Catalytic Capital Courses

In October 2021, the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) awarded Prime Coalition with funds to research and explore the following questions:

• Why is catalytic capital needed to advance science and engineering solutions that address climate, security, food and health challenges?

• Where and how has catalytic capital been deployed in those areas to date?

• How has catalytic capital investment contributed to both positive and negative social and environmental outcomes, across different sectors and impact themes?

• What are the opportunities for future catalytic capital intermediation and what are the pitfalls to avoid?

These are among the many questions that dozens of practitioners have reached out to ask us about as Prime’s catalytic capital practice has evolved over the years. To contribute to the advancement of the catalytic capital marketplace, Prime is teaming up with MIT on a research project to build the evidence base around science and engineering capital gaps and best practices for catalytic investment. The final material will become part of a publicly-available online course at MIT, with in-person workshops being imagined for philanthropic asset owners or future catalytic capital intermediaries.

We’ll construct the course to help philanthropists and other investment professionals move from interest to action in deploying catalytic capital, offer recommendations on how to assess catalytic capital gaps, and help intermediaries develop proposed intervention(s) with an appropriate framework.

Our research project focuses on:

• Characterizing capital gaps in specific areas of science and engineering innovation as they are matched to key social challenges.

• Making the case for why charitable asset owners – private foundations, donor advised funds, corporate giving programs and individuals/households/trusts – might be right-fit to step into specific capital gaps (in the absence of sufficient market-rate investment).

• Building a framework to help practitioners decide whether or not a specific gap might be appropriate for catalytic capital intermediation.

• Codifying and publishing Prime’s lessons learned around mechanics of catalytic capital investment transactions

• Conducting deep dive data analysis on specific areas of science and engineering innovation (evaluating both market-rate and catalytic capital flows in both the “seeding” and “scaling” phases of solution deployment) focused on particular missions and challenges.

Established in 2019, C3 is an investment, learning, and market development initiative created and led by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Omidyar Network. Together, these partners jointly fund the C3 Grantmaking program, which is housed at and administered by the New Venture Fund. C3 aims to increase the flow and impact of catalytic capital to make social and environmental progress that would not otherwise be possible.