Forbes 400: Impact Capital is the New Asset Class

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Submitted by Nidhi Chaudhary on Wed, 2012-09-19 12:28

The original post is authored by Bruce Upbin, a managing editor at Forbes, and reprinted from Forbes.com.

One of the highlights from the Forbes 400 Summit On Philanthropy was the panel ‘Impact Capital Is The New Asset Class,’ and not just because I was the moderator (entire video below). It was thanks to the intelligent panelists we brought on stage: venture capitalists Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, and social venture investor Cheryl Dorsey of Echoing Green. They took turns underscoring how different (and similar) are the world’s of social venture and traditional venture capital.

Investors in both sectors agreed they look for the same thing: great leaders, ambitious and scalable business plans and ideas that could have a big impact. Cheryl Dorsey of Echoing Green (at 02:30 mark in video below) explains how she spots winners from among the 3,500 business plans that enter her annual competition. Over the past 25 years, Echoing Green has made seed-stage investments in social ventures such as Teach For America, SKS Microfinance and Freelancer’s Union.

Enjoy the video and read more about Mr. Upbin's analysis here.