What we do

We have three key workstreams:

Research: building the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of systemic investing, such as definitions, taxonomies, and methods

Prototyping: putting the theory into practice, generating demonstration effects, and capturing learnings to deepen our understanding of systemic investing

Field building: activating pioneers globally through convening, education, storytelling, and advocacy

How we work

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. We partner with asset owners, investment managers, foundations, NGOs, government agencies, and other innovators. Through these partnerships, we look to increase the sophistication and quality of systemic investing (scaling deep), reach new audiences and contexts (scaling out), or amplify our real-world impact (scaling up). Sometimes this means elevating an already existing initiative, sometimes it means incubating a new one.

Current priorities

In 2024 and 2025, our focus is as follows:

Thematically: food and agriculture, cities and mobility, and nature conservation,

Practically: reaching depth in the projects we have already started, pushing closer to capital deployment, and scaling our work out to reach into the world of strategic institutional capital and contexts in low- and middle-income countries,

Conceptually: refining the definition of systemic investing, creating a taxonomy of different approaches at the intersection of systems and finance, and conceptualizing systemic impact measurement and management (IMM).

Our projects

Active

Concluded

Prototyping

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Bringing Systemic Investing to Cities

Bringing Systemic Investing to Cities

The TransCap Initiative is partnering with the Centre for Public Impact to bring systemic investing to the challenge of transforming urban spaces.

Transforming the Swiss food system

Transforming the Swiss food system

Systemic investing for food system transformation in Switzerland

Systemic investing meets regenerative agriculture

Systemic investing meets regenerative agriculture

We are designing a systemic investment strategy and funding vehicle for the regenerative agricultural transition in the Midwest, USA.

Transforming Switzerland's Mobility System

Transforming Switzerland's Mobility System

Mobilising financial capital in order to achieve Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction

Funding the Reimagination of Melbourne

Funding the Reimagination of Melbourne

Using mission-oriented innovation and Doughnut Economics to guide the remaking of a place

Research & Conceptual Development

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Strategic capital facilitation: the missing role in the systems change ecosystem

Strategic capital facilitation: the missing role in the systems change ecosystem

We are collaborating to understand, scope and test this critical 'backbone' role

Making connections across an emerging landscape of ideas

Making connections across an emerging landscape of ideas

We explore the connections between our ideas and those of Deep Transitions Lab.

Impact measurement and evaluation

Impact measurement and evaluation

What would it mean to measure or manage ‘systemic impact’, and is this even a helpful thing to aim for?

Developing Conceptual Foundations

Developing Conceptual Foundations

We are implementing our first-generation research agenda

Systemic investing: the evolution of our thinking

Systemic investing: the evolution of our thinking

Explore the conceptual journey of systemic investing through this series of articles

Field Building

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On funding systems change

On funding systems change

How philanthropy can amplify its impact by strategically partnering with other forms of capital

The Systemic Investing Summit

The Systemic Investing Summit

The Summit brings together investors, funders and other systemic investing pioneers to go deeper on investing for systems change

Enhancing Private-Wealth Impact Investing

Enhancing Private-Wealth Impact Investing

We are partnering with The ImPact to bring systemic principles to wealth owners

Our Story

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

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2019

April

Launch of a systematic inquiry into how systems thinking can enhance sustainable finance inside EIT Climate-KIC; publication of a first hypothesis

2019

July

Multi-stakeholder design workshop in London titled "Designing Transformation Capital" (talk book)

2019

Sep/Oct

Consultation workshops in San Francisco and New York City with asset managers, foundations, NGOs, and social change organizations.

2020

August

Publication of the white paper "Transformation Capital—Systemic Investing for Sustainability"

2021

June

Spin-out of the TCI from EIT Climate-KIC into its own standalone non-profit legal entity, an association based in Switzerland

2021

September

Start of the TCI's first full-fledged prototype on net-zero mobility transitions in Switzerland

2021

April

Start of the strategic partnership with The ImPact, a global impact investing network supporting families to align their assets with their values

2022

April

Publication of the TransCap Initiatives first strategic plan to guide the work for 2022-2024

2022

July

Start of the strategic partnership with the Centre of Public Impact to bring systemic investing to the challenge of funding urban transformation

2023

June

Start of the partnership with the New Capitalism Project (hosted by The GIIN) to bring systemic investing to the challenge of transforming food and agricultural systems

2024

January

Convening of the inaugural Systemic Investing Summit at MIT in Cambridge, MA (USA)

Do you want to collaborate with us?

There is an urgent need to rethink the way we deploy financial capital for transformative impact in human and natural systems. The field of systemic investing has garnered significant momentum, and now is the time to scale deep and scale out. So we invite challenge owners, systems thinkers, innovation practitioners, investment professionals, ecosystem shapers, and creative voices to join us in figuring out how to redeploy financial capital in service of a prosperous and sustainable future for all.

How is systemic investing relevant to

Foundations

...because the pots of capital operating under a philanthropic logic are orders of magnitude smaller than those operating under an investment logic, so systemic investing is a way for foundations to leverage their capital in the systems they care about.

Corporations

...because their supply chains are becoming increasingly fragile and societal expectations of business are growing. This requires companies to deploy all the tools in their finance toolbox (incl. direct investments, advanced purchase agreements, and supply-chain financing) and partner more strategically with governments, foundations, and NGOs.

Impact Investors

...because single technologies, start-ups, or social enterprises—no matter how ingenious their solutions and how brilliant their teams—are unlikely to change systems by themselves. So what matters is that these single-point solutions are synergistically nested within a broader systems change effort.

Institutional Investors

...because mainstream ESG investing doesn’t benefit places and communities at the pace, scale, and quality required, so institutional investors must channel more capital into real-economy assets in a strategic and collaborative manner.

MDBs and DFIs

...because sustainable development in a VUCA world requires portfolio approaches to systems innovation, and those need to be funded with a different investment paradigm than those dominant in development finance institutions today. And because the public sector cannot finance sustainability transitions alone, so systemic investing is a way to crowd-in private-sector capital in a smart way.

Engage with us

Which option best describes your interest in systemic investing?

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About

Who We Are

The TransCap Initiative is a think-and-do-tank operating at the nexus of real-economy systems change, sustainability, and finance. We operate as a multi-stakeholder alliance coordinated by a backbone team and comprised of wealth owners, innovation leaders, system thinkers, research institutes, and financial intermediaries. Our community is open to anyone committed to our cause and values.

Why We Exist

We exist to improve the way sustainable finance is purposed, designed, and managed so that money can become a transformative force in building a low-carbon, climate-resilient, just, and inclusive society. We believe that the key to accomplishing this vision is to inspire and enable investors to leverage the insights and tools of systems thinking and complex systems science for addressing the most pressing societal challenges of the 21st century.

What We Do

Our mission is to build the field of systemic investing. This means developing, testing, and scaling an investment logic at the intersection of systems thinking and finance. We do that by convening a multi-stakeholder alliance to develop a knowledge and innovation base, test novel concepts and approaches, and build a community of practice.

Our core ideas borrow from the disciplines of systems thinking and complex systems science, challenge-led innovation, human-centred design, new economic frameworks, and financial innovation. Our experiments are contextualised in those place-based systems that matter most for human prosperity—such as cities, landscapes, and coastal zones—as well as in value chains and other real-economy systems. We hope that our work produces knowledge and insights, methods and tools, and a self-organising community of inspired and enabled change makers.

The places and value chains we intend to transform act as centres of gravity for our work. In each of these systems, we will work with challenge owners, communities, innovators, investors, and other stakeholders to design, structure, and finance strategic investment portfolios nested within a broader systems intervention approach.