Former MaRS executives co-found new global impact investment firm
Why It Matters
Impact investing is becoming a major financial philosophy at a time when the world needs help recovering from the costs of COVID-19, the ongoing climate crisis, and deepening economic inequality.
Two former senior executives at MaRS, including a past CEO, are behind the recent launch of an impact investment firm promising to open up financial opportunities for philanthropists and socially-minded private investors alike.
TwinRiver Capital launched on July 14 in both Toronto and Boston to help clients from across the financial and social impact spectrum get involved in impact investing, especially around healthcare, environmental, and economic inclusion issues. Other impact investors are already chipping in to solve these very issues, but Ilse Treurnicht, co-founder of TwinRiver Capital, says there aren’t a lot of players in Canada — and she wants to see more.
“It’s not so much that we want to be different,” she told Future of Good in an interview. “There’s not enough of us.”
The new firm says it will offer its clients opportunities to get involved in venture philanthropy and a publicly-traded equity impact strategy — as well as advice for investors keen on “a wider-angle model for deployment of their assets”, according to a statement. TwinRiver, it says, will centre social and environmental impact while also fully leveraging a variety of new business models, innovative practices, and breakthrough technologies.
Treurnicht worked as the CEO of MaRS for 12 years before leaving the innovation centre in 2017 and working at North South Ventures, a cross-border venture capital fund focused on investing in early stage medical companies. Another co-founder, Adam Jagelewski, was co-founder of the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing.
MaRS was involved with impact investing from its earliest days, Treurnicht said, and she sees her current trajectory with TwinRiver as an extension of the innovation centre’s earlier work.
“I think MaRS’s role is very much field-building, cultivating, priming the pump and letting those new innovations scale,” she told Future of Good. “And so I think, for both Adam and I, this is a very natural next step.”
TwinRiver’s third co-founder, Eric Wetlaufer, was the chief investment officer at Putnam Investments and Fidelity Investments, and served as the global head of public market investments for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Impact investing is a fast-growing method used by investors to balance social and environmental improvements alongside financial returns. Certain philosophies such as ‘environmental social and governance’ (ESG) strategies call for investors to consider non-financial aspects when making business decisions. But impact investors actively look to create social or environmental improvements alongside financial returns.
The practice of impact investing is still fairly new, but appears to be growing rapidly. According to data from the Responsible Investment Association, reported impact investments in Canada have grown from $3.8 billion in 2012 to a whopping $20.3 billion in 2019.
In order to speed up its launch, TwinRiver is working with Cidel Asset Management, a Canadian independent wealth firm, to help the new firm focus on building out its impact platform and financial products while piggybacking on Cidel’s investment structure and client networks.
“Our goal is to help bring impact investing to a much broader circle of clients with the rigour and investment discipline of top-tier investors,” Wetlaufer said in a statement. “These clients should have access to high-calibre products and services that go beyond simple exposure to passive ESG metrics.”
Treurnicht said the involvement of impact investors, alongside governments and the private sector, will be critical to tackling the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic — and climate change. Filling the cracks exposed by these two calamities will be a team effort.
“This is not a problem that any one sector or any one actor can solve,” she told Future of Good. “This is an extreme sport of collaboration between the public, private, and community sectors.”
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