Unlocking capital through community: inside The Impact Office’s peer-led approach to mobilising family capital

This case study explores how The Impact Office (TIO) is catalysing market-rate impact investing at scale by building a trust-based community of ‘now gens’—family members who can already make or influence investment decisions. Co-founded by Risto Väyrynen, an impact investor and fourth generation family owner of Leipomo Väyrynen artisanal bakeries in Helsinki, and Adela Villanueva, a C-level executive, entrepreneur, and impact investor, TIO serves as a convener of impact-curious and impact-invested now gens and connects them with investable opportunities. TIO leverages families' social capital—that is, their natural affinity for and trust in one another and as a collective—through knowledge transfer, deal-sharing, and intentional community-building. In doing so, it helps now gens overcome key barriers to deploying impact capital—including limited liquidity that restricts meaningful participation in governance—knowledge gaps, and overreliance on traditional VC-led deals. The first investment syndicate involving seven TIO members jointly investing in a sustainable enterprise provided proof of concept, showing Risto and Adela that deploying families’ social capital—through trust, transparency, and peer learning—can accelerate both the speed and scale of impact investment. Building on this foundation, TIO is now developing a vehicle that is shaped, co-managed, and co-owned by families, to scale the success of the pilot. TIO’s story illustrates how informal networks, when structured intentionally on a foundation of trust, can be leveraged to break through analysis paralysis, activating more reticent wealth holders to deploy impact capital.