Working Capital Fund

Managing Partner Ed Marcum leads investment decisions alongside Partners Chelsea Kocis and Sam Penfield. Marcum brings a background in international development and impact investing, while Kocis and Penfield contribute operational and early-stage venture expertise. The team operates with a flat structure typical of sub-$50 million fund managers.

The firm sources through relationships with sustainability and procurement leaders at multinational corporations that face regulatory pressure to audit their supply chains. This corporate-buyer network gives Working Capital early visibility into startups building the tools those departments actually need, distinct from a purely financial-first venture pipeline. The firm also draws deal flow from the grant-making side of its associated non-profit, which seeds pre-revenue tools that can later graduate to venture-scalable rounds.

Working Capital Fund is a private equity firm structured as a standard venture capital fund manager, not a family office. It raises capital from limited partners and deploys it into early-stage equity rounds. Separately, the affiliated non-profit Working Capital Innovation Fund makes grants and recoverable grants, but the for-profit fund operates as a conventional VC.

The two entities share a founder and mission but are legally and operationally distinct. The Working Capital Innovation Fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit seeded by the Children's Investment Fund Foundation and Humanity United; it makes grants and early-stage recoverable investments in pre-revenue supply-chain tools. Working Capital Fund is the for-profit VC that invests equity in venture-scalable companies, with a structure where a portion of carried interest flows back to the non-profit.

The firm concentrates on Seed and Series A rounds, with reserve capital allocated for follow-on participation through Series B. It often functions as a lead or co-lead in rounds under $3 million. The affiliated non-profit covers an earlier stage — pre-revenue and prototype development — through grants and recoverable grants.

Working Capital Fund makes direct equity investments into portfolio companies. There is no public record of the firm making fund-of-fund commitments or investing as a limited partner in other venture funds. Its capital deployment is focused entirely on building a concentrated direct-investment portfolio around supply-chain technology.

The firm does not publicly maintain an exclusion list, but its mandate is narrow: it invests only in technologies that address labor exploitation and environmental harm in global supply chains. Consumer internet, general SaaS, biotech, and crypto fall outside the fund's theory of change and are not represented in its known portfolio.