Sustainable investment firm Ethic has raised $6.8 million, as it ramps up its mission to build more socially-conscious portfolios. The New York City-headquartered firm, founded in 2015 by Johny Mair, Doug Scott and Jay Lipman, received its round from brands including ThirdStream Partners, Nyca Partners, Kapor Capital and the Urban Innovation Fund.
The cash will help Ethic automate “the creation of portfolios designed to outperform in sustainability, while seeking to tightly track benchmark performance,” according to a company press release. “We think of ourselves as the operating system for sustainable equities investing, working alongside wealth advisors and institutional investors to empower them to become sustainability leaders,” added co-founder and CEO Scott
Ethic, which already has investment from Justin Rockefeller, aims to marry the two traditionally separate realms of sustainability and institutional, quantitative finance. It aims to capitalize on a sustainable investments market that is reported to have grown 25% to be worth $23tr over the past two years. The sector’s biggest rise is in China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Yet in the US socially-responsible assets now represent almost 22% of all professionally managed assets.
Ethic’s own founding trio were included in Forbes magazine’s 2018 30 under 30 list. “Ethic’s founders had a keen insight realized through superior execution: technology can and should help people align their values and their investments,” said Rockefeller in a statement. “I’m proud to support such a talented and mission-driven team.”