Three Venture Firms Integrating Venture and Philanthropy

As I started out on my journey building Rise Together Ventures, which pairs venture equity investments with parallel philanthropic capital to drive impact in the for-profit world, I was curious whether there were other firms that had similar goals or structures. There has been a lot of money made in venture, many VCs are philanthropic in their own right, and it’s an industry centered around innovation, so it would make sense that the industry has evolved into one that creatively integrates giving back, right?

Spoiler: There are not many of them.

However, the below three firms have a unique and interesting spin on venture + philanthropy.

Transform Capital: Transform Capital, founded in 2018, is a typical venture fund investing in late-stage, high-growth, tech-enabled companies; however, it is unlike a typical venture fund in that they donate a portion of their carry to philanthropic causes — selected by their portfolio founders and Limited Partners — without sacrificing LPs’ profits. In fact, the partners at Transform donate 50% of their carry. LPs keep all of their profits, but Transform asks them to delay their payouts a little in order to get cash into the hands of charitable organizations earlier (easy to understand diagram here about how they structure that).

From an LP’s (and founder’s) perspective, this is a pretty sweet setup — they get to help choose which nonprofit causes to support without actually having to put up any capital to do so. Transform most recently raised a $100mm fund, so clearly their model is working!

Concrete Rose: Similar to Transform, Concrete Rose (founded in 2019) is a venture capital firm that commits 50% of the partner carry to organizations focused on closing opportunity gaps for underrepresented talent in America through the Concrete Rose Community Foundation.

Again, this is a wonderful way for LPs to get involved in philanthropy without actually having to pledge any dollars themselves.

Camelback Ventures: Camelback, founded in 2015, operates similar to a venture accelerator program in that it chooses cohorts of “fellows” each year and invests a set amount of capital in them (note, these fellows are for-profit ventures), along with network and mentorship; however, it is unlike a typical accelerator program in that it is technically a non-profit organization (you can donate to it here in fact). So, in essence, 100% of partner carry is “donated”, or recycled back into the firm to fund more ventures.

Camelback is currently focused on Education and Conscious Tech. One example of a company going through their accelerator program is DivySci, an artificial intelligence tool that gives corporations insights into optimizing their communication for effective team collaboration through reducing biases in the workplace. Camelback is supported by reputable philanthropic orgs such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and the Walton Family Foundation.

I suspect that weaving venture and philanthropy will be an increasingly popular thing to do, especially given that some of the “bigger” names in VC have begun participating. Watch this space…