 I'm Lauren Cirqueau, I'm the Chief Investment Officer for the Sorenson Impact Foundation. We have recently in 2020 crossed 100% mission alignment across our entire investment portfolio. Thank you. And we've also launched Sorenson Impact Advisory, which is an investment advisory firm dedicated to impact investing to help other families and foundations and pools of capital who want to take similar mission alignment journeys. So with that, we wanted to share three of the investment strategies we have in our portfolio that are pursuing 100% market rate returns alongside strong, measurable impact. So I'm thrilled to introduce our three speakers, Julie Lean from Urban Innovation Fund, Stephen DeBerry from Bronze, and Ashley Bittner from Firework Ventures. I'd love to start with just a brief introduction, tell us a little bit about you, your firm, and your impact and investment thesis. And Julie, we'll start with you. Awesome. Thanks everyone for being here. My name is Julie. I'm one of the co-founders and managing partners of the Urban Innovation Fund. We're a venture capital firm that invests in startups shaping the future of cities. We always get involved early, precede, and seed. And in addition to providing capital, we also like to emphasize that we're very active hands-on investors, and we do place a special emphasis on regulatory support since we've seen it be an area of need. We're currently investing out of our third fund, which is a $101 million core fund along with a $20 million opportunity vehicle. Just excited to be here, meet all the entrepreneurs and investors, try to make the world a better place. Stephen. Hi, everyone. My name is Stephen DeBerry from Bronze. We invest against what we call our East Side Investment Thesis, and that focuses on areas of deep structural disparity, social, economic, environmental disparity. And our investment strategy is looking for areas where we can profitably push that disparity to prosperity. So we invest across health, education, financial services, other categories like that where we see these deep historical rifts. And we see those opportunities to push to prosperity as a long-term secular opportunity to basically redesign our society so that it works for everyone. And Ashley, round us out. Hi. Thanks for having us, or me today. First I want to say thank you to the Sorenson Group here, one of our earliest investors, just instrumental in helping us build our firm. And so I just want to say thank you before I dive into what we do at Firework. So at Firework we invest in the future of work. We define the future of work as technology that drives social and economic mobility. That tends to cross a couple different verticals. So we have investments that touch HR tech, FinTech, EdTech, and then well-being, sometimes also care economy, can fit into that thesis. We actually invest at the series A, so we lead and we take board seats. That is for the type of portfolio services we provide, specifically helping founders make that jump from product market fit to growth. And we have an impact framework as well as a founder support framework that we use to do that. So I'll leave it there for now. Thanks, Lauren. Well, great. It's wonderful to be with you all. We're so proud of the work that you're doing. I do want to spend a couple of minutes with each of you just kind of digging in to your impact and investment thesis. We'll mix up the order a little bit. So, Stephen, I'm going to put you in the hot seat. Talk to us. Uplifting marginalized communities has been a big focus of many LPs coming out of a global pandemic, some of the social injustices that happened in 2020. Really let's get into your Eastside investment thesis. How was it born? How does it bear itself out in practice? Yeah. Thanks. Well, I'll describe why we call it Eastside, because I think that points a little bit to how we think about the overall dynamic and the environment that we're investing in. So the general idea is this. Of course, we all understand that we have dispossessed communities. Some communities are wealthy. Some communities are not. And we often have this debate explicitly or implicitly about whether things are intentional or not. It's fair. That's just the way things are. Certain people want to be together. So it's like, okay, well, let's just think about that. We have four cardinal directions. If things were random, you would expect dispossessed communities to be plus or minus 25% in any given direction, like the math should work out that way. It turns out if you actually plot where dispossessed communities are, it's not nearly distributed that evenly. Strangely, they are clustered on the East sides of places. And so I had that observation many, many years ago. I didn't have an explanation for it until working on that particular issue for years. And I finally realized that now we can point to a bunch of data, like in a particulate matter, PM 2.5, et cetera. Basically the way to think about it is imagine you have like a campfire. And you've got to sit 10 people around this fire because you want to keep everyone warm. But the wind is blowing to the East. And that's basically the way the wind blows in most of the planet. Now the problem with the campfire is you've got to keep everyone warm. But who's going to sit with the smoke blowing in their face? That's the design problem. And the short answer to that riddle, as answered in cities and communities across the world for much of time, is that it's people with less power who sit with the smoke blowing in their face. And that's literally what is happening when you think about communities pretty much anywhere, including here in San Francisco, Hunter's Point, on the East side, East Oakland, East LA, East Philly, East St. Louis, you know, this is true in London and Jerusalem and Paris and around the world. And so we talk about our East side investment thesis because really what that's pointing to is the design ethic that comes from a place of assuming that we have to design for haves, the folks who don't have the smoke in their face, and have nots, the folks who rudely get the smoke blown into their faces. And the first principle of our investment thesis is super simple, which is to engage in an experiment that we've never really engaged in fully as a collective. And that is to start by designing systems, radical idea, but start by designing systems that work for everyone. And if you start with that first principle as we venture capital and innovation investors, you know, drive innovation, if you start with the idea of designing products and services that work for everyone. That one act of that, you know, starting from that point of departure flows through everything else. And so, you know, our belief is that we'll build better products, better services, those become bigger markets, more durable companies, and it seems to be burying out in our portfolio. Very well said, Stephen. Any examples of the types of sectors you're looking to invest in or any investments you've made that you're particularly proud of, would love to highlight some of those? Yeah, for sure. So as I said, we'll look for any area where there's a dislocation where we can profitably move disparity to prosperity, but I'll give an example, multitasking. So down the highway here, 30 minutes south in East Palo Alto today, it's 2022, and this entire city, there are only two places you can eat with a metal knife and fork. One of those places happens to be on the west side of the freeway that runs through the town in the Four Seasons Hotel. So let's at least put an asterisk on that one because most folks in the community are not going in there. The only other place you can eat with a metal knife and fork in the entire city is the second floor of the Ikea in the cafeteria. That's what it looks like to be in a food desert. And so you can imagine the nutritional density in not just East Palo Alto, but East Side communities generally, food deserts broadly, you know, is horrible. And one of the impacts of that is that type two diabetes is off the charts. Interestingly and sadly, the reversal rate for type two diabetes is 0.4%. So around that zero, you can't reverse it. That is the medical standard of care to expect no reversal. This is a $400-plus billion annual spend category. When I made the investment probably four plus years ago, that number was like $340 billion annually. So, you know, it's inflating kind of like college tuition, you know, the curves look similar. It's bad. So, you know, we've got a company that has a 60% reversal rate in this category, 6.0. So it's literally 150 times better than the medical standard of care. It is the only non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical intervention that has anywhere close to these kinds of outcomes. And it turns out this is the exact kind of business that we like because every time we make a dollar in this business, we're also having an impact. And in addition to that, when you look at the epidemiology of diabetes as a disease, and just I'll speak plain English because we're all friends here, who has diabetes. It's black, brown, and poor folks, basically. And so when you do the math, it turns out in this $400-plus billion category, it's actually impossible to build a large business without having an outsized positive impact on the folks who are most marginalized. So that to us is a bullseye business, and, you know, I'll be brief, but we've got other businesses that have similar profiles, and, you know, in the new portfolio, we've got a company that's training diverse talent and putting folks into cybersecurity jobs, you know, and these are six-figure, well into the six-figure range, you know, many of these jobs, and so one of those jobs for a family, many of these folks don't have college degrees and don't need them, but you get someone into, you know, an earning opportunity like that, and it changes the trajectory for a family for generations, and as an investor, the math is pretty good, too. So there's a category of companies like that where every incremental unit of revenue drives an incremental unit of impact, and we can get in and, you know, help those founders, you know, build big, meaningful businesses. Thank you, Stephen. Ashley, I'm going to go to you next. Future of Work has become an absolute buzz phrase, catchphrase. You guys have been here for decades thinking about investing in this vertical. Talk to us about the themes that you're interested in and excited about in some of the portfolio companies that you've backed. Sure. Thank you for the question. So there's two things I'll talk about. One is some of the macro trends, and then two is just how we think venture is changing. So on the macro trends point, we believe that economic and social mobility, or the lack thereof, is one of the greatest challenges facing our society today, and therefore one of the biggest market opportunities. If you look at, this is going to be very nerdy, so stay with me for a second, previous technological revolutions, we saw that more people benefited, and now we're actually seeing technology drive more inequality in ways that we haven't really seen before. There's stats like 30, excuse me, a billion people need to be re-skilled by 2030, for example. So just drastic kind of changes, and we think we're at this point where we can choose to invest in technology that's actually helping support people through this major transition, and it's not inevitable that it will. And so we see this again as one of these really significant market opportunities, and one again, of the biggest challenges facing us stay alongside things like climate change. The second thing that drives how we approach the market is actually our view that the way that venture is happening is also changing, or should be changing. And for us, you often will see firms kind of have themes that they invest in, which is great, but we're actually thinking a little bit forward in our view by saying not just themes of what are the outcomes we're driving for. So it's not health or education, but what about those are actually core to our investment thesis in front and center. So yes, we do have some verticals underneath, like HRTech, FinTech, et cetera, that they tend to be in, but we're actually trying to keep that focus on the outcome from the beginning, the core of the thesis. So that really drives how we approach the market and venture. Again, just thinking the lens that we take to it is really changing. And the second question was companies. Yep, any companies you're willing to highlight? Sure. So a couple come to mind, I'll keep it brief though. One company that we're really excited about is called Transfer. Transfer was our first lead series A investment out of this fund. And Transfer's mission is to be the world's first SaaS economic development platform, so super aligned with how we think about our thesis. Some folks have probably put it in ed tech, but again, our thesis is more around this economic development piece. And what Transfer is doing is they are actually using cutting edge technology to train folks in middle skills jobs. They use things like VR to train in hands-on, or to provide training for hands-on roles. Middle skills jobs are more than 50% of jobs in the US. And one of the fastest growing categories, it's everything from like a certified nursing assistant to green technology jobs, to aviation, automotive. A huge part of the market that our view has been largely underserved from a venture capital perspective. You also see this technology serving populations that have been largely underserved. So they tend to be working with community colleges, workforce agencies, as well as employers in creating new pathways for these jobs that not only have good wages but also benefits. So we see this as super aligned with how we think about our mission. When we first invested at the A, we had preempted around after they won a statewide contract in Alabama. Another thing we loved about this company really focused on the Southeast and Midwest as their core early customers. Now they've expanded nationwide, but really serving a different population. So what it really fits for us, again, thesis alignment, it's around using technology to drive economic and social mobility first and foremost. Using that cutting edge technology that's largely until recently has been too expensive to be used in populations that otherwise would really benefit from it. And then serving populations that have been left out of some of this investment in venture capital and retraining, et cetera. So transfers are a really good example of a company in our portfolio. Excellent. Thanks, Ashley. Julie, we'll close out this first segment with you. At Urban Innovation, you're investing in startups that are changing the future of cities. We are sitting in a city that looks drastically different to what it did a couple of years ago. What are your reflections? How do you think about investing to transform urban centers going forward? And if you're comfortable, share with us a couple of the types of investments you've made. Yeah, sure. So I think the pandemic forced us all into a reckoning of what the future of cities would look like. And certainly we thought about that first and foremost. And I would say the TLDR that we decided is, unfortunately, venture capital is not going to fix cities. It's really sad, but it is unfortunately true. But I think that we can make a measurable dent in cities in kind of a really thoughtful way if we approach it correctly. And that's really what we've tried to do. We are really trying to focus on companies that are reimagining the livability, sustainability, and economic vitality of cities. And those three pillars are kind of what guide us. When we're looking at startups, we don't profess to have all the answers. We're really looking to entrepreneurs and builders and operators who are on the ground and they see a problem. And they're just maniacally focused on tackling it. And I think that's really what's resonated most in our deal-sourcing approach and what's really popped up in our portfolio. In terms of those themes, one of the things that we like to say is we like to collect and find founders who are working in areas that aren't seen as particularly sexy in the beginning, but they really prove their market value and worth over time. And so one of those examples in 2019, we led the seed round for a company called Electrify, which was essentially a software solution for fleet owners who are trying to move their fleet from traditional combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. It's hard to remember this now, but in 2019, that was actually seen as kind of a unsexy, non-consensus bet because a lot of people had the question of, was electrification actually that imminent? Was it going to go the way of autonomy where it would be a 10-plus year time horizon? And a lot of people were still burned from CleanTech 1.0. So when we made that bet, it was very much a bet on the team and the fact that the market trends and the regulatory tailwinds were really in our favor. Pandemic happens, the whole world blows up, we have no idea what's going to happen. But one thing that did happen was that consumer preferences really ramped up in electrification and that was also spurred on by a new U.S. administration that was really prioritizing on electrifying the federal fleet by 2030. And so it was really interesting, our company, Electrify, ended up getting a ton of inbound sales interests. They were really ramping up. They had just signed this term sheet for a Series A when Ford came in and said, we want to make Electrify the kind of center platform for all of our software around commercial fleet efforts. So they ended up being acquired by Ford. It's been a really interesting transition because they still serve as that software backbone for all of Ford's electrification efforts. And so you see it out in the wild and what was a really young, bootstrapped, kind of hustling startup now, part of this bigger corporation really helping move them in that right direction. So that was a cool example and one that I think speaks to what we're all doing, which is trying to identify these trends really early before they take off. We're trying to find things that aren't considered sexy necessarily. And I would say all of us in this room are probably part of that trend, which is impact wasn't considered sexy for a long time, but now everyone's talking about ESG and impact, so maybe we're all trendsetters. And on that note, this question's for any of you. Talk to us a little bit about what do you see as the biggest challenges for driving more capital into impact venture capital today? How do we build this ecosystem, I think is a question on many people's minds in this room. Anyone wanna kick us off? Oh, now everyone gets all polite now, right? Okay. Well, I mean, I think this has been a debate for a while and I'd say the two polls are that either we don't have enough capital or we don't have enough deals. My perspective is that we have enough deals. So it's not an absorptive capacity issue, it's a capital allocation constraint. And so if you think of it that way, I would click down one layer or couple layers at a more granular look at what's happening in the impact capital market. And I guess one observation I would share as a manager, I wonder if you all would agree, is that for us, part of our job is of course to do good deals and so forth, but we also have to go out, it's a capital market. So we have to go shopping and we have to assemble pools of capital and make them big enough that we can build our portfolios. And one of the challenges that has been the case for the last decade plus and still seems to be a challenge that is not diminishing is when we assemble these pools of capital, the providers of capital tend to have very narrow expectations. They want to impact a certain geography or they wanna invest at a certain stage or they wanna invest with a particular strategy. And so it makes it in many cases logically impossible to assemble capital at the kind of scale that we can see that we have absorptive capacity for. So one of the things that would help, I think, unlock scale in the space is some reconciliation across the LP, the investor community and some loosening of some of those tight constraints whether it's geography, stage or what have you. So that we can have more degrees of freedom to do the work that we're doing. Well said, Steven. Ashley, it looks like you might wanna. I was gonna add a slightly different point to this. One, it's a build on it though. I think if you look at the concentration to your point of capital tends to be just venture capital generally, very, very concentrated and a couple really, really big funds. And then this also you get mirrored down in the impact world. And one of the things I think that the Sorensons have done well is to support emerging managers other folks who are taking different lenses like Julie and Steven here are taking a very different lens to venture different thesis impact first. Like people being able to back new managers, take risk. And then also I think building a little bit on your point have nuance to the reporting and other things they're asking for making sure that that is aligned with the stage. You're not asking for like a 40 page report from a five person team of seed company type of thing. So there's a couple of different factors here. I think one of them being just the overall trends in capital concentration and funds that gets mirrored down and impact that then you see that also down in emerging and then where do we actually fall on the expectations to your point of managers and what we can ask of the underlying portfolios as well. Yeah, I would break it up into kind of twofold. One is just having really big exits to point to in the impact space to say that this is a category worth investing in. And that's really what people look for in inspiration. And I think for a long time, a lot of the companies were relatively small or the exits were few and now we can kind of, there's just such a pervasive widening of the lens of what is impact like even impossible and beyond me like that category didn't exist for a long time. They both go public. They're really trendsetters in creating new categories. And I think there are a lot of those companies to point to. So I agree wholeheartedly with Steven that there is not a pipeline problem in the lease but having more of those exits and certainly having more of those exits across impact funds really showcases that there's a there there that we can have both the returns and the impact. And then I think the second challenge is what Steven alluded to, which is essentially there is this kind of narrowing of bands and reality of what people want, which is let's say I have an impact thesis. I really care about doing well in Alabama, let's say. The reality is when you're investing in venture capital, you're investing in startups that are going to scale beyond a specific geographic region if they're really successful, you want them to be available everywhere. And also there's a reality, which is that early stage companies shift a lot, especially at the stage we're investing, pre-seed and seed companies. It's two founders, maybe three folks working in a co-working space, trying to figure it out. And when you're at that level, having really tangible metrics and going through a B-Lab impact assessment, some of these things are just not realistic for that early stage company or founder. And so you need capital around the table that understands they need to be flexible. And the goal is always, you know, more money equals more impact, but recognizing that these companies are growing to shift and morph and their metrics may change over time. And hopefully you pick the right people that can really, you know, tenaciously navigate the ups and downs, especially what we've seen over the last year and a half or so. Excellent points, all three of you. One observation about all three of your portfolios, you all are writing, oftentimes some of the first institutional checks that these companies are receiving. So very, very early stage. You all also now have unicorns in your portfolio, so a company that's valued over a billion dollars. So that journey is pretty incredible. What does it take to get that right? What do you look for in entrepreneurs? Is there a secret sauce? Someone told me recently their secret sauce was investing in distance runners because they have the grit factor. Are there any lessons learned along the way in terms of what it takes to pick the top talent and the top companies? I'll start. What I look for most, I think about it from a founder perspective at least in this arc of journey, is capacity for growth. And for that specifically looking for, are they able to look at their own role in shaping the company? How they're creating their team? How that's impacting the folks around them? And Lauren's probably heard me say this so many times. Like we typically invested the A, so they might have, you know, like transferred 17 people and we led, they had 117 people 16 months later at their series B, and that is a dramatic change in the role of the CEO. So where we spend a lot of time understanding the CEO and their executive team, their capacity for growth, because when that ARR is growing 400% every year, that team is probably also growing, at least doubling, and how can we help set them up for success? So that is one of the main factors that we're looking for, and everyone talks about investing in founders. The thing that we're really looking for is that capacity for growth. What's the evidence of it? Part of our diligence questions around how do you want to continue to grow? How can we support you in that? A lot of our portfolio services are really centered around that kind of support. So that's been really instrumental in our portfolio and the work we've done, you know, prior to this fund to see those kinds of trends for those big outcomes. Great, thanks Ashley. Any other secret sauce, things you look for in entrepreneurs? Lessons learned? I'd say for me, it's the reason why. And what I mean by that is the best entrepreneurs that I know and know of, usually in addition to all the fundamental, you know, large market and a good team and discipline, you know, to be able to manage growth and the sorts of things that you might learn about in business school. It's useful to have those for sure. But I mean, I'll give the most recent example in my world. I'm working on a deal right now. The founder, this is a company in the healthcare space, incredible technical entrepreneurs, the guy who built the Apple store, the app store for Apple. So incredible, I mean, this is someone who could go out and get a check from anyone who wants to and, you know, et cetera. And so we got into diligence and we did all the B school things. But the question that was most important for me was why are you building this company? And I got some answer, I don't even remember what the answer was, but I just, something made me, it was like, that ain't it. That's not it. I went fishing with the guy and we started talking and, why are you laughing? That's how you get the truth, you know? Oh, that fishing, that's my answer, go fishing with people. It's true, you learn a lot, you go fishing with folks. I went fishing with them and we talked about the why and it turns out his mother passed away from cancer. And, you know, this is a person with like supreme technical prowess, but budding up against the inertia of the system, he couldn't save his mom. That's the thing. That's the thing. I think a founder of, you know, that's building something for a reason that's bigger than just the market slide and the high end to the right growth. Like it ain't about that because building from the early stage, you know, is such a difficult thing for even the most talented, most connected, most well-resourced, it's so hard that at multiple points along the journey, it's irrational to keep going. And you need someone who's gonna keep going when it's irrational to keep going. That's how you get to the biggest businesses in my experience. Can I just add one quick thing to that? So when I'm talking about capacity for growth, I am talking about personal growth of that founder and their team and how are they supporting their growth edges as they're going through this. One, just an example we've seen is I've talked to some founders I've worked with who are super mission driven. You see one of two things happen. Sometimes you'll see bulldozing on behalf of the mission, where their team is burning out, they can't recruit, you know, things like that start to happen on behalf of this like mission. And so that is one way we've seen things kind of can go awry. The other is sacrificing all of their life on behalf of the mission. So marriage is falling apart, they're not seeing their kids, things of that nature. And that's the other area where we're really looking to make sure these founders are taking care of themselves and their team so that internal capacity for growth is what is happening for me? How is that affecting my team? How do I support everyone on behalf of this big mission? Because I also have seen the dark side of it, where they are bulldozing or sacrificing their life. And that's at least something we're trying to buck in venture is saying that you need to be a martyr on behalf of this mission and that you can actually build a billion dollar business, have huge outcomes, while also being the person you wanna be while you're doing it. And that's something that we think's really important. Critical founder support, fishing trips to discover the why. Haven't done a fishing trip, that sounds amazing. Offside activities. Julie, anything to add to this before we roll forward? Yeah, I would just say quickly, what we look for is maniacal execution and tenacity. And when I say maniacal, I know it sounds absolutely psychotic and it almost is and has to be because there are so many ups and downs, there are so many times the founder hears no and you have to listen to all the no's and still wanna plow forward. And so you do have to be maniacal about evangelizing your business and selling and really bringing something from zero to life. And that's really where we come in, when a founder has an idea, sometimes they're pre-product, they're certainly almost always pre-revenue, but you have that belief that they can bring this to life. And I think that's something that's really, really hard to do. I think Julie's point is important too, like stage, it also varies by stage. Like when you're a little bit later, in series A into growth, you have a team, you're managing different expectations in the early days when it's an idea that you're trying to, you have nothing to show for it yet, like you can't be like traction, here's why you should fund me, where it's really about that vision you're selling. Yeah, and actually I would say 2021 was such a weird time for that perspective because we come in pre-seed and seed, one of our companies went from, literally to founders, to unicorn status in a year and a half. And that was absolutely chaotic, going from building out the core of the team to a 200 person company that's doing business globally across 11 countries. And I think that's where you can get that real burnout and team strain and everyone's just trying to figure it out. Thank you all, incredible words of wisdom. I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that certainly for the public markets, but I think the private as well, this has been a really, really trying year. How has that played itself out for your funds, your portfolio companies? What advice are you giving to entrepreneurs? And most importantly of all, is impact in mission helping propel folks forward during these difficult times? Open to anyone on this one. Yeah, I feel bad for founders. I feel bad for all of us because anytime you're in a bad time, it trickles down to everybody. What I would say is our founders are experiencing whiplash between 2021 and the beginning of this year to now. I mean, everything was go, go, go, grow, grow, grow. Think about the next fundraise. And then it was like a freight train just stopped and crashed and suddenly they have to care about profitability, burn, making sure the runway is at least 24 months. And some of our founders had a really hard time taking that in. I will just be transparent about that. And we tried to really help them think through the transition, but it's hard. One month you're in a board meeting saying, you've got to grow 5x year over year at all costs. And the next you're like, wait, wait, wait. Stop just kidding. We're kidding about that. Still keep growing, but do it profitably. Yeah, really easy. So I would just say that those lessons learned are real, we're all trying to take them in. What I will say a lot of our companies are doing is they're adapting, they're being extremely thoughtful about their approach moving forward. And my hope is that it will lead to better and bigger and more resilient companies moving forward. So for example, some of our companies that are now at the Series B or Series C stage, one of the things that they're focusing on is instead of growth at all costs, they're really trying to get higher margins, really trying to make sure that they can grow thoughtfully with more focus on unit profitability. And our hope is that that will make them more resilient and better companies into the later stages. That's what we're telling ourselves, fingers crossed. One thing I also just want to acknowledge, in 2021 obviously was a crazy year. I think it was, I think one of the things, a disservice to founders was like, it's easy to raise money in 2020. It was hard for a lot of people. And I think that like I sat with a lot of founders who are really down about this story that it was now easy to raise money. When for most founders, it was still really challenging, even though there's a lot of craziness in price, inflation and things of that nature. But I just wanted to acknowledge that, yes, it was a crazy year. And also for a lot of founders, it was still really challenging time to raise money. One of the things that was, we didn't give any blanket kind of advice across the portfolio. I think Julie's point is really apt in that kind of taking it case by case basis, founders being more thoughtful, et cetera. One of the things that we're, we really focused on, even in 2021 was having, Lawrence for me say this price discipline to make sure we weren't like setting our founders up for failure, because when you take crazy rounds and crazy valuations, if you're not actually growing into that, it can come back to really hurt. And so that was one of the things that we were really mindful of even when it was pretty crazy. And then this year we're seeing certainly, I'd say a slope, like a slowing of the frenzy. But we're also seeing our companies raise money, continue to grow. And I think they've had that kind of discipline and still allowed for that. But yeah, to your point, it's been tough and for some founders, it's felt raise as much as possible, the highest valuations possible, grow as fast as possible and now being told to stop is pretty jarring. I expected the economy to slow down. I went back and I started looking at my quarterly letters to investors. And so I've been expecting the music to stop for more than eight quarters. So I'm entirely unsurprised. I tend to pick portfolio leaders who protect for downside. And so I think I'm all for growth, but I don't think that means you abandon fundamentals. So it's not like, oh, we can be less thoughtful because the economy's running hot. Like no, stick to the basics. So our portfolios doing, I'd say generally well, financing, the pace of financings has slowed down, but we're not seeing catastrophic losses or anything like that. I will say to your question about the impact piece, Lauren, that I think our companies are more durable because in a labor market, like the one we're in now where folks can afford to be picky, having an impact orientation, having a mission, having leadership that can look you in the eye and make you feel like, wow, it actually matters. You know, in a labor market where in a lot of instances it's less about the check and more about the meaning, I think our companies have an advantage because of that. So that's good. But the last thing I would say is, you know, I'm, whether it's eight quarters ago or now or some other timing, if you understand the venture capital asset class, we're on a long arc. We will at least see this inflection and probably another one before we return capital to investors. And so, you know, one of those quarterly letters to investors was answering one of the questions I was getting in from investors saying, like, what are you gonna do differently? Now the economy is what it is. And our answer to that was absolutely nothing. We are built for this. We're built for the long term. We're gonna keep doing what we're doing. We think that's how you win in this asset class. Very well said. I want to pose a question that is hopefully a little bit sparks some debate here. Interested to hear all of you, I think, are impact venture capital funds, but I think have raised capital from impact allocators and traditional allocators. Can you talk to us about leaning in to the label impact of an impact fund? And is that something you do? Do you think that helps the narrative, this industry? Any thoughts around kind of using the impact label? Oh, you want to be polite again, huh? And then start up controversy. Which side do you want? I think there are good arguments on both sides. What I would say is the bigger issue for me is that we have a nomenclature problem, which is that, you know, I bet you there are 50 different interpretations of this question right now, because she said impact. And we don't have a common interpretation of what that means. And we don't have effective language to separate the nuanced differences between these perspectives. And it's tough because it's a field that's evolving and there's, you know, kind of an ecosystem around this sense of this broad universe of meaning. So we have some vocabulary work to do. But, you know, my sense is, I mean, I just gave you an example of how I think in the labor market, for example, we are seeing benefits because we are impact oriented. Our companies are. I certainly know many managers who say I do not use the term impact when I'm fundraising because that means to investors that we're soft and we're not soft. And so some of this I think is vocabulary work that will happen over time and some of it will shake itself out. Some of it needs some structural work from communities like this. And I think some of it will be metabolized and sorted out because the proof is in the pudding and you can look at portfolios that are in fact impact oriented that perform very well. And so I think that's an antidote to those folks who say, oh, well impact is necessarily soft. It doesn't have to be. And there's a really important role for concessionary finance and other parts of the ecosystem that I think are part of the complexity of the vocabulary piece of the equation. Disagree with that. Yeah. I agree with all of what you just said. I think what I would add is maybe the spicy thing to say is like, I don't really think of worry about it that much. It's like, I think a lot about fundraising in terms of the words labeling, et cetera. I think all about when you're raising capital or for a company raising capital from an investor or us raising from LPs, it's all around fit and like is there alignment in what you're both trying to achieve. And so I really lean into that as our thesis, it's around economic and social mobility and like certain groups that is what they wanna invest in, they wanna invest in the A, they wanna do that. And so it's around finding that fit. And so I don't really worry so much about trying to like shift the way I talk about it to meet some endowments, whatever goals. It's much more around being really clear of what we're doing and understanding the ecosystem of funders and where is the fit? And that's very much how I think about it. So it's not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about these days. Yeah, I would say I had a stronger point of view of this when we were earlier in our fundraised journey and we had just launched the Urban Innovation Fund because I basically focused on myself and my co-founder Clara, so two women and they're like, oh, you guys are impact. And in their mind impact came with soft, maybe concessionary, maybe you don't know what the F you're doing. And for lack of a better term, I felt pretty aggrieved by that. But I think what has become clear to us is we are definitely a mission-driven fund. We have a lot of folks in our universe who are investors far as that I would describe as impact curious. They might not necessarily label themselves as impact but they might care about the fact that we're women or the fact that 77% of our portfolio companies have a woman or a person of color on the founding team or maybe they just like that there's a differentiated thesis in the space. And so everyone's got their own reason. It's hard to kind of keep pinpointing and break it down. But at the end of the day, I think one of the things we find is our companies really vary and vacillate in terms of whether they self-identify as impact-driven. Some of them wear it very proudly on their sleeves. They're incorporated as a public benefit corp or they've gone through the B-Lab kind of labeling exercise. Whereas others, they don't think about that. They don't really care about that. But we see them having a positive impact, whether it be through a transportation startup or other type of startup. So I think what we're trying to do is be thoughtful about the fact that our approach is different. But for lack of a better term, I do think impact is still loaded and maybe some of the negative affiliation that I have with that comes from my early days of fundraising. But I still worry. There's never a time in our fundraising deck where I'm like, we're an impact fund. Yeah. Well said, everyone. I think impact is a loaded term. I will just say I think at the Sorenson Impact Foundation, we have certainly found that we are earning market rate returns, not in spite of, but because of our impact. So I can just add one thing on the impact side for us is we're on these boards of the companies and we're actually on a board level tracking and outcome and access measure, but they're tied to the top line of the business. So to your point, we can show that they are connected, but it's not something that we're advertising separately. But it's how we actually think about governance. So second to last question, I wanted to give each of you a soapbox moment, where you could say anything you wanted to LPs that you wish they knew when they were underwriting your funds. So think back, reflect, and would love to kind of go down the line on this one. What's your soapbox moment, Ashley, if you want to kick us off? Let's see. I think one thing I would love to see more of is, let's see, right-sizing diligence for a fund. You might see for an early-stage fund a private equity ODD, which has a whole bunch of stuff that's not relevant. I've got asked ones for the cash flows of every single company I've ever invested in, which is just not a reasonable thing to ask for. So just kind of think about the right-sizing of the fund. The other thing I've been surprised by from different firms I've worked in and then co-founded is I do still wonder about the scrutiny of track record that can happen in certain when you're looking at new managers. And there can be a really onerous amount of work to get every CEO to verify every single transaction that you've ever done when you have an extensive track record. And so I'm curious if there are ways where we can start to make it a little bit less onerous on the founders and these new fund managers as they're doing things like verifying track record. It's a very, very technical diligence soapbox moment. But I think it would really help to facilitate more emerging managers with different theses, being able to scale funds faster. Great. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think that's one of the challenges in the impact space. Everyone wants it to be perfect. And it rarely is, especially with early stage companies. I mean, we see big companies with all sorts of governance and employee challenges. Imagine at the early stage when you're just growing, you don't have all the right team members in place where things are breaking all the time. And I think that's one of the challenges in impact more broadly, which is you really want to be thoughtful about the outcomes that you're having, but not everything's perfect, especially. Especially at an early stage company. And so that's my quick soapbox moment, which is just, I think this is a challenge in the impact space. And I do it too, which is I have such high hopes and aspirations. And when things go stray or awry, it's really easy to say, but you're not living up to the potential of what we thought the mission could be. And it's like, no, no, no. It's really hard. It's just really hard. So don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't let it stop you from deploying dollars. And take that shot, have conviction, and really stick by it. Thanks, Julie. Steven, any soapbox moments? I went last because I was thinking about whether to give the right answer or to just dig deep and turn myself inside out. And I'll do the latter. So I'll just tell you a quick story. So I was in diligence for probably 10 months with one of the largest consultants out there, big name, blah, blah, blah. You get their stamp and it's all good. And this is my life's work, y'all. This is who I am. It happens to also be what I do, but this is my work. This is my art. This is my family. This is everything to me. And over the course of that 10 months of diligence, 10 months, it's a long time. You can make another human in that amount of time. It's a long time. It's a long time, you guys. It's a long time. And over the course of that 10 months, this is during quarantine. I mean, they saw me cry. I confessed my aspirations. We talked about everything you could imagine. They knew me. These folks knew me. And so we're in the last mile of diligence, waiting for the last call. We're going to get the allocations. It's the victory lap part of DIL. I've been in the business for a long time. I know the cycle. So we get on for the penultimate call. It's going to be the victory lap and it starts. And the whole team was on the other side of the Zoom. And you can see I'm a pretty relaxed guy. So I joked with them a lot over the course of this. We got on the call and it looked somber. And they said, we're disappointed. We're so disappointed, Steve. And I thought, you guys, you got me. Because I joked with them a lot. I got them several times. They weren't kidding. And they said, we're disappointed. We're sad. We're disappointed that you didn't tell us. And I realized they weren't kidding. I said, well, tell you what? What are you talking about? And they said, you didn't tell us about your breaking and entering charge and your DUI. And we did the background check. And we learned that you had a speeding ticket in Colorado in 1990, something, something. And you had this breaking and entering and this DUI charge in Virginia. And I said, I have never spent any time in Virginia. I don't know what you're talking about. And they didn't believe me. The same folks that I had enough track time with to make a child. And to whom I had confessed all of my everything, my aspiration. I saw my kids run around the back of the Zoom, like all the things. And they didn't believe me. And I immediately activated lawyers in Virginia and California. We were in the courthouses. And fortunately, I am connected and I have resources. And I was able to figure this out. Turns out, I had spent time in Virginia. I just didn't think about it. I drove to Dulles Airport. And I got a speeding ticket in Virginia. And somehow, I don't know, because the documents still do not exist today. Somehow, there was some attachment of my name to these other charges. But the point, the bigger point I'm making here is about the reaction. When they rounded down, they got some reference or whatever, which is factually incorrect. But they immediately went to rounding down. And they didn't believe what I had to say. And I got a lot to contribute to this space, y'all. But the moral of this story is not about me, because I got over that hump. I'll get over the next one. The reason I bring this up is because there's somebody sitting in his room right now that has a story like that. And some LP is rounding down on the folks we need to move forward the way we need to move forward today. And it'll happen tomorrow. And so my soapbox thing is don't round down on us, man. Round up. We need it. We need to round up on each other, because we've got places to go. And the only way we are going to get there is if we do it together. We need everybody doing what everybody can do. If we don't get all of that, we don't get there, y'all. So that's my, I implore you, please round up. That's what I have to say on that one. Very, very well said, Stephen. Very, very well said. I feel like that's an incredible place to end. It's going to be pretty hard to top that. So I think we'll give folks some time back in their day. And thank you. I'm going to stop the party. I'm just saying round up. I mean, I got to. It's OK. I still love you. Just round up. That's all I got. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to Ashley Bettner, Stephen DeBerry, and Julie Lean.