Happening to Things

ByReinventure Capital

Some time in 2016 I came across this charming card at Paper Source, featuring an epigram so perfect for Reinventure that I wish I had come up with it myself.

It’s not quite clear that the attribution is accurate, but whether or not Leonardo da Vinci actually penned the line, it’s perfectly on point.  And over the holiday break, I found myself thinking about it repeatedly:  it’s perfectly timely for the start of 2017.

Here on the threshold of a new year, there is a veritable fugue of sentiments:  relief for some that 2016 at last came to an end, grief over the deaths of so many cultural icons in bewildering succession, elation / fear / determination / defiance over the imminent US Presidential Inauguration, and much more besides.

Some folks are so overwhelmed that they find themselves immobilized, sitting on their hands while they wait to see what 2017 may show.  That’s understandable, but it’s not our stance.  At Reinventure, we’re not waiting for things to happen, and we’re inspired to keep moving by amazing entrepreneurs and innovators who are going out and happening to things.

People of Accomplishment.

By way of examples, we are thrilled to see (and cheer!) the outstanding accomplishments tallied last year by people like:

  • the CareAcademy team, who signed 10,000 users (individuals and agencies) to their evidence-based, research-backed training and certification programs for caregivers, and commenced pilots with state bodies
  • the eCurv team, who in Q3 alone deployed their qPAC real-time electric power demand management system to over 500 commercial customer sites
  • Shanel Lindsay / Ardent, who pre-sold over 1,500 Nova precision decarboxylation devices and earned nationwide press coverage prior to making an official product launch
  • the PartPic team, who signed multiple commercial customers to their computer vision part identification and sourcing platform, and expanded their unique machine intelligence database to 1 million parts

Not bad for 2016.  And we expect to track more and bigger milestones as 2017 unfolds.

Happening to things.

These are just a few of the high-potential young companies we are observing, all of which are led by people of color and/or women.  They are located across the United States, span multiple sectors, and offer a variety of B2B, B2C, and B2G products and services — in other words, they are anything but homogeneous.

What they have in common is a set of business attributes that we believe make them very compelling investment prospects:

  • occupying fragmented markets
  • delivering solutions their customers are eager to purchase
  • structured to grow profitably
  • attractive to multiple potential acquirers

In short, they are all actively creating value well beyond the outmoded stereotype of “unconventional” entrepreneurs.

To further extend the quote, they are busy happening to all manner of things.

Leonardo changed the world.  We aim to change it, too.

The Reinventure investment thesis is designed to deliver both intentional impact and competitive financial returns, without compromise to either.*  We aim to achieve that by working with and assisting founder teams like the ones above to be even more effective at growing companies that matter — to their customers, their employees, their suppliers, their communities, and yes, their investors.  Companies that change the world for the better by persistently, proactively happening to things.

At Reinventure, we’re reinventing investing.  We’re proud to be in extraordinary company with others who are also reinventing the world to create a more equitable future for all — they’re not waiting, and neither are we.  Please join us.

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*While there’s no such thing as a guarantee in investing and no one can reliably predict the future, Ed’s record at UNC Ventures provides historical evidence that it is indeed possible to invest for both financial returns and social value creation.  To learn more, please contact us.