Economic Innovation International, Inc. 

Key Funds and Institutions

Economic Innovation has a long history of creating new classes of financial intermediaries which are then accepted by the market to accomplish economic development goals.  We create the first alpha and beta models which then lead to new financial industries.  The firm established the first seed and early stage venture funds, the first mezzanine capital funds, and some of the earliest and most important state technology commercialization funds.  Recently, Economic Innovation has created a whole new industry of successful double bottom line market-rate private equity funds that create measurable jobs and wealth in low-income neighborhoods and provide risk-adjusted rates of return to institutional investors. 

Economic Innovation has mobilized large scale private resources to accomplish measurable public purpose through the creation of the dozens of  state private-public partnerships.  These institutions leverage private sector resources to achieve scale in a time of diminishing public sector resources.  In developing these key partnerships Economic Innovation  works with the private, public, and academic sectors to provide and execute a strategic vision and measurable performance for the state or region's economy.  Many of these partnerships have thrived and created new vitality for decades.

More than thirty years ago, Economic Innovation conceived, designed and built the first publicly initiated seed and early stage venture capital funds in the United States that use private capital markets to create public value by underwriting new economic and technological innovation in underserved markets.  These first funds built in the mid-1970s have now been joined by more than three dozen TBL venture funds created by Economic Innovation in 18 states and four nations overseas.  Today, these venture capital funds have capital under management in excess of  $4 billion. In the beginning, these funds were often seeded by public and civic investment.  Today, the newest of these innovative, mission-driven TBL funds are fully capitalized by large, repeat institutional investors (the first bottom line) investing in low income communities to create jobs and wealth for community stakeholders (the second bottom line) and are green (the third bottom line).

Economic Innovation pioneered the design and implementation of a dozen small firm expansion capital funds, more commonly known as mezzanine capital funds that today have more than $1 billion under management.  These funds were designed, through a capital markets analysis and business plan, then capitalized by institutional investors to create self-sustaining funds that invest in small and medium sized businesses throughout the country.  

Economic Innovation has pioneered the creation of over $50 billion in dozens of publicly created, but independent development finance authorities since the late 1970s that mobilize private capital from global bond markets to solve public infrastructure and development needs.  These multipurpose state and municipal development banks undertake large scale development to build or rebuild whole neighborhoods, cities and regions, build new towns, redevelop abandoned military bases, create world class research centers for universities, build industrial and technology parks, do in-fill housing, affordable and mixed-income housing, and mixed-use development.