Building a fit-for-purpose fund takes a lot of thought and intentionality. Designed well, the right combination of financial and technical support can propel ventures to their next stage of impact (or help them close down quicker and move on to the next impactful idea).
But, if it's done badly, it can distract teams with perverse incentives that prioritise pitching over building product, especially when the power structures of reporting get in the way.
That's why we've built this tool, to explore what's needed to design behaviourally informed funds, that can create the conditions for truly scalable impact.
Build your strategic foundation. Before you start you can use our downloadable canvas to work through the fundamentals of your fund. Explore the purpose and urgency driving it, dig into who your stakeholders and target portfolio are, as well as the real constraints you're trying to address. Through a series of prompts you'll capture what matters most.
Design your approach. Using our method cards, move through eight fund-building stages, from thesis development to portfolio management. At each stage, explore different methods, bank the ones that fit your context, and build your strategy as you go. Jump around as needed — there's no fixed order.
At the end of the exercise you'll have a complete fund strategy you can export and use. Share it with your team, stress-test your assumptions, or use it to make your case to stakeholders. It's grounded in what we've learned from building portfolios across education, health, climate, and innovation.