IMPACTASSETS 50™
An Annual Showcase of Impact Investment Fund Managers
ImpactAssets 50
An Annual Showcase of Impact Investment Fund Managers
Ecosystem Integrity Fund
Climate Change
Health and Wellbeing
Natural Resources and ConservationFirm Overview
Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF) invests in early growth-stage companies contributing to environmental sustainability across multiple sectors including renewable energy, transportation, agriculture and food, climate resilience, green chemistry, waste reduction, and efficiency. EIF takes a systems-based approach to sustainability investment, studying both the drivers for change as well as the constraints to innovation in market niches that are ripe for development. EIF invests in companies solving real problems, resulting in better investment opportunities and greater impact. Much of what we do should have long-term positive impacts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing climate change adaptation.
Years of Operation: 10 years or more
% of Capital from Top 3 Investors: Less than 25%
EIF looks for the most critical pain points where a business problem overlaps with a sustainability problem.
EIF is a sustainability focused venture capital fund which makes primarily early growth-stage investments. The Firm seeks capital-efficient business models and avoids significant technology risk. We seek to identify niches within sustainability which have not received as much investor attention as they deserve. The Firm views sustainability from a systems perspective, in order to better understand sustainability problems and to identify more viable business solutions to those problems. EIF seeks to have the greatest possible impact with the least possible amount of capital.
EIF takes a systems-based approach to sustainability investment. This approach flows from the fact that environmental problems are systemic by their nature and, in seeking to address them, we are trying to shift the behavior of large, established systems (e.g., energy, transportation, and agriculture). Because these systems are well-established and may resist change, we believe that successful investing in sustainability requires a sophisticated understanding of system behavior, incumbent technologies, stakeholder interests, and other factors. We are pragmatists. We believe that most opportunities to change these systems tend to be incremental rather than “disruptive”.
Investment Example
EIF Fund IV invested in Vibrant Planet, a decision-making platform for improving wildfire risk management and accelerating forest restoration. The company uses high-resolution data to facilitate landscape planning and monitoring in multi-stakeholder decision-making processes, starting with wildfire risk management in California. For over a decade, EIF has been wanting to improve forest fire resilience and mitigate wildfires. Recent innovations in AI along with improved data collection have ushered in a new era of data analysis for forests. Forest fires are incredibly destructive to human settlements and to natural habitats. Moreover, the loss of the carbon sinks provided by trees accelerates a deadly pattern of lost carbon mitigation potential, which then worsens climate change. If VP can improve decision-making and accountability around forest management, it could allow vast landscapes across the US and internationally to be more prepared for fire risk.
Leadership and Team
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James Everett – Managing Partner More Info
James Everett is a Managing Partner with the Ecosystem Integrity Fund, where he authored the fund strategy; leads research, due diligence, and strategy development; and serves as Chairman of the Investment Committee. He has been focused on environmental sustainability for 30 years, which has cultivated a sophisticated understanding of sustainability problems and strong pattern recognition with respect to workable solutions in green business. James is committed to the integration of economic and ecological sustainability, believing that green ideas have increased potential for scale and impact when they are directed toward practical solutions of business problems. |
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Devin Whatley – Managing Partner More Info
Devin Whatley is a Managing Partner at the Ecosystem Integrity Fund, where he leads deal structuring, negotiations, and fund operations; assists with the fund strategy; and works closely with the portfolio companies. He has been dedicated to environmental sustainability for more than 20 years and in particular the application of sustainability in technology and commerce. He believes that demonstrating business success in sustainability is not only possible, but also required in order to accelerate the shift to a sustainable existence. |
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Sasha Brown – Partner More Info
Sasha Brown is a Partner at the Ecosystem Integrity Fund. Her responsibilities include investment due diligence, strategy development, process management, deal sourcing, and portfolio company support. She assists with system and sector analysis, firm operations, and financial structuring. Sasha serves as a board director at Ambient Photonics, For Days, Upflex, and Opti, and is an observer on the board of Bluon and Energicity. |
Financial Performance
Impact Performance
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Percentage of Total Assets Under
Management that are Impact Investments: |
100%
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Each investment considered by the Fund should hold the potential to generate significant positive impact upon some clearly identified threat to ecosystem integrity. The investment’s success should make a meaningful contribution to a significant problem, such as climate change mitigation or depletion of a critical resource. The company should have the potential for significant scale, and environmental benefits should scale along with the successful growth of the company. Furthermore, the company should not introduce new environmental problems while providing a solution to another one.
Our investment thesis, expertise, and impact areas are all based on improving environmental sustainability. We have invested to maximize financial returns within this scope of environmental impact. EIF conducts intensive due diligence on each investment, in which it considers a wide range of potential risks. In doing so, we continue to seek a diverse set of sources and networks to ensure we are guiding companies to improve or develop DEI objectives.
Impact Tracking and Monitoring
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275 Sacramento St., San Francisco, CA 94111 USA
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