Better Money Better World

Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons challenged orthodoxy when they invested 100% of their family wealth into impact investing by creating a new type of family office -- Blue Haven Initiative. Blue Haven invests through third party managers with an impact lens across asset classes, from public equities to private equity to early-stage VC to hedge funds. The only in-house invested platform is Bl...

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick partnered in impact with buyout behemoth Bain Capital. Together, they created Bain Double Impact which was recently selected by PEI as the top impact fund in the world. By investing in mission-driven, scaled middle market companies operating in traditional industries with clear impact metrics, the Bain Double Impact team is bringing impact into middle market pr...

With over 1,000 data scientists and engineers and 70 petabytes of data, Two Sigma is uniquely positioned to seek to bring data science to impact investing. Warren Valdmanis co-founded the Two Sigma Impact team after 14 years at Bain Capital, including a role in creating Bain Double Impact. Warren is focused on solving two threats to our economy: companies and executives prioritizing short term pro...

Brian Trelstad has been a driving force of virtually every innovation in impact investing for the last 20 years. He helped start the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs when Chief Investment Officer of Acumen Fund and Brian helped lead the creation of the widely used Impact Reporting and Investing Standards (“IRIS”). Now, he’s telling the impact investing community to stop innovating and st...

Closed Loop Partners invests in products and services that don’t depend on natural resource extraction or the disposal of those products in land fill to be successful. Closed Loop is a VC through buyout stage investor in the circular economy – proving that the circular economy is much more economical and higher quality than the companies of the last century. Through their investments, Closed Loop...

Electric vehicles are superior to internal combustion powered cars. Distributed energy is superior to centralized energy. Sustainable agriculture is more profitable than dirty agriculture. Many trillions of dollars are flowing into recreating our 100 year old industrial infrastructure. The cost of solar power has dropped ~90% since the founding of the Ecosystem Integrity Fund which creates the opp...

SJF Ventures has pioneered venture-like growth in sustainable businesses since 1999. Co-founded by Dave Kirkpatrick, SJF was initially called the “Sustainable Jobs Fund” – founded with the belief that environmentally driven companies would create good jobs. But today, SJF has built deep expertise across verticals like healthcare, education, and the environment. Dave, and Emma Sissman, lead at SJF...

Brandon Shelton loved jumping out of airplanes as an airborne officer. After leaving the service and working on Wall Street, Brandon is now co-founder of TFX Capital which backs high performing veterans who are domain experts tackling nasty problems. Veterans make up 0.5% of the population but start 10% of the small businesses in America – making veterans an attractive demographic to invest behind...

DBL Partners is renowned for leading early investments in companies like Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City. DBL Co-Founder Nancy Pfund built her career with a simple mission: to take on companies that are stifling innovation. From the Detroit Big 3 to Satellite companies that monopolized access to space, Nancy leads investments in startups that take on the incumbents and win. Listen to the story of how...

HCAP invests in service-oriented companies with large numbers of staff then pay that workforce a living wage and show them respect, trademarking the term “Gainful Jobs Approach”, which was created in conjunction with MIT’s Good Jobs Institute, to ensure that every employee has a “quality job”. Could HCAP be creating the actual “future of work” where sustainability for employees drives success on t...

Energy is changing and our electricity grid technology is over 100 years old. Every day, new solar panels, windmills and cogeneration plants are transforming America’s electricity production – but our grid that carries electricity to those who use it is unable to keep up. Last year, there were over 700 gigawatts of power that were not hooked up to the grid. Lime Rock New Energy is on a mission to...

Arjan Schutte is democratizing prosperity by investing in technologies that dramatically reduce the cost of financial services. 17% of low income Americans' spending goes to things that are generally “free” for the middle class and wealthy – like having a bank account. Arjan has backed unicorns like blockchain-based international digital payments company Ripple, and out of left field concepts like...

Josh Cohen created CityLight Capital after 9/11 and was an early backer of transformative companies like 2U (NASD: TWOU) and Shotspotter (NASD: SSTI). Today, CityLight is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to identify investments before innovative companies hit the radar screen of other investors. Leveraging the Machine allows CityLight to make about a seed stage investment almost every...

Jonathan Rose is an early ESG focused real estate investor who uses concepts like Green Building and livable communities to drive 15+% returns over his 15+ years buying 100+ apartment complexes, primarily for the working poor. His track record is rooted in making high ROI investments that improve energy efficiency and expand community facilities and resources to ensure low turnover of residents. L...

Reach Capital is a venture capital firm where more than half of the team has advanced degrees in education. Reach has doubled down on its winners by making big bets on winners like Nearpod ($600+M exit), Outschool (recent $1.4Bn valuation), and Mystery Science ($140M exit). These exits and track records make Jennifer Carolan and Shauntel Garvey some of the most successful female venture capitalist...

Matt Greenfield is a reformed Yale PhD in English who wrote the business plan for the first company he invested in that later sold for over $100M. Today leading Rethink education, Matt has backed 9 African American CEOs, four of whom are woman, from disparate backgrounds, two of whom were named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Has to constantly remind himself that having gone to the University of P...

Learn more at www.impactcapitalmanagers.com Stephen DeBerry has one of the top watched Ted Talks that describes how disadvantaged communities tend to follow the geographic destiny of living downwind. The poverty of Eastside communities manifests itself in ways investors don’t usually consider – like how many restaurants in a city like East Palo Alto have metal cutlery. Stephen invests in entrepren...

Learn more at www.impactcapitalmanagers.com Women-led startups received just 2.3% of VC funding in 2020, and fewer than 12% of decision makers at VC firms are women. Heidi Patel and Jenny Abramson, Managing Partners of Rethink Impact, discuss how data shows "gender lens investing" can drive superior returns by funding otherwise overlooked entrepreneurs who happen to be female. Rethink Impact is bu...

Learn more at www.impactcapitalmanagers.com Jason Palmer and Mark Grovic, partners at New Markets Venture Partners, discuss with host Daniel Pianko seeking alpha by finding education and training investments in rise of the rest cities. Each of New Markets last three funds has achieved top quartile performance by driving education gains that will bridge the economic divide of the haves and have not...