Press Releases
NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) Makes Its First Investment
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The student-led NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) has successfully completed its first investment with a $30,000 investment in Sapient Industries, whose mission is to eliminate waste from our electrical grid using machine learning. Sapient Industries have built the world's first Plug Load Management System, monitoring and controlling the power supplied to each and every device in a building. This ensemble of installed smart outlets and smart power strips is run by a cloud-based dashboard and data collected at each socket is used to generate behavioral models that automate efficient delivery of power to devices. The investment was made in the form of a convertible note and on NIIF’s behalf by ImpactAssets, a Donor Advised Fund.
This NIIF milestone was the culmination of a year-long experiential learning course in which graduate students of NYU Wagner and NYU Stern were placed in five deal teams to source, screen, conduct financial and impact due diligence, develop investment memorandums and make competitive presentations to the Fund’s Investment Committee composed of three Stern and Wagner alumni practitioners: Graham Macmillan of the Visa Foundation, Monique Aiken of Mission Investors Exchange, and Casey Clark of Rockefeller Capital Management. The legal due diligence for these investment prospects was conducted by students in NYU Law School’s legal clinic, making this a unique experiential learning curricular collaboration among three NYU schools. In early June, the NIIF fund was highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article (“Sustainable Finance Goes to Business School,” June 10).
About the NYU Impact Investment Fund
Developed as a joint venture between the faculty advisors and students of New York University's Stern, Wagner, and Law schools, NIIF leverages the diverse expertise of business, public service, and law faculty to support student investors targeting social enterprises in the sectors of financial inclusion, environment, healthcare, aging, education, and food systems. NIIF continues next academic year with a diverse group of 24 student participants, 12 from each school, competitively selected from more than 50 applicants. The experiential course includes processes to train the students on impact investing, provides practitioner guest lecturers, and creates an interdisciplinary learning laboratory. NYU schools' development staff are also pursuing additional donations and grants for NIIF to enable this experiential platform to continue well into the future. Learn more on the NIIF website.
About New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York University Stern School of Business, located in the heart of New York City, is one of the nation’s premier management education schools and research centers. NYU Stern, whose faculty includes four Nobel Laureates in Economics, offers a broad portfolio of programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, all of them enriched by the dynamism, energy and deep resources of one of the world’s business capitals. Visit www.stern.nyu.edu and follow NYU Stern on Twitter: @NYUStern.
About NYU Wagner
Since 1938, NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service has been educating and preparing the world's future public service leaders to translate ideas into actions that have an effective and lasting impact on the public good. Our faculty’s research changes the way people frame, understand, and act on important public issues. We provide our students with critical skills, access to all that New York City has to offer, and a deep understanding of context surrounding public service challenges—which they use to improve cities and communities across the globe. Ranked seventh nationally among all schools of public affairs, we offer a Master of Public Administration in Public & Nonprofit Management & Policy, Master of Public Administration in Health Policy & Management, Master of Urban Planning, Master of Health Administration, Master of Science in Public Policy, Executive Master of Public Administration, and PhD in Public Administration. Learn more at NYU Wagner.
This NIIF milestone was the culmination of a year-long experiential learning course in which graduate students of NYU Wagner and NYU Stern were placed in five deal teams to source, screen, conduct financial and impact due diligence, develop investment memorandums and make competitive presentations to the Fund’s Investment Committee composed of three Stern and Wagner alumni practitioners: Graham Macmillan of the Visa Foundation, Monique Aiken of Mission Investors Exchange, and Casey Clark of Rockefeller Capital Management. The legal due diligence for these investment prospects was conducted by students in NYU Law School’s legal clinic, making this a unique experiential learning curricular collaboration among three NYU schools. In early June, the NIIF fund was highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article (“Sustainable Finance Goes to Business School,” June 10).
About the NYU Impact Investment Fund
Developed as a joint venture between the faculty advisors and students of New York University's Stern, Wagner, and Law schools, NIIF leverages the diverse expertise of business, public service, and law faculty to support student investors targeting social enterprises in the sectors of financial inclusion, environment, healthcare, aging, education, and food systems. NIIF continues next academic year with a diverse group of 24 student participants, 12 from each school, competitively selected from more than 50 applicants. The experiential course includes processes to train the students on impact investing, provides practitioner guest lecturers, and creates an interdisciplinary learning laboratory. NYU schools' development staff are also pursuing additional donations and grants for NIIF to enable this experiential platform to continue well into the future. Learn more on the NIIF website.
About New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York University Stern School of Business, located in the heart of New York City, is one of the nation’s premier management education schools and research centers. NYU Stern, whose faculty includes four Nobel Laureates in Economics, offers a broad portfolio of programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, all of them enriched by the dynamism, energy and deep resources of one of the world’s business capitals. Visit www.stern.nyu.edu and follow NYU Stern on Twitter: @NYUStern.
About NYU Wagner
Since 1938, NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service has been educating and preparing the world's future public service leaders to translate ideas into actions that have an effective and lasting impact on the public good. Our faculty’s research changes the way people frame, understand, and act on important public issues. We provide our students with critical skills, access to all that New York City has to offer, and a deep understanding of context surrounding public service challenges—which they use to improve cities and communities across the globe. Ranked seventh nationally among all schools of public affairs, we offer a Master of Public Administration in Public & Nonprofit Management & Policy, Master of Public Administration in Health Policy & Management, Master of Urban Planning, Master of Health Administration, Master of Science in Public Policy, Executive Master of Public Administration, and PhD in Public Administration. Learn more at NYU Wagner.