ICA Fund Good Jobs

Allison Kelly serves as CEO and leads the organization's overall strategy, including capital deployment and accelerator programming. ICA operates with a lean team structure, and ultimate investment committee authority rests with senior leadership under Kelly. The firm's model emphasizes deep advisory relationships rather than a large investment team.

ICA sources companies primarily through community networks, local business development organizations, and referrals from its foundation partners, including the San Francisco Foundation and Living Cities. The firm targets historically undercapitalized founders in Oakland and the broader Bay Area, with a particular emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses. Its deep local roots and accelerator programming create a proprietary pipeline of early-stage companies.

ICA operates as a hybrid organization with both a for-profit investment fund and a nonprofit capacity-building arm. The investment side deploys equity and revenue-based financing into portfolio companies, while the nonprofit uses philanthropic grants from organizations like the California Wellness Foundation and Google.org to subsidize intensive founder advising. This structure allows ICA to serve companies at a stage and scale that conventional venture firms find uneconomical.

ICA invests predominantly through direct deals, making equity investments and revenue-based financing directly into operating companies. The firm does not market itself as a fund-of-funds or as a limited partner in external venture funds. Its institutional backing comes in the form of program-related investments and grant support from entities like JPMorgan Chase and the James Irvine Foundation, rather than ICA deploying capital into third-party funds.

ICA targets early-stage companies in consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, business services, and light manufacturing. The portfolio skews toward brick-and-mortar and product-based businesses that create local employment — bakers, manufacturers, caterers, and service providers — rather than asset-light software startups. The unifying characteristic is the potential to create middle-wage jobs with career pathways in Oakland and surrounding communities.

The Quality Jobs Fund is an anchor investor in ICA's Growth Fund, committing $4 million to support the firm's work. This partnership explicitly ties capital deployment to job-creation outcomes, reinforcing ICA's thesis that investment returns and measurable community impact are compatible goals. The Quality Jobs Fund investment sits alongside capital from Living Cities' Blended Catalyst Fund, forming a cohort of mission-aligned institutional backers.

The ICA Impact Note is a debt instrument that allows individual and institutional investors to lend capital to ICA for on-deployment into its portfolio of small businesses. The note functions as a form of community investment, offering a fixed return while funneling patient capital to early-stage companies that create good jobs. It represents one of several capital structures ICA uses alongside direct equity and revenue-based financing.