Better Money Better World

Autism Impact Fund (“AIF”) Founder Chris Male aims to become the investment and innovation arm of the autism community. AIF's mission is to revolutionize diagnosing, treating and living with autism through a venture capital model. With 1 in 44 children in the US diagnosed on the autism spectrum, over $350 billion in direct spend (over $60,000 per child with autism) and an 85% unemployment rate for autistic adults, AIF hopes to harness the power of the capital markets to create transformational change for people on the spectrum and with other neurodiverse challenges. AIF is advised by silicon valley heavyweights like Emergence Capital’s Brian Jacobs and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Equilibrium Capital has gathered over $4.5 billion across its platform of sustainability driven investment strategies. Equilibrium became one of the largest impact native investment firms by not referring to itself as an impact investor, but instead by developing strategies for institutional investors wherein sustainability drove the financial returns. Equilibrium created a series of thematic financial “products” that appealed to institutional investors – such as Equilibrium’s Carbon Transition Infrastructure and Controlled Environment Foods strategies. Founder Dave Chen has been a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg Business School for 13 years where he talks about “building an army” of sustainable investors by teaching and encouraging students to pursue sustainable investing.

JPMorgan Chase is America’s largest bank and its Private Banking business, the firm’s wealth management arm for high and ultra-high net worth clients, is committed to building a sustainable investment platform that enables clients to direct dollars towards sustainable investing. Global Head of Sustainable Investing at J.P. Morgan Private Bank drills down on how to then measure that impact in both the public and private markets. J.P. Morgan’s Global Impact Fund represents a portfolio of impact-focused private vehicles focused on advancing towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals applying the rigor of the bank’s diligence process to identify and evaluate impact fund managers. On the public side, J.P. Morgan acquired OpenInvest, enabling the personalization of portfolios to align clients’ values and preferences to their investment goals.

Less than 3% of venture capital funding goes to women founders.  Yet studies show that women

founders drive two times as much revenue as male founders and have better IRRs. Bobbi Kurshan and Kathy Hurley wrote InnovateHERs to highlight female business leaders and discover how women can leverage their entrepreneurial mindset to advance their careers. The book features the stories 29 entrepreneurial women, including those that overcame immense adversity including abject poverty, to achieve successes.  Each story is more inspiring then the prior, but decades of research into Entrepreneurial Mindset Profiles provides a framework to view their successes. Kurshan describes how purpose driven female leaders tend to overcome the propensity of women to be risk adverse.  In effect, female entrepreneurs are more likely to find their calling from a passion borne of empathy. Bobbi Kurshan describes how women can build their network, discover their passion, to become INNovateHERs.

As there will never be enough philanthropy dollars to solve major problems and opportunities driven by global crises like climate change, Apollo Global Management is looking to invest in large, scaled companies where growing profits is directly tied to impact. Apollo named Lisa Hall Impact Chairperson in 2020. Hall has been a leader in impact investing since the 1990s when she joined Calvert Impact Capital. Since then, she has been at the forefront of impact trend setting from serving as CEO at Calvert to joining the Brenninkmeijer family in 2010 to begin the transition of their family office investing towards impact and sustainability.

Purpose is a competitive advantage for the Builders Fund, which leads growth equity and buyouts of lower middle market companies driven by impact. Builders has invested in companies like PosiGen Solar, bringing solar power to low income homeowners; Traditional Medicinals, the leading wellness tea brand in North America; and Mixt, a plant-based restaurant chain. Mike Dutton and Tripp Baird founded Builders to fill a gap for impact-focused capital for emerging growth stage companies, and to be a purpose-driven partner as these businesses scale their impact.

Wireframe Ventures backs early-stage founders focused on the health of people and the planet. Co-founders Harsh Patel and Paul Straub make initial investments of $500K to $2m at the seed or pre-seed stage, and then work closely with founders to turn their world changing ideas into scaled companies. For example, Wireframe led the seed round in Span.io, to reinvent the hundred year old electric panel, and has since raised over $120M to bring his vision from concept to commercial deployment, and frequently makes early investments in companies at the forefront of scientific innovation like Mammoth Biosciences, co-founded by Trevor Martin and Nobel Prize winner Professor Jennifer Doudna.

Lumos Capital Group invests $10-30M into growing companies defining the future of learning and work. Founded by Victor Hu and James Tieng, Lumos looks to partner deeply with companies that are growing impactful tech-enabled products and services in the global education sector. With the digital transformation of education, traditional products and distribution channels are being disrupted by a new category of customer-centric platforms and services, which in turn has created a new class of high growth education companies.

UBS, the world’s largest truly global wealth manager, has a long history in sustainability and is taking a lead in providing sustainable and impact investing advice and solutions to its clients. The firm has a view that wealth managers and advisors play a critical role in helping clients to deploy their philanthropic and investment capital for a better world. Andrew Lee, Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing for UBS Global Wealth Management, estimates that 1 in 4 family offices have impact investments as of 2022. Impact and sustainable investing has emerged as a driver of positive change and performance for high-net-worth families.

Jennifer Kenning tells her inspiring story of founding Align Impact after struggling with severe depression which led her to volunteer with the homeless. These experiences led her to found Align Impact – a $2.3 Billion under advisement impact investing firm. Named 40 under 40 by Investment News and amongst the 50 most influential women in private wealth by Private Asset Management, Kenning believes that capitalism can be a force for good bringing people centered solutions to global issues ranging from climate change to education.