Endowments for Harvard and Princeton have participated in Material Impact’s second fund, which closed at $200m after being oversubscribed.
Material Impact, a US-based venture capital firm with a keen interest in spinouts, has closed its second fund at $200m with limited partners including several university endowments.
Only the endowments of Harvard and Princeton universities were identified by Forbes as limited partners, while Material Impact said in its announcement the roster of investors also included family offices, foundations and fund-of-funds.
Material Impact was founded in 2015 to invest in material science technologies with potential applications in industries including clean energy, the supply of food and water, transportation, healthcare and industrial productivity.
Its $110m first fund, closed in 2018, attracted a range of unnamed university endowments, fund-of-funds, foundations and family offices.
The firm proceeded to invest in more than half a dozen spinouts, most recently doubling down on its commitment to Zero Waste Water by taking part in a $50m series C1 round this week for the Arizona State University company that has built a system to convert air and sunlight to drinking water.
Other spinouts in its portfolio include Soft Robotics and Datacule (Harvard University), 6K, Infinite Cooling and Bloomer Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Orbion (Michigan Technology University), Fusion Coolant Systems (University of Michigan) and Folio Photonics (Case Western Reserve University).
Material Impact is currently considering potential investments for Fund II in areas such as synthetic biology. It is also evaluating its portfolio on impact, using metrics developed by non-profit B Lab, which is responsible for B Corp certification.
