SWAT Equity Partners is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on supporting entrepreneurs creating social impact through well-being and consumer focused brands. By investing in entrepreneurs, SWAT is able to help grow brands that support the well-being of underserved markets, such as businesses that focus on producing sustainable materials, to reduce plastics in the environment and increase renewable alternatives. The company also looks for communities that are underserved, and focuses on investing in those areas to make a measurable social and environmental impact. The fund is very concerned with making an impact, and over the summer I worked to help shift their investment strategy towards this goal.

I worked on a variety of projects at SWAT Equity Partners, including vetting potential investments, conducting due diligence on investments, and m­eeting with entrepreneurs serving these underserved markets. I created investment memos on companies with potentially lasting social and environmental impact in the well-being and consumer brand space, sourced impact investing deals, and updated the fund’s Limited Partners on KPIs. My end of summer deliverables included investment memos on long term sustainability of portfolio companies, dashboards quantitatively measuring impact of investing, and deliverables streamlining operations at the fund.

I took multiple courses that helped me carry out my work over summer, including:

• Capital Markets – Used in valuing new social impact ventures
• Corporate Finance – Used in impact investment sensitivity analyses
• Emerging Markets – Used to identify underserved markets
• Foundations of Entrepreneurship (focusing on driving change in underserved markets through Entrepreneurship) – Used in founder meetings
• Organizational Change (driving social good through leading people) – Used at seminars and community events

  My professional goal in the short term was to carry out meaningful work that plays a role in making a positive impact in society. I came to business school to be in a role where I would truly drive change in underserved markets, instead of implementing previously defined solutions, and I believe this is possible at the cross section of social impact, entrepreneurship, and finance. At SWAT Equity Partners, I was able to integrate my Columbia coursework, as well as my prior in-semester internship (acquired through the CBS venture capital club), to succeed and affirm my desire to work in impact investing.

  It was challenging to balance meeting with a founder who was serving an underserved community, and had a good business model, but was simply too early in their traction to invest. Maintaining a strong relationship with a founder, while also communicating that the fund could not invest was a tougher conversation to navigate than I originally expected. It was also challenging to balance impact investment metrics and financial performance requirements; many times, our fund would meet with a founder who we liked, but the market they were serving simply already had solutions in place. Lastly, I found it challenging to identify which businesses were truly sustainable (and had sustainability built throughout the value chain), and which businesses were “making an impact” but potentially harming the environment in an equally destructive manner through a different channel. The market research and industry understanding required to make these analyses was more involved than I expected when starting the internship.

  My overall experience at SWAT Equity Partners was fantastic. I got exactly what I wanted from the internship—direct exposure with founders who were growing impactful and sustainable businesses, and the ability to invest and mentor those founders. I learned a lot about different underserved communities and the industries solutions fell in, and found that the internship reaffirmed my decision to recruit in the industry. I found that I liked the nature of the work, as we were not just sitting in an office, but rather traveling around New York City boroughs to meet with founders of a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I learned how to apply my Columbia coursework and prior consulting skillset to a brand new industry, and I look forward to seeing how the businesses and founders I learned about gain traction over the next several years. I’m extremely grateful that I was able to take this internship due to the Social Enterprise fund at CBS, and look forward to continuing down this path.