WNY Impact Investment Fund: Looking back at seven years of social impact investments

The Western New York Impact Investment Fund has made 21 investments totaling $11.4 million in the past seven years.

Several of its portfolio companies have gone on to raise larger funding rounds. But the Fund isn’t just pursuing market rate returns. It also strives to make investments that make Western New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.

This has resulted in investments that are revitalizing neighborhoods, adding important jobs to the local economy, keeping cardboard out of local landfills, supporting women and minority founders and creating new opportunities for people from marginalized groups.

“We take our raison d’etre incredibly seriously, which is why we created a rigorous investment process where every deal is vetted separately for commercial promise and meaningful local social impact,” CEO Tom Quinn said. “The Fund is pioneering a new approach to place-based social impact investing, and the evidence shows it’s working beyond our initial ambitious goals.”

Quinn was hired as the Founding CEO of the Fund in 2017 and subsequently raised $20 million to make the idea a reality. This work has been recognized in Forbes and The Foundation Review.

Here is a snapshot through seven years of driving social impact in Western New York.

Community revitalization

The Fund has backed several projects where entrepreneurs are breathing life into distressed neighborhoods. They include:

Viridi The Fund has invested five times into Viridi, which is developing battery-based generators to replace gas-powered ones. Founded by CEO Jon Williams, Viridi is headquartered in a formerly vacant factory complex on Buffalo’s East Side. Several different structures on the sprawling lot have been renovated into sophisticated centers of R&D and advanced manufacturing.

CleanFiber The Fund first invested in CleanFiber before it had a working factory – now it employs about 100 people at a formerly vacant Bethlehem Steel facility in Blasdell. The Fund has invested three different times into the company, which now owns the property and is wrapping up a $17 million, 60,000-square-foot renovation there.

Buffalo FilmWorks The Fund invested $750,000 in Buffalo FilmWorks in 2022, supporting the buildout of another formerly vacant factory, this one off Clinton and Babcock streets. It now boasts four sound stages, including one of the largest in the U.S., and is geared for blockbuster-scale movies and television series Buffalo FilmWorks is led by female co-founder and CEO Jennifer O’Neill and is officially certified in New York state as a minority and/or women-owned business enterprise .

Top Seedz The company received a $750,000 investment from the Fund earlier this year as it was in the process of moving from suburban Cheektowaga into a formerly vacant facility in downtown Buffalo. The 35,000-square-foot factory is more than four times larger than their old space and will host scaled-up manufacturing of artisanal crackers that are sold across the U.S. Top Seedz is led by female founder and CEO Rebecca Brady.

Creation of good jobs

Another measure of community impact tracked by the Fund is job creation, and its portfolio companies now support 299 full-time equivalent jobs. This number is expected to increase in the coming years as several portfolio companies scale their operations on the back of new funding rounds.

Approximately half of those positions are filled by individuals from marginalized groups. Several portfolio companies have tied their recruiting strategies to social impact in compelling ways. Viridi created a nonprofit called GreenForce to recruit from surrounding neighborhoods and then to provide robust wraparound support to those employees to ensure their success. Top Seedz hires most of its employees out of the local refugee community through partnerships with nonprofits Journey’s End and Community Services for Every1.

Additionally, Fund portfolio companies have reported spending $2.23 million on healthcare and other benefits since our initial investment.

Mission-oriented products

Most of the Fund’s portfolio companies have individual social impact metrics that are specific to their company. Some of these include…

• CleanFiber, which makes building insulation out of recycled cardboard, has pulled more than 36 tons of recycled cardboard out of local landfills to make its products.
• CAHill Tech, which delivers workforce training that helps individuals get good jobs in the construction industry, has delivered training to more than 1,200 individuals totaling more than 5,000 learning hours. CAHill is led by female founder and CEO Carley Hill.
• EcoVerde Organics, a recycling and composting company, has diverted 11,284 cubic yards of food scraps from landfills from its new site in the town of Akron.

Several other portfolio companies are expected to report meaningful social impact in the coming years, including a technology startup (Arbol) that has created a financial wellness platform for college students designed to prevent dropouts, with a focus on first-generation and minority student; another technology company (LenderLogix), which is creating a tool to drive real estate investments into low-income census tracts; and a clinical trials platform (Circuit Clinical) that aims to boost diversity in cutting-edge trials by giving doctors and patients outside of major health centers access to clinical trials.

###

ABOUT THE WESTERN NEW YORK IMPACT INVESTMENT FUND: The Western New York Impact Investment Fund is a for-profit, place-based impact investment fund. Its innovative model has been featured recently in publications ranging from Forbes to The Foundation Review. Since late 2017, the Fund has made 21 investments totaling more than $11.4 million in 13 different companies. Each of its deals is considered through an impact investing framework, meaning the commercial upside is weighed equally alongside the potential social impact in Western New York. The Fund has raised more than $20 million since its inception to deploy in support of companies in the community, including the recent closure of $12.45 million from new and existing investors. For more information, visit www.wnyimpact.com.