Ethic raises $29 million to grow customized sustainable portfolios for wealth advisors

ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – Ethic has raised $29 million to grow its customized sustainable portfolios for wealth advisors. The tech-driven asset management platform says it has grown assets under management ten-fold since its 2019 financing round, including to $760 million in sustainable direct indexing strategies. “It’s increasingly clear that the future of asset management is personalized,” said Dan Petrozzo of Oak HC/FT, which led the new financing.

Existing investors including Fidelity Investments, Nyca Partners, Sound Ventures, ThirdStream Partners, Urban Innovation Fund and Kapor Capital also participated. Ethic has a strategic agreement with Fidelity and has partnered with several large U.S. advisory firms.

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ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

September 23, 2022

The Brief

The Week’s Agent of Impact

Suzanne Biegel, GenderSmart: Making markets work for women and the world. Women are hot… investments. So declared ImpactAlpha back in 2014, when we used quote marks for investors unfamiliar with “gender lens” investments in—and for—women, for the benefit of all. Back then, there was little data on the size or scope of gender-lens finance. Today, one study tallied $18 billion in commitments to private gender-focused funds. “I'm tracking over 300 private market funds and growing,” Suzanne Biegel, the field-building founder of GenderSmart, tells ImpactAlpha. Many are on their second or third gender-lens funds. “There is a body of evidence that says, ‘When we get capital into the hands of women entrepreneurs, good things will happen,’” Biegel said on a 2016 Agents of Impact podcast.

The Week’s Dealflow

Deal spotlight: Inclusive fund managers. First-time impact fund managers tend to outperform more experienced peers. This week, VC Include selected a dozen impact-oriented venture capital and private equity funds led by general partners with diverse backgrounds for its two-month education and mentoring fellowship program. Separately, Alphabet, through its growth fund CapitalG, allocated the final $40 million of its $100 million commitment in 2020 to seven Black venture fund managers investing in Black entrepreneurs. Among the recipients are Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures, Black Tech Nation Ventures and Nasir Qadree’s Zeal Capital Partners.

The Week’s Talent

Christopher Harris, ex- of TIAA, joins Zevin Asset Management as a client portfolio manager and will join the firm’s investment committee… Anna Lerner Nesbitt, ex- of World Bank Group and Meta, joins the Climate Collective as CEO… Jacquelyn VanderBrug, ex- of Bank of America, joins Putnam Investments as head of sustainability… Emma Kulow, a former ImpactAlpha fellow and ex- of CapShift, joins ACCELR8 as an associate.

The Week’s Jobs

The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator is hiring a government and university relations manager in Los Angeles and several other roles… WaterEquity seeks a remote marketing associate… Abrdn is looking for a fund accounting product management analyst in Philadelphia... DBL Partners seeks an associate in San Francisco... Social Finance seeks a vice president of impact investments in Boston.

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