Kachuwa Impact Fund closes $4.2M in annual stock offering

Boulder, Colorado, September 25, 2026 – Last week, Kachuwa Impact Fund closed its annual fundraise, raising more than $4.2 million in new equity via a private stock offering. Kachuwa Impact Fund is an investment cooperative whereby each investor becomes a member of the cooperative and a co-owner of its “evergreen” impact asset portfolio.  28 existing and 55 new co-op members participated in this year’s private offering.  Kachuwa Impact Fund has conducted an offering for each of the last nine years, and its 363 co-op members have collectively invested over $30.9M in the co-op which manages an impact asset portfolio of over $60M of impact real estate, private equity, and private debt investments.  Approximately 31% of the co-op’s 363 members are non-accredited investors. 

Click here to see the co-op’s portfolio of impact real estate investments and click here to see its portfolio of impact company investments.

Celebrating the sale of a real estate project (the Upslope building)

On September 1, 2026, Kachuwa Impact Fund (“Kachuwa”) and Upslope Brewing Company (“Upslope”) sold the building in Boulder, Colorado, that they had co-owned together for the past nine years. Here’s the story of their decision to originally purchase – and then eventually sell – the building.

In late 2016, Upslope learned that their landlord was about increase their rent by 30%-40%. Upslope had occupied their space in Boulder for almost seven years, and it was a great fit for them. Unfortunately, Upslope couldn’t afford this drastic rent increase, but they also couldn’t afford to go elsewhere as this would’ve required them to stop beer production, drain their brewing equipment, move it all to a new space, and then endure a multi-month lag without any revenue (until their first beer could eventually be produced at a new location).  They thought about purchasing their building, but they didn’t have enough capital, and they needed to use what little capital they had to grow their brewing business. So, they asked Kachuwa for help, and Kachuwa agreed to provide 100% of the $2.6M in capital that was required to obtain a mortgage and purchase the building for $7.0M in early 2017.

This became the first project where Kachuwa utilized its shared ownership real estate model whereby the tenant, Upslope, would earn an ownership stake in the building over time in exchange for helping Kachuwa to co-manage it. Because the project didn't initially align with Kachuwa’s impact themes, Upslope committed to finishing their B Corp certification (which they achieved in 2019), to greening up the building (e.g. installing a solar PV system, EV charging stations, bike racks, energy and water efficiency measures, etc.), and to pursuing LEED certification (which was achieved in 2023). Upslope’s original vision was to eventually convert to employee-ownership, and they turned down multiple acquisition offers from national and global beer companies throughout the years, but ultimately the outlook in the independent craft beer business started to worsen. In late 2025, Upslope decided to sell its brand and beer production to a Colorado-based group, Wilding Brands (“Wilding”), that’s merging multiple local beer brands in the hopes that they’ll be stronger together in the evolving craft beer market. Once Upslope made their decision to merge with Wilding, they no longer needed their tap room, offices, warehouse, and brewing operations, so Upslope and Kachuwa jointly decided to sell the building.

After purchasing the building for $7.00M in 2017, Kachuwa and Upslope sold it nine years later for $8.05M to a local real estate investor. With the sale, Kachuwa earns an approximately 9.0% internal rate of return (“IRR”), and Upslope earns around $330K, thereby “participating in the upside” – without having to invest any capital in the project – due to the sweat equity they had earned by helping Kachuwa to co-manage the building over the past nine years. This “sharing of the upside” was one of the key reasons for utilizing Kachuwa’s shared ownership real estate model, and this project marks the first time the model has completed its full life cycle from beginning to end. Fortunately, the project was a success, both in terms of the journey and the destination, so to speak, because Kachuwa helped Upslope to “gain control of their real estate destiny,” helped lower their rent/occupancy expense, helped empower them to “chart their own course” for their business, helped increase the impact of both the building and Upslope’s business operations, and helped to achieve a win-win final outcome when the building was no longer needed. It goes without saying that Kachuwa aims to replicate this project model again and again in the future!

Visit to two of our portfolio partners in Oregon

Kachuwa Board Directors, Alicia Robb, Lizette Peña, and Yichen Feng were in Oregon last month to visit two of our portfolio partners: Shortstack Housing and Ecotrust Forest Management (EFM). 

Shortstack Housing and Kachuwa collaborated on two affordable housing developments in Portland with 35 apartment units in each location.  When Jessy Ledesma and Anna Mackay were first launching Shortstack Housing, like many women entrepreneurs, they struggled to raise the funding they needed. Kachuwa provided the remainder of their funding and became majority investor for each of the two ~$14M developments. The projects are affordable for low-to-middle income tenants and optimized for urban infill. They use panelized mass timber construction for a lower cost construction option.  Kachuwa Directors attended the ribbon cutting celebration of the second project, the Shortstack Belmont location, on July 21, 2026.  Kachuwa Directors are pictured here with Shortstack Housing co-founders, Jessy and Anna. After the ribbon cutting, the Kachuwa members traveled to the visit first project, the Shortstack Mississippi location, which is now in its second year of operation in Portland.

Lizette Peña, Anna Mackay, Jessy Ledesma, Alicia Robb, and Yichen Feng at the Shortstack Belmont ribbon cutting.

Alicia, Yichen, and Lizette in front of the Shortstack Mississippi property.

Ecotrust Forest Management (EFM) is a certified B-Corp, women-led firm that acquires forestland properties in the Pacific Northwest and transitions them to climate-smart management. They seek to create value by combining sustainable timber production with revenues from carbon sequestration, conservation, recreation, and biodiversity. EFM forests are audited annually for compliance with the stewardship principles and certification requirements of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Since 2005, EFM has acquired 25+ forestland properties totaling 230,000+ acres via their four funds (NOTE:  Kachuwa is an investor in all four funds with a total of ~$1.7M invested).  On the EFM tour, Kachuwa Directors were able to visit one of their oldest acquisitions -- Giribaldi, a nearly 5,000-acre forest in Tillamook County, which is connected to two of the most important watersheds in Oregon for salmon populations.  The second day the group visited their newest acquisition -- Nehalem, a 30,000-acre rain forest which is located near the Oregon coast. 

Bettina Von Hagen, the CEO of EFM explains how they are restoring the forests and watersheds.

Lizette, Yichen, and Alicia at the Giribaldi property.