Prabhir is a socio-environmental impact professional with over a decade of experience in corporate social responsibility (CSR), philanthropy, impact investing and blended finance in India and New Zealand. He began his career in New Zealand within the climate sciences field before returning to India. In India, he worked as a research consultant with CERE (Centre for Environmental Research and Education) before moving on to establish and manage the Great Eastern CSR Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Great Eastern Shipping group.

At Waterfield, Prabhir currently heads the firm’s Philanthropy and Impact Investing vertical, where he and his team provide advisory services in venture philanthropy, CSR, blended finance, and impact investing to clients.

Prabhir holds an MSc. in Environmental Science (low atmospheric carbon) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Environmental Management (University of Auckland) and an undergraduate degree in Biodiversity Management from Unitech New Zealand.

Kamsin is a Chartered Accountant and has worked across audit, tax and investment banking before moving to the development sector. She started her journey in the development sector at Samhita Social Ventures as a CSR consultant where she helped corporates manage their CSR projects in skill development, waste management, water conservation, and healthcare. At Waterfield, Kamsin is a part of the Philanthropy and Impact vertical and is actively involved in all the projects undertaken by the vertical.

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About Waterfield Advisors

Waterfield Advisors is a globally recognized independent Multi-Family Office and Wealth Advisory firm, providing holistic advice aligned with the investors' interest. It is registered with SEBI as Investment Advisors and works with family-owned businesses, trusts and endowments and single-family offices in several investment and non-investment-related areas. It helps clients plan, structure and manage their family wealth, working exclusively on their behalf as their dedicated family office. As an advisory firm on the Investment side, Waterfield Advisors has an open architecture platform working with all the leading product manufacturers across AMCs, PMS and AIF providers.

It has 8 offices across the country in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Goa, Kochi, and Bengaluru.

1 In your experience, how has the landscape of family office participation in impact investing evolved over the last few years? Are there any interesting observations that you would like to share with our readers?

Based on our observations, Indian Family office (FO) participation in impact investing is growing, but at a relatively slow pace. Most FOs continue to view ‘impact’ funds and companies as part of their larger alternatives pool, and not as a different, impact focused asset class. This results in most of these products coming under the same due diligence and return expectation bracket of conventional alternative investments, resulting in most of them not passing muster. While the ‘impact investing’ ecosystem in India has definitely expanded, very few impact funds have even finished an entire investment cycle, resulting in almost no track record of success or failure, both from an impact or a return perspective). Consequently, FOs will continue to pace themselves as they venture into this space.

That being said, there is a small (but growing) cohort of ‘philanthropic investors’ who view impact investing as an extension of their philanthropic pool. While their conventional grants go primarily towards grassroot NGOs working on social or environmental issues that require vanilla, no-expectation-of-return kind of capital, they see certain issues (like BoP financial access or carbon sequestration) to be large scale, needing mass-market solutions that can only be supported through investments.

2 What are the expectations that family offices have from investee companies? How could such impact enterprises orient themselves to receiving investments from family offices?

That depends entirely on the investor (FO). Regardless of whether the FO is returns first or impact first, there is a financial return expectation, though the rate of return expectation varies significantly between family offices and individuals. While factors such as business sustainability, risk management, track record, etc will always be primary expectations and key determination factors, impact-oriented investors (or philanthropists) definitely expect investee companies and impact funds to have similarly aligned values and focus. For example, a climate focused FO within our network has opted to pass on most climate focused funds within the Indian ecosystem as they did not meet their criteria of later stage, core-climate (biodiversity enhancement, ecosystem services, water access etc) investments.

Impact focused FOs are also small cheque writers during their early foray into this space. This of course, changes as their own understanding of the ecosystem grows and their risk appetite increases. However, the small cheque sizes often mean that they are not considered ‘key’ investors by some investees and funds. This is particularly problematic in the case of some larger ‘impact’ funds who are unable to provide the bespoke level of attention once a FO has invested in the fund.

Impact funds or investees intending to raise capital from this niche bunch of investors need to incorporate:

1. A far more robust impact narrative and Theory of Change which clearly outlines the impact they intend to create through their investments/business. Demonstrating a strong commitment to creating positive change can resonate with family offices that prioritize impact investing. Following up on this with strong impact focused MnE and reporting, as well as constant LP engagement (especially for those venturing into this ecosystem for the first time) can greatly improve investee-investor relationships.


2. Stronger engagement with FO. There needs to be a systemized and dedicated approach to engaging with FOs, regardless of their entry investment size. FOs are often long term, value-aligned investors with extremely strong networks and significant pools of capital. Having a dedicated Investment Relations team to work primarily with the FOs not only ensure stickiness but also helps open multiple doors as well as helps create an investment pipeline.

3 Do you see a sectoral focus emerging with Family Offices and HNIs? Any sectors that you believe will receive greater traction from such investments?

Climate was and continues to be of significant interest to FOs. Of course, climate is a relatively large, overarching term, and within climate you have a multitude of sectors, ranging from the conventional such as EV, solar, green hydrogen all the way to water purification and carbon sequestration. While most climate focused FO investors in India are focused on the conventional (largely due to lack of viable opportunities and knowledge on the other subsectors in climate), there is increasing focus on expanding within the sector.

Other than climate, we have noticed that many FOs are keen on supporting enterprises which are building employability within low-income communities. Regardless of whether these are platforms or direct vocational training tech solutions, improving employability through investments is a strong focus for FOs.

Next gen investors and their FOs are also focused on tech-for-development with an increasing focus on AI. Given that this is new and extremely promising space, impact focused FOs are increasingly starting to evaluate AI tech companies that match their impact thesis. One investor has recently started evaluating mental health companies and solutions that can also support India’s growing NGO sector.

4 While we see an increasing focus from this segment of investors, the general perception is that investments from family offices are yet to emerge on a large scale. What are some of the external enablers that can inspire more family offices to focus on impact investing?

As it has been said numerous times before, the development of industry standards, certifications, and benchmarks can enhance transparency and credibility, giving family offices more confidence in allocating capital to impact investments. Awareness is another area that’s lacking, especially in families that have historically not been investors in the alternatives space. Tailor made training programs and one-on-one discussions with FOs is a must if there is to be any traction made in bringing more FOs as LPs. This needs to be a top-down and bottom-up approach with efforts being made with the family as well as their respective investment teams. There also needs to be more focus on financial performance. Demonstrating that impact investments can generate competitive financial returns while mitigating risks can incentivize FOs to allocate more capital towards impact-focused opportunities.