toward making emerging markets investable at scale.
The Hamburg Sustainability Platform fills a structural gap in the blended finance landscape. By offering standardised, de-risked investment structures, it provides the predictability and scale we need to allocate long-term capital to sustainable opportunities in emerging markets. This is the kind of initiative institutional investors have been waiting for – practical, scalable, and built for real-world deployment.
Vorname Name | Private Investor
Public-Private Alliance
About
The economic transitions needed to reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require substantial amounts of development financing and investment. The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report estimates the SDG financing and investment gap at between USD 2.5 trillion and USD 4 trillion annually. Thus, accelerated efforts towards private capital mobilisation for SDG financing are required, as emphasized by expert groups and world leaders alike, such as in the, Political Declaration at the 2023 SDG Summit and the 2024 Pact for the Future.
Blended finance, i.e., the catalytic use of public funding to leverage private capital for SDG investment, has increasingly emerged as a promising instrument. However, the necessary scaling has remained limited to date. The most important bottleneck is the protracted and complicated process of capital formation: blended finance vehicles (e.g., funds) tend to be complex and customised, which makes them cumbersome to set up, replicate, and scale. Long lead times and a lack of standardisation imply lengthy and unpredictable due diligence processes that reduce their attractiveness for private investors.
Therefore, at the first Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) in October 2024, the governments of Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, South Africa, and the United Kingdom and private institutional investors Allianz SE, CDPQ, joined forces to build the Hamburg Sustainability Platform (HSP) to work towards overcoming structural challenges of blended finance and unleash its full potential to mobilise large-scale private capital for SDG investment in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). By HSC 2025, further stakeholders had joined the initiative, which was renamed SCALED.
SCALED is promoting standardisation in the blended finance ecosystem. To turn its mission into practice, the initiative laid the groundwork for the launch of the company SCALED Development, which was announced in June 2026. This specialised advisory company, the first of its kind, is designed to make blended finance more scalable, more systematic, and easier to replicate. To learn more about SCALED Development, please visit its website.
Depending on funding commitments, SCALED aims to mobilize several billions of USD for sustainable development over the next 10 years. SCALED Development will build a series of blended finance vehicles for large-scale capital mobilisation into sustainable investment across a wide range of regions and SDGs. Every investment will be guided by measurable, long-term impact – driving progress toward a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future.
Driven by Global Development Agendas
SCALED was formed to help close the financing gap to achieve the global development, climate, and biodiversity goals. By mobilising large-scale private capital through standardised blended finance solutions, we contribute to advance sustainable investments in EMDEs.
We are actively engaged in relevant international processes and build partnerships with other initiatives aiming to promote private capital mobilisation for sustainable development.
A team of experts from SCALED members is currently building the structures for the initiative to implement its vision.
Once the entity is up and running, it will generate new blended finance vehicles on a continuous basis.
Depending on funding commitments, SCALED can mobilize several billions of USD over the next 10 years, launching multiple new vehicles per year.
Every investment we facilitate is guided by measurable, long-term impact – driving progress toward a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future.
Partners
SCALED is a multi-stakeholder initiative brought forward by both public and private actors of the sustainable investment and blended finance space.
