17 Asset Management LLC seeks $1.5 million in a Series A round as a 3-year convertible note at a $10 million valuation. Through a unique approach defined by stakeholder methodology, applied research, impact advisory services, and institutional product design, the firm believes it will reach profitability in June 2023 and a valuation of $30 million in 3 years.
What’s in a name?
Who is 17 Asset Management? The New York-based firm self-identifies as an impact advisory and asset management company. The firm’s stated purpose is simple enough: Capital for good. More specifically though, the firm seeks to bridge the gap between the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the capital markets.
The goals serve as both blueprint and beacon for the advisory services and asset management offered. More than that, the firm’s name is a nod to the 17th and final SDG – Partnerships for the Goals.
How Does 17 Asset Management work?
17 Asset Management is composed of three tightly articulated core business divisions: Research, Advisory, and Asset Management.
Products and initiatives that are not informed by deliberate and intentional scrutiny of stakeholders, ecosystems, places, and potential solutions are doomed to tepid failure. 17 Asset Management is therefore built upon a bedrock of research. The firm research’s approach combines thematic studies (blended finance, social determinants of health, investing along the SDG-ESG continuum) with place-based concentrations (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Los Angeles, the Caribbean, and Jordan).
17 Asset Management Advisory leans on the insight and expertise acquired through its research activity. The firm offers a full suite of impact services agnostic to both industry and enterprises. Indeed, because every business goes through a unique journey towards impact, a dynamic, bespoke approach is designed to allow 17 Asset Management to meet its clients wherever they are on the impact continuum
Asset Management products offered are the culmination of the learnings uncovered, defined, and tested through its research and advisory engagement. Among its most prominent asset management products are its place-based funds.
What makes 17 Asset Management different?
“Capital for good” takes many different forms across the investment community. ESG, SRI, and impact investing are likely the most recognizable. While 17 Asset Management falls into the greater impact space, the firm focuses on its place-based process and purpose: Design thinking to reconstruct the financial services supply chain.
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Design thinking, a five-phase process for innovation made popular by tech-centric businesses in Silicon Valley, puts the user at the beginning of product creation.
As such, the firm enters a geographic location (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh currently with projects in Boston and Los Angeles on the horizon) and allows its research team to engage local stakeholders to understand community needs. The research includes thematic studies on blended finance, social determinants of health, and investing along the SDG-ESG continuum. This leads to diverse stakeholder networks in key markets, which in turn generates new advisory clients across sectors and industries.
Its clients range from real estate development to cryptocurrency to vertical farming. The services offered include impact measurement and management, SDG and ESG alignment, and capital design. Many of these relationships have transcended the initial contract length as 17 Asset Management and its clients have partnered to develop investment funds, long-term impact initiatives, and outsourced impact officer (OIO) arrangements.
Through this process, the firm seeks to deepen both its understanding of- and its network within- each community, with the ultimate goal to design community-informed asset management products. Place-based research, advisory, and asset management through a design thinking lens intend to ensure that impact happens for stakeholders, not to them.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com
