The 17-year-old venture capital fund known for its investments in high-growth businesses focused on societal impact rather than just profits is celebrating its fourth successful fund-raise, raking in $125 million to establish Fund IV, its largest to date. 
Just as exciting is the speed with which the funds came in—eight weeks from start to finish, says managing director Dave Kirkpatrick. 
Raising capital hasn’t been too tricky for venture funds this year. According to the National Venture Capital Association, fundraising was on track for a record year at the end of the third quarter with $32.4 billion raised by 201 funds. 
But an eight-week raise shows momentum continuing to build for impact investing, the kind of venture capital that puts more emphasis on human, environmental and social impact than on generating profits for wealthy individuals. 
SJF Ventures has been doing that since 1999, helping it earn a track record and recognition as a Top 10 Impact Fund and finalist for the 2017 Circular Economy Investor Award.
Says Stephanie Nieman, another investor at the firm: “There is no single factor (that contributed to the fast raise) but rather a combination of support for SJF’s investment strategy, confidence built on our track record, and growing interest in impact investing.”
SJF’s new fund is more than six times the size of its first—called the Sustainable Jobs Fund, it totaled $17 million. Following a 2001 rebranding to SJF Ventures and refined focus on high-growth ventures, the firm raised a $27 million fund two. Fund three closed in 2013, oversubscribed by $15 million to total $90 million.
Here locally, SJF has invested in Aseptia, an NC State-born startup with technology that preserves the freshness and taste of food; Validic, which makes it easy for health systems and insurance companies to collect and track data from wearable devices; and just this year, TransLoc, the software startup making public transit more efficient and convenient for riders.
They are part of a portfolio of 52 startups that include Vital Farms, the nation’s largest producer of pasture-raised eggs, Solera Health, which connects tens of millions of Type 2 diabetes patients with each other and healthcare providers, and Raise, which connects high school students with micro-scholarships at over 200 colleges.
The portfolio companies employ more than 10,000 people with 78 percent of the job growth happening after fundraising, a press release states. The firm recently released a 2016 impact report looking its portfolio’s impact on energy, re-use and asset recovery, food and agriculture, education, health and wellness and workforce and economic access. SJF publicly shares these measures of value creation, but not its returns.
But impact investing is proving to be lucrative based on the increase in funds being deployed. The Global Impact Investing Network’s annual survey shows $15.2 billion in impact investments made globally in 2015 and projected a 16.2 percent increase to $17.7 billion in 2016. 
Expect SJF to play a big role in the continued growth to come.