Impact Growth Capital Newsletter

Impact Growth Fund

This Week’s Webinar Has Been Rescheduled.

The registration link will be in next week’s newsletter.

Impact Investing

Family offices, guardians of generational wealth, are quietly but decisively shifting their portfolios, and their perspectives, toward impact investing. Once dominated by traditional real estate and fund vehicles, these private investment entities are now channeling capital into real estate, startups, renewable energy, healthcare, education, and beyond. PwC’s 2024 Global Family Office Deals Study reveals that direct investments—including private equity and M&A—sweep up 70% of deal activity, eclipsing the 56% devoted to real estate and funds back in 2015.

U.S. family offices engaging in impact investing have doubled from 27% in 2015 to 54% in 2024, with a sustained majority above 50% since 2022.

Jonathan Flack of PwC notes that better data and an emphasis on non‑financial metrics have enabled these families—long-term in horizon—to reconcile financial returns with meaningful societal outcomes.

Although the total number of startup deals may have dipped since the post‑pandemic high, deal value trends hint at renewed confidence: average "ticket sizes" rose 23% in early 2024, and club‑deals, where multiple family offices co-invest, remain robust, accounting for some 83% of startup deals. Impact investments are part of that club-deal surge and are increasingly focused on areas like education, renewable energy, and microfinance.

It’s a smart, mission‑driven pivot and it’s here to stay. The emphasis now is on how to scale these investments with precision, accountability, and real impact. As data improves and younger generations steer decision‑making, family offices are uniquely positioned to lead with both purpose and profit.

Click Here to View PwC’s 2024 Family Office Study 

America’s Housing Shortage

Cities across the U.S. are pulling a creative play by rethinking what counts as buildable land. Gone are the days of chasing perfect, rectangular plots—now, planners and developers are turning their gaze to the oddities: skinny strips, triangle-shaped setbacks, and forgotten crescents that once defied zoning norms. These “hidden plots” are getting a second look as regulators and industry players realize they could be the next frontier in alleviating the urban housing crunch.

In the past year alone, metro areas have unleashed a wave of zoning reform. Firms like ReZone AI report that the 250 largest metro areas passed a staggering 257 zoning adjustments, alongside states enacting 96 housing‑friendly laws between 2023 and 2024—and another 80 so far this year. Strategies include cutting minimum lot sizes, reducing parking mandates, and even loosening rules around staircases in multifamily buildings to make development of such odd‑shaped parcels both feasible and economical.

These reforms aim to fill what’s known as the “missing middle”. That sweet spot between single‑family homes and sprawling apartment towers, often overlooked in zoning codes. Policymakers and housing advocates argue that by allowing triplexes or small multiplexes on compact or irregular plots, cities can introduce more affordable, diverse housing without sacrificing neighborhood character. As Lincoln Institute’s Arica Young notes, even placing a modest triplex on a high‑cost piece of land can significantly lower the price tag and broaden buyer appeal. Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and Minneapolis are already putting these creative zoning experiments into practice, and the results may redefine urban infill in the years ahead.