Investing in Impact | Impact Investing

Causeartist
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Investing in Impact interviews impact investors, General Partners, and VC's from around the world on their individual journeys and to connect impact entrepreneurs with insight into funding, scalability, and insights to inspire more impact companies around the world.

  1. How Gross Labs Is Building a New Model for Culture, Capital, and Impact

    3d ago

    How Gross Labs Is Building a New Model for Culture, Capital, and Impact

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- In this episode of Investing in Impact, we speak with Nick Gross, founder of Gross Labs and Gross Labs Foundation, about his journey from musician to entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Nick signed a record deal with Sony Epic Records while still in high school and later founded the Noise Nest, a five studio music campus in Los Angeles. His experience in music introduced him to artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, and emerging founders, eventually leading him into startup investing and business building. Today, Gross Labs operates as a family enterprise and cultural investment platform spanning education, sports, media, entertainment, wellness, hospitality, and philanthropy. Rather than functioning as a traditional family office, Gross Labs takes an active role in helping founders build companies, strengthen brands, access partnerships, and connect with a broader ecosystem of operating businesses and social impact initiatives. Nick also explains how Gross Labs Foundation evolved from Find Your Grind Foundation and now serves as the impact layer across the Gross Labs portfolio. The conversation explores how capital, culture, education, brand building, and philanthropy can work together to create both financial value and meaningful social outcomes. About Nick Gross Nick Gross is the founder of Gross Labs, a family enterprise and cultural investment platform focused on building, investing in, and supporting companies across education, sports, media, entertainment, wellness, and other culture shaping sectors. He is also the founder of Find Your Grind, an education technology platform helping students develop career awareness, confidence, future readiness, and a clearer understanding of how they want to live and work. Through Gross Labs Foundation, Nick supports initiatives focused on youth opportunity, education, workforce development, sports, wellness, environmental stewardship, and community impact. Before becoming an entrepreneur and investor, Nick signed a record deal with Sony Epic Records and built a career as a professional musician. He later founded the Noise Nest, a recording and creative campus in Los Angeles. About Gross Labs Gross Labs is a family enterprise and cultural investment platform that brings together business creation, private investing, operating expertise, brand development, and philanthropy. The platform works with founders and companies across industries that influence culture, including education, sports, entertainment, media, hospitality, and wellness. About Gross Labs Foundation Gross Labs Foundation is the philanthropic platform connected to the broader Gross Labs ecosystem. The foundation works with mission aligned organizations and leaders to create measurable impact through education, career development, sports, youth opportunity, wellness, environmental stewardship, and community initiatives. ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    36 min

  2. Jun 15 ·  Bonus

    Causeartist Weekly Brief - From Rare Earths to Clean Water: The Startups Building the Next Impact Economy

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- In This Episode • Climate tech investment reaches $40.5 billion in 2025 • Why investors remain bullish on clean energy, grid modernization, and industrial decarbonization • How Nimble is reducing electronic waste through circular consumer products • Phoenix Tailings' mission to build a cleaner domestic rare earth supply chain • Clear Robotics and the future of autonomous electric vessels for waterway management • The role of the Bezos Earth Fund in advancing climate and conservation efforts • How the UNICEF Venture Fund supports frontier technology startups in emerging markets • Finance Earth's approach to unlocking private capital for environmental solutions • Recent funding rounds from Clear Robotics, Campground, and Cocoon Carbon • New research showing AI is creating more technology jobs than it is eliminating across Europe Featured Organizations Companies: • Nimble• Phoenix Tailings• Clear Robotics Funders: • Bezos Earth Fund• UNICEF Venture Fund• Finance Earth Recent Funding Covered • Clear Robotics, $1.75M• Campground, $2.2M• Cocoon Carbon, $15M ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    7 min

  3. May 27 ·  Bonus

    A Causeartist Announcement

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today’s episode is a little different. After years of building Causeartist as a media platform spotlighting impact startups, founders, investors, and innovators, we’re entering a completely new chapter. Causeartist is now officially a nonprofit organization. And honestly, this decision came from something simple. The mission became bigger than a media company. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to interview incredible founders, nonprofit leaders, impact investors, climate innovators, technologists, artists, and builders from all over the world. And one thing became very clear to me. There are millions of people working every single day to solve massive problems in the world, but many of their stories never get told. A lot of these founders and organizations are building in areas like climate, education, healthcare, financial inclusion, food systems, AI for good, community development, and so much more. But many of them are doing this work without enough visibility, without enough media support, and without enough long-term storytelling infrastructure behind them. We want to help change that. The vision for Causeartist moving forward is to build a lasting home for the impact economy. A place focused on impact startup storytelling, founder and innovator interviews, educational media and research, ecosystem databases and directories, podcasts and live conversations, community collaboration, and resources for people building positive change in the world. At its core, Causeartist is built around one belief: There are millions of people using their talents, creativity, skills, and businesses to improve the world, and their stories deserve to be seen. That belief has guided this platform from day one. And now becoming a nonprofit allows us to think longer term. It allows us to focus on building something durable. Something mission-first. Something that can continue spotlighting innovators and builders for years and decades to come. I also just want to say thank you. Thank you to every founder who trusted us with their story. Every investor who shared insights. Every nonprofit leader, partner, listener, reader, and supporter who has been part of this journey. You helped shape what Causeartist has become. And honestly, we’re just getting started. I’m incredibly excited for what we’re building next. More stories. More founders. More conversations. More tools and resources for the people trying to create a better future. So thank you for being here. Thank you for believing in this mission. And let’s continue building together. See you in the next episode. ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    3 min
  4. Inside Citi's $500M Impact Fund Investing in Underserved Communities

    Apr 14

    Inside Citi's $500M Impact Fund Investing in Underserved Communities

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- Most impact funds operate at the margins of traditional finance. The Citi Impact Fund operates from inside one of the largest banks in the world. That's a different kind of leverage. Meredith Shields manages a $500 million carve-out from Citi's balance sheet, deployed exclusively into double bottom line companies. In this episode, she covers how the fund defines impact, why it moved to Series B investing, and what she's watching in sectors like care, education, and financial resilience. She also names names, rolling through more portfolio companies than most guests manage in an hour. ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    40 min

  5. Feb 25 ·  Bonus

    Inside Lupus Ventures and the Push to Fund Cures First

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- For decades, lupus has remained one of the most complex challenges in modern medicine. Its extreme heterogeneity, where symptoms and triggers can vary widely from one patient to the next, has made the disease difficult to study, diagnose, and treat. As a result, lupus has often been passed over by traditional venture capital in favor of conditions with more predictable development paths. That dynamic is now beginning to change. A growing wave of scientific advances, regulatory progress, and an increasingly active clinical pipeline is signaling a turning point for millions of patients worldwide. At the center of this shift is Lupus Ventures, a mission driven investment fund launched by the Lupus Research Alliance. The fund combines the discipline of life sciences venture capital with a clear focus on return on mission, aiming to close the funding gap that has long stalled promising breakthroughs in autoimmune disease research. In this spotlight, we speak with Nishant Rastogi, Managing Director of Lupus Ventures. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in biotech private equity and venture capital, Nishant explains why he chose to lead a mission driven fund, why early diagnostics are critical to improving patient outcomes, and how Lupus Ventures is helping reshape how cures are funded for historically underserved diseases. Full interview ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    6 min
  6. Financing Restoration: How Ecosystem Investment Partners Turns Environmental Law into Real Assets

    12/01/2025

    Financing Restoration: How Ecosystem Investment Partners Turns Environmental Law into Real Assets

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- In episode 93 of the Investing in Impact podcast, I sit down with Nick Dilks, Co Founder and Managing Partner of Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP), a firm that has quietly become one of the most important players in large scale ecological restoration in the United States. Nick grew up splitting time between Philadelphia and a family farm on the Chesapeake Bay. That early exposure to land and water shaped a life long focus on conservation. After a decade at The Conservation Fund structuring complex land deals, he co founded EIP in 2006 to answer a simple but difficult question. Can you use private capital, at scale, to restore degraded ecosystems while still meeting the financial expectations of institutional investors Over almost twenty years, EIP has shown that the answer is yes. The firm acquires degraded land, restores wetlands, streams, and habitats, then sells mitigation credits to public and private developers that are required by law to offset their environmental impacts. It is a space where environmental protection, infrastructure, housing, and finance all intersect. In this conversation, Nick explains how mitigation banking actually works, why these markets are fully regulated and compulsory, how a new 400 million dollar fund will expand EIP’s work, and why he believes more young people should bring serious financial skills into the environmental sector. ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    26 min
  7. Rehana Nathoo on the Future of Impact Investing, Catalytic Capital, and ESG

    11/18/2025

    Rehana Nathoo on the Future of Impact Investing, Catalytic Capital, and ESG

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- Welcome to episode 92 of the Investing in Impact podcast. Today you will hear from Rehana Nathoo, the Founder and CEO of Spectrum Impact. Rehana has worked across the UN, Rockefeller Foundation, Bank of New York Mellon, and the Case Foundation, giving her a rare view into how capital systems evolve and where they fall short. Her experience covers development finance, field building, and the realities of pushing impact work into traditional financial institutions. In this episode she breaks down her journey, the lessons she has carried into Spectrum Impact, and the honest truth about what it takes to design impact strategies that actually work. ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    40 min

  8. 11/17/2025 ·  Bonus

    Carbon Direct has acquired Pachama to strengthen precision in carbon accounting and verification

    This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. ---------------------------------------- Carbon Direct has acquired Pachama to bolster precision, transparency, and scientific rigor in carbon accounting and verification for the voluntary carbon market. Pachama, recognized for its digital platform focused on monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of forest carbon projects, will integrate its technology with Carbon Direct's science-driven carbon management expertise.​ Strategic Impact of the Acquisition The combined platform aims to deliver higher-quality carbon credits using improved environmental data tracking, advanced digital MRV tools, and AI-powered insights.​ The acquisition strengthens Carbon Direct’s capacity to offer comprehensive, data-driven project evaluation and transparency for both buyers and project developers.​ Pachama’s co-founder and CEO, Diego Saez Gil, and key team members will join Carbon Direct, helping guide strategic engagement around scaling nature-based, verifiable climate solutions.Learn more → ---------------------------------------- Investing in Impact is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet. Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention. By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

    4 min
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Investing in Impact interviews impact investors, General Partners, and VC's from around the world on their individual journeys and to connect impact entrepreneurs with insight into funding, scalability, and insights to inspire more impact companies around the world.

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