SJF Institute to run Investors' Circle

SJF Institute today announced it has entered into a strategic merger with San Francisco-based Investors' Circle. The goal: accelerate connections between high-caliber entrepreneurs and values-led investors.

SJF Institute has for the past decade focused on finding and building a network of impact entrepreneurs, while Investors' Circle has since 1992 focused on the investor side, helping facilitate more than $145 million of investment in 220 companies.

In recent years, observers and participants in Investors' Circle have expressed disappointment at both a low quality of presenting companies and, more crucially, a lack of capital doled out from its more than 150 angel investors, likely in part due to the Recession. In that time IC also experienced staff turnover in its leadership and criticism of its system for selecting presenting companies via volunteer judges.

On July 1, SJF Institute took over management and governance roles for IC.

Bonny Moellenbrock, Executive Director of SJF Institute, assumed executive leadership of IC, and two of IC's former board members will serve on SJF Institute's board. Suzanne Biegel, a longtime IC member who has served as IC's acting CEO while based in London, U.K., will reportedly transition to serve on Investors' Circle Advisory Board.

SJF Institute is a nonprofit affiliate of SJF Ventures, a national impact investment venture capital fund based in Durham, N.C., with additional offices in San Francisco and New York. The nonprofit produces the popular Green Jobs Award, among several other programs and events.

"We want to build a vibrant capital marketplace to put more impact entrepreneurs on a clear path to strong financial growth and measurable social and environmental impact," said SJF Institute's Moellenbrock. "We know this is the pipeline that later stage institutional investors are seeking."

The IC Fall Venture Fair is slated for Oct. 26-28 in Philadelphia, which coincides with the Social Venture Network's Fall Invitational in the same city.