Sarah Cone is the founder and Managing Partner at Social Impact Capital in NYC.
“[Sarah Cone’s] superpower is plunging obsessively into the data on the most difficult social impact problems, and coming up with novel, creative ways to solve them using the medium of markets and venture backable, billion-dollar companies.” Jason Pontin, Partner, DCVC
Social Impact Capital
2016 – Current
Social Impact Capital is a venture capital firm that I founded to solve the world’s hardest and most entrenched social and environmental problems using venture capital. We were one of the earliest investors in Prometheus Fuels, the first net-zero fuel unicorn, and OpenInvest which was acquired by JP Morgan. We were also early investors in the unicorn Andela.
We invest with a strategy we call “impact arbitrage”—social impact companies are often overlooked at the earliest stages. Pre-metrics, venture capitalists tend to pat them on the head and say, “Oh, that sounds like a cute non-profit.” The minute that these companies have business metrics, it’s easy for venture capitalists to see that they are real, scaleable businesses.
We specialize in getting more companies that have an impact mission scaled with commercial capital. As of 6/15/21 our firm has a 94% follow-on rate from downstream top-tier venture capital firms across our two funds: Fund 0 and Fund 1. We have a 100% follow-on rate overall.
You can read reviews of my work in venture capital on VC Guide here, here, here, and here.
Articles:
The Profitable Equation of Carbon Removal by Sarah Cone and Jon Rave.
Interviews:
Bloomberg Masters in Business
Financial Time’s Moral Money Conference
Impactful Decisions: a Profile of Sarah Cone (an excellent piece that digs into how I make decisions.)
Press:
Business Insider: 19 Solo GPs Everyone should Know