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Raise Lens

What's new on Raise Lens, August 2026

By Andrew Holden

Thirty-five new opportunities landed in the Raise Lens database in August: 15 grants, 10 tenders, and 10 subcontracts. These are all net-new programmes, not deadline refreshes on existing listings. The spread this month skews heavily towards infrastructure-scale capital and Latin American public procurement, with a handful of grant programmes worth closer attention for founders and nonprofits working in food systems, blended finance, and clean energy.

New grants worth a look

Not every grant in August is directly callable by a small org, but the ones below are either unusually large in scope, coming from a funder that rarely appears in the sustainability funding landscape, or have eligibility criteria broad enough to be worth reading carefully.

EU Global Gateway

The Global Gateway is the European Commission's flagship strategy to mobilise up to €300 billion in public and private capital by 2027. It covers digital, climate, energy, transport, health, and education infrastructure in partner countries, delivered through DG INTPA. This isn't a single grant window with a form to fill in: it operates through a portfolio of instruments, blended mechanisms, and country-level pipelines. If you're working in climate adaptation or renewable energy in a developing economy, this is the macro-funding context you should understand, and it's worth watching for the project-level calls that flow from it.

SNV Impact-Driven Finance

SNV's blended finance and impact finance mechanisms are specifically designed to help bridge the US$2.5 trillion funding gap for sustainable development in lower-income economies. SNV is not a typical bilateral funder: they operate as an implementing organisation with their own financing instruments, which makes this a more direct route than waiting for a government call. If you're structuring a blended finance deal or trying to mobilise private capital alongside development finance in an emerging market, this is worth a direct conversation.

Bloom8 Global Food Ecosystem Fund

Bloom8 VC backs founders across the full food value chain: alternative proteins, food-tech, supply-chain innovation, and foodservice models. The framing is the $9 trillion global food system, which is broad enough to include a lot of what sustainability founders in agri-food are actually building. This is equity capital from a VC, not a grant in the traditional sense, but it sits in the grants feed because it's non-dilutive-adjacent for some structures. Worth reading the listing carefully if you're in alternative proteins or food supply chains.

Abu Dhabi Investment Office PPP programme

ADIO is running a AED 55 billion pipeline of public-private partnerships across renewable energy, transportation, healthcare, education, and infrastructure. The target is private companies capable of structuring long-term service delivery partnerships. This is not a grant, but if you're an infrastructure-scale operator or developer with a regional presence in the Gulf, the pipeline is large enough to justify the time to understand the process.

European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)

€95.8 billion across 2021 to 2027, administered through EU member states. ESF+ covers employment, social inclusion, education, and skills. It's relevant to green transition work specifically through workforce development for the sustainable economy. Funding flows via national and regional managing authorities, so the route in is through your country's ESF+ programme authority, not a central application. It's worth knowing this exists if you're building green skills programmes or just transition projects.

IFC Global Trade Finance Program

The IFC's trade finance programme provides risk mitigation instruments to banks in emerging markets. This is squarely aimed at financial institutions rather than founders or nonprofits, but if you're a climate fintech working with trade finance or supply-chain finance in developing economies, understanding the IFC's instruments is part of the landscape you're operating in.

Tenders + contracts

The procurement side of August is dominated by large infrastructure contracts, with most originating from Colombian public sector bodies and one significant UK grid contract. Estimated values here reflect total contract scope, not subcontract portions.

The Scottish Hydro Electric transmission framework is the standout for UK-based civil and infrastructure contractors. The IDIGER nature-based solutions contract in Colombia is worth noting for organisations with Latin American project delivery capacity working in urban climate resilience.

Subcontracts and partner programmes

Five new subcontracts this month, all RFPs or RFQs from two prime contractors: DT Global and Palladium. Deadlines on two of the Palladium listings have already passed or are very close, so treat those as reference points for future rounds rather than live opportunities.

The hydrogen strategy work in Thailand through DT Global is the most strategically interesting listing here for energy consultancies and research organisations active in Southeast Asia.

Use this in Raise Lens

Here's how to get the most out of what's been added this month.

  1. Go to /opportunities and filter by sector, for example "alternative-proteins" or "climate-adaptation", to pull just the August additions that match your focus area rather than browsing all 35.
  2. Save any funder you want to monitor (SNV, IFC, EU DG INTPA) to a Watchlist on /funders: you'll get an alert when new programmes from that funder are indexed, which matters for instruments like Global Gateway where callable opportunities emerge over time.
  3. Set up a saved search with alerts for your primary sector and "subcontract" as the opportunity type: DT Global and Palladium both run recurring RFP cycles, and catching the next round early is the difference between a competitive response and a rushed one.
  4. For any grant where you want to start a first-pass response, open the listing and use /draft to begin structuring your eligibility case before the deadline picture becomes clearer.

All 35 opportunities from this month are filterable by sector, funder, opportunity type, and region on /opportunities. If you're working across food systems, grid infrastructure, or blended finance in emerging markets, this is a heavier month than usual.