Investment by Asset Class
Venture Capital
Catalysing impact through scalable innovations for a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
Kara Technologies
Impact of innovative, high growth start-ups can show up in different ways in our portfolio - anything from sign language translation technology for the Deaf community to maritime awareness technology to protect our oceans from overfishing. Our venture portfolio makes up about a third of the allocations in our fund.
[Technical type para here for how we discern scalable impact in an early stage venture. And maybe comment about commercial returns vis a vis impact]
We pave the way for mainstream investors and financing to participate in impact-led ventures. By providing the initial seed capital and sharing our due diligence, we de-risk impactful opportunities to a point where other fund managers feel comfortable participating. In time, we’d hope to see those partners join us on this journey from the get go but that’s what we’re here for in the meantime.
Beyond the money
When we’re considering investing into an opportunity, we’re always thinking about the impact of our capital, beyond the runway it provides. How can we protect the impact integrity and intentions of founders, ensuring the business remains aligned to the values underpinning it? How can we help ventures already doing impactful mahi, to communicate this to the wider ecosystem?
Once we’ve invested, we help ventures articulate their Theory of Change which informs their impact metrics and indicators. Supporting ventures to articulate their systems impact and how they can achieve this is the first step in impact management.
Housing
Financing resilient futures through community-led housing developments and real assets
Homes for Choice
Affordable housing as a foundation for broader social outcomes is well understood by our team. It gives us a compelling reason to participate in the housing sector and contribute to driving capital towards developments making a real difference. We believe providing our communities with choices when it comes to the provision of healthy and affordable homes will improve social outcomes and contribute to an equitable future.
But we’re not doing this alone. We have formed partnerships with organisations who have a track record in community housing, to lead the impact of our capital investment.
Partners
We have partnered with organisations like Habitat for Humanity and Homes of Choice for the development of homes for Te Pae ki te Rangi’s priority communities (read more about Te Pae’s priorities here).
Homes of Choice is a subsidiary of Spectrum Foundation and provides affordable and accessible housing for individuals living with a disability, and their whānau.
Habitat for Humanity is a housing charity and registered Community Housing Provider that supports whānau and communities here in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. They are driven to reduce inequity in the Aotearoa housing system.
Debt Facilities
Unlocking strategic, values-aligned capital for purpose-led organisations.
Anew
Through Te Pae ki te Rangi, we have been able to provide debt facilities to a number of start-ups and organisations as their first opportunity for accessing external finance.
Our debt facilities are often our lowest risk investments, providing us with stable financial returns throughout the lifetime of the investment. By keeping a healthy balance of low risk investments, it gives us room to be curious and explore our early stage ventures.
Impact aligned debt can be a powerful form of finance. With impact finance, the challenge is often properly understanding the underlying risk of the asset or enterprise and if/ how ‘cost to serve’ changes to achieve. As we prioritise financial returns alongside deep impact, we do not provide concessionary debt. When organisations are able to service their loans with us, it’s powerful to communicate this ability to mainstream lenders for future capital requirements, and to leverage for further lending. When organisations are able to communicate their maturity, it means they are able to scale their impact quicker.