DBL Investors, which stands for "double bottom line," has two funds. The first, spun out from JPMorgan in 2008, is ranked in the top quartile of venture capital funds by Cambridge Associates LLC, says Pfund. The second was launched last March. Each fund has a ten-year life.
The firm's combined assets under management total some $225 million, with more than half of that in clean tech, she says. The rest is divided among different industries including health care, information technology and sustainability-oriented products and services.
DBL, which invests in local companies and sits on their boards, develops a unique set of double-bottom-line practices for each company based on its needs and goals. The firm encourages its companies to hire locally, for example, as well as focus on employee development and energy conservation.
"It's an asset class that really is unique," Pfund says. "We help create their culture; it's harder to penetrate when you're a shareholder in a public company." Since the companies are not tied to the public markets, there is also less volatility.
One DBL holding is SolarCity, the nation's largest solar service provider by project volume. It's helped thousands of homeowners adopt solar power, and it also offers services to schools and universities, government agencies and corporations. SolarCity was the first company to develop a solar lease program for middle-class customers with no up-front costs, says Pfund. It's also helping local community colleges develop training programs for solar installers, she says.
DBL first invested in Revolution Foods when it started serving meals to low-income schoolchildren at several schools in the Bay Area. The nearly 6-year-old company now provides hot and healthy meals to children in eight states and Washington, D.C.
"It's a good business and it's addressing urgent social needs," says Pfund, who notes that the company has created hundreds of entry-level jobs. It has good supplier relationships, is expanding some products through Whole Foods Market and is benefiting from increased government reimbursements set last year by the Child Nutrition Act, she says.
A success story Pfund says she's very proud of is electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors. DBL helped Tesla gain access to state grant programs and identify manufacturing sites where it could optimize growth, she says. DBL exited Tesla after it went public in June 2010 but keeps in close contact. "We don't stay in our companies too long after they go public. That's not really our job," she says.
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