Wharton Expands Social Venture Fund

The Wharton School has announced that is has partnered with  OurCrowd, an equity-based online crowdfunding platform, and investment firm Locust Walk Impact Partners to provide students with world-class experiential training in impact investment and to greatly expand the student-run Wharton Social Venture Fund.

The Wharton Social Venture Fund is a program run under the Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII), the School’s hub for social impact activities, research and opportunities. This new partnership has made Wharton’s offering the largest and most active student-run impact investing fund in the world.

In the Wharton Social Venture Fund, WSII trains and supervises MBA and select Wharton undergraduates that work with Locust Walk Impact Partners to identify genuine investment opportunities; capital for these investments will come through a dedicated social impact channel on the OurCrowd crowd-funding platform.

The Wharton Social Venture Fund was founded in 2007. The program’s portfolio has included strategy and co-investment projects, with an approach focused on companies in education, energy, health and wellness, food and nutrition, environmental sustainability, and financial inclusion. The group also annually competes in the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training Program (MIINT) and has won the competition two of the last three years.

OurCrowd is the largest and most active equity-funding crowd platform. Locust Walk Impact Partners is led by Rob Fioretti (W’91, WG’99), who received both his undergraduate and MBA degree from Wharton. The investment firm is staffed entirely by MBAs trained by the Wharton Social Venture Fund.

The collaboration between the groups will take effect immediately. The first deals made for the program are expected to launch on the Our Crowd platform in Q2 2015.

regions: Philadelphia

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