Ed Dugger | October 23, 2014

In 2011, a photo-sharing app – which shall remain nameless – received $41 million in funding from several venture capital firms. By the end of 2012, the company was gone. They hadn’t made any money, meaning they had a lackluster customer base and no product, revenue or profits. Their site was taken down, and their investors, while disappointed, moved on to the next cool thing. The due diligence might have gone something like this: “You have a new app. Looks kind of interesting, and we’ve been hearing a lot about you. Here’s $41 million dollars.”

Traditionally, venture capitalists have two exit plans. Initial public offerings or acquisitions.

VCs are looking for the big payoffs that keep them in the game. But hype? Who needs it? There’s so much work to be done around here on planet earth, where advanced materials can produce super-efficient batteries and solar cells. Where technology innovations will expand sustainable food systems, putting more bread on millions of tables. Where the mobile internet will soon be placing life-transforming tools in the hands of billions of people. We look at exit strategies more like this: Do our investments make life easier, better and more sustainable?

We’re putting our money on some real game-changers.

African-American woman with young man in kitchen

There are brilliant, insightful, ingenious innovators and entrepreneurs around the world. They have ideas that can create real, positive, effective change. Their heads and hearts are in the right place. And sadly, they are virtually invisible to the investment community. Really, we think it’s time for investors to rise up and start a revolution. OK, too strong a word. A reinvention.

We invite the world’s investment communities to get their heads out of The Cloud for just a moment and start backing some entrepreneurs who can generate positive impacts. These are people who will dramatically improve social equity and cultivate life-sustaining resources.

All irony aside. It’s time to get serious about where investment money goes.

Your money can create more gender equity – backing high-performing companies led by women. A very small slice of your investment portfolio can change the stats on wealth sharing, reviving the middle class, so it can once more serve as a beacon for those in the working class. A portion of your treasure chest can do worlds of good for entrepreneurs of color and underserved communities.

And these impact investments will generate substantial returns.

We are targeting returns to our investors in excess of 15%. Nope, we’re not looking to create overnight IPO billionaires. We anticipate exponential growth as highly successful private companies apply disruptive thinking and innovation to the problems our planet and people are facing. To us, that’s the next big thing. The real payoff will be in significant, measurable, and sustainable impacts.

Right now, we have very specific outcomes in our sights: dramatically improving wealth sharing, fostering gender equity, enhancing biodiversity, realizing the benefits of cultural revitalization, and building resilience in recovering from natural and economic adversities.

We are an impact investment company, and we’re not fooling around.

We are looking at unprecedented business opportunities, rethinking and reinventing economic models, including investment portfolio construction. We know that entrepreneurial genius and radical innovation can and will change the course of events. As mainstream and impact investors shift their priorities and begin to emphasize environmental and social outcomes, we can all work together to create one of the greatest turnarounds in human history.

We think you’re probably as excited as we are about generating change. So please join us in reinventing investing.