Montreal-based Concordia University has committed $25 million to Realize Capital’s inaugural fund, one of the largest investments a Canadian university has made in a private impact vehicle. The university’s investment is part of a third close for Realize.
The fund-of-funds has raised $85 million in private capital to pair with $135 million in government seed funding from Canada’s Social Finance Fund.
The federal initiative, launched in 2023, is designed to unlock private capital for the country’s emerging impact investing ecosystem. Realize, a subsidiary of Toronto-based asset manager Rally Assets, is one of three managers delivering the Social Finance Fund’s mandate (see, “Canada’s Social Finance Fund aims to build an investment ecosystem with ‘wholesale’ impact”).
“We’re getting institutional capital that would certainly have been unlikely to invest in many of the underlying managers that we invest in,” Realize’s Lars Boggild told ImpactAlpha. The intent, he said, is to create a “turnkey, diversified platform that addresses much of the Canadian impact investing market in the private context.”
Recent investments include Indigenous-owned Flowing River Capital Partners and Misfit Ventures, Canada’s first LGBT-focused venture fund, aligned with Realize’s objective to support underrepresented managers in the country.
Endowment shift
The commitment is part of Concordia’s broader plan to move its entire $500 million endowment into sustainable investments, a transition it completed in April. The university joins a growing cohort of Canadian institutions realigning their portfolios.
The University of Guelph just completed a five-year fossil fuel divestment program, while McGill University has pledged to eliminate all direct holdings in Carbon Underground 200 companies by 2025.
