Backing visonary
founders building
a better world.
The Natural Integration of Profit and Purpose
How We Work
The Moment Everything Changes.
We unlock tomorrow’s possibilities for today’s most impactful companies
Studio Model
We embed with founders from day zero — co-building the product, team, and go-to-market strategy before formal funding. More than a check, we're a founding partner.
Strategic Capital
We connect mission-driven founders with aligned capital partners — from initial checks to follow-on rounds — while providing the strategic support that makes them investment-ready.
Global Network
Access to 300+ impact-aligned mentors, 40+ corporate partners actively seeking solutions, and a growing community of dedicated leaders who share learnings openly.
Impact Architecture
Our in-house impact team helps you define, measure, and communicate your outcomes — building investor-grade impact data from the earliest days.
Active Projects
Companies we believe in
The Team
Operators turned investors
We've built, scaled, and exited companies. We bring that experience to every founder we back.
Benjamin Callis
Founder
Ben Callis is a visionary technical founder and CEO whose grit and determination are second to none. Before founding Ivy House, Callis made a name for himself by playing a critical role in shaping several successful startups' product strategies and designs in the mortgage, business intelligence, and education sectors. His expertise in these areas is evident in the accolades and achievements of the companies he has worked with. Callis is highly skilled with an education from the prestigious MIT and Sloan School of Management. He has also completed several cohorts at the Stanford D school, further honing his skills in design and innovation. But Callis's contributions to the industry go far beyond his professional accomplishments. He is passionate about teaching and mentoring, teaching coding and UX design to over 5,000 students. He is also actively engaged in cultivating new talent by sharing his knowledge and network."
Christopher Johnson
Founder
Christopher is a global fixture in the philanthropic space with extensive experience in leading sustainable community empowerment initiatives and managing large-scale internatinoal projects from inception to completion. He has successfully guided cross-functional, multicultural teams, drawing on over 30 years of hands-on experience in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Throughout his career, he has worked closely with local facilitators to implement anti-poverty strategies rooted in core values, leadership development, community ownership, and self-determination. One of Christopher's key passions is combining mission and purpose with the discipline and efficiency of business to create impactful tools that address unmet needs in financially sustainable and scalable ways. Outside of his professional life, Christopher is an avid mountain biker, cyclist, hiker, runner, and adventurer. Whether he’s exploring new places, diving into innovative technologies, or learning from the wisdom and insights of his three incredible children, Christopher finds fulfillment in the experience of learning and connecting with others.
Lorraine Bassett MBA, PHD
Impact Advisor
As a globally experienced senior executive, I'm passionate about driving strategic business development, alliance initiatives and cross-functional collaboration to achieve exceptional outcomes. With a career built on a foundation of global sales leadership, strategic business development, and technical expertise, I thrive in a complex, dynamic and multicultural ecosystem. I have driven billions of dollars in cloud enterprise technology sales and won top-tier partnership achievements including the prestigious Stevie award for global business development. My proven ability to lead teams to surpass target goals, coupled with my deep industry relationships and engagement with senior executive stakeholders, have been key to my success. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), I led the strategic initiative to create the first-ever Worldwide Partner Solutions Factory for Industries, resulting in groundbreaking growth with services expansion into Manufacturing, Transportation and Travel and Hospitality industries. I defined and executed a new Go-To-Market (GTM) model for solution offerings, achieving 180% of solutions goal and 130% of annual recurring revenue goal. As a senior executive and global VP, I developed and executed a strategic vision, leveraging AWS, IBM, Rackspace, SAVVIS and CSC partnerships to expand Racemi, Inc.'s Global Reach, achieving 80%+ sales growth year-over-year. Today, as a seasoned Amazon business development strategist, I continue to build and lead high-performing global teams to generate $5 Billion in revenue by 2030, establishing actionable, transformational strategies, delivering a clear, and compelling vision to align and drive for overall productivity and success. I bring to bear a unique blend of Global Business Perspective, Strategic Planning and Execution, Team Building & Leadership, Think Big Partnership Development and operational excellence. I am passionate about driving transformative change while fostering a culture of trust and team empowerment to achieve extraordinary results.
Robert F. Mancuso
Securities Advisor
Chief Executive Officer Robert F. Mancuso is the Chief Executive Officer of Capri Capital, LLC and related entities including Capri Capital Partners, through which investments in family held companies are made, and Capri Consulting, which advises families on the challenges they face resulting from intergenerational transfer. Robert is a pioneer in the alternatives assets category. He was the first President and Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, Inc., the entity responsible for establishing and growing Merrill’s private equity business. Merrill was the first Wall Street firm to raise a captive private equity fund from institutional investors. In helping found Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, Robert was instrumental in designing its very successful strategy of being the "White Knight" to companies under threatened takeover from raiders who were financed by Drexel Burnham and Mike Milken. While at Merrill, he sourced and led the team which closed the first ever billion dollar leveraged buyout, which was done with KKR as Merrill’s equity partner. Over his career he led teams that raised over $7 billion in financing, tapping numerous providers of senior, mezzanine, and equity capital, from both public and private sources. Robert has also served on the boards of directors of twelve companies ranging in size from $75 million to $4 billion in annual sales, many of which had previously been publicly traded. His corporate governance experience includes having been elected non-executive chairman of the board, a member of the executive committee, and a member of the compensation committee. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, he was associated with Lazard Freres & Co for four years, in its Corporate Finance department raising capital for domestic and multinational corporations and intergovernmental entities. He also practiced law with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. before joining Lazard. A prolific author, Robert has written numerous articles dealing with the challenges that family businesses face as a result of the Great Wealth Transfer, the imposition of confiscatory transfer taxes, and the unintended consequences of the growing popularity of wealth taxes. His articles have been published by a number of leading media outlets, including Real Clear Markets, the Chicago Tribune, and Bloomberg under both its Tax and Law categories. The full library of Robert's publications is available on our News and Insights page. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business as well as a JD degree from Cornell Law School. He also has been a representative of the United States family business community on Capitol Hill, having visited and advocated with members of the US Congress’ Family Business Caucus on three occasions with regard to pending legislative proposals.
Samina Rind
Longevity Advisor
Samina Rind is a visionary entrepreneur, investor, keynote speaker, and longevity ambassador based in Miami Beach, Florida. A Princeton University alumna and University of Cambridge graduate, Samina brings over 20 years of experience across business development, strategic partnerships, fundraising, and venture investing. What makes Samina's story remarkable is her personal transformation. After surviving a brain tumor larger than a golf ball while scaling her first startup, she embarked on a 14-year journey of rigorous health optimization at the intersection of science, technology, and spirituality — achieving a biological age in her early 20s at the calendar age of 53. Today, Samina serves as Founder, CEO, and General Partner of #highminded ventures , where she advises and invests in pioneering health, longevity, and biotech companies. She is an advisor and investor to companies like KÄÄPÄ Biotech and Maya Health , and a Limited Partner and Advisor at Catalyst Holdings , co-investing in lower-to-middle market private equity deals. Known affectionately as the "Fairy Godmother" to the founders she mentors, Samina's mission is clear: accelerating humanity's evolution to cure chronic illness and extend healthy lifespans. She is a sought-after keynote speaker on longevity, biohacking, and the convergence of science, spirituality, and technology — having spoken at events like the Biohacker Summit , where she shared her personal protocols for reversing biological aging. Samina's impact extends beyond business — she has served on steering committees for the Perez Art Museum Miami and the Dream In Green Gala, reflecting her commitment to community and purposeful living.
Zenia Tata
Impact Advisor
Zenia Tata is an innovation strategist, a trained futurist, and a humanitarian who is passionate about tapping the vastness of human potential to tackle the planet's most vexing problems. As an independent consultant, Zenia has been leading innovation projects and advising on sustainable impact initiatives for Kitty Hawk Ventures, MAKR Venture Fund, Pure Technologies, Breakthrough Victoria , a 2-billion-dollar impact investment fund for the Prime Minister’s Office of Australia ; an affordable and sustainable housing design project for Emaar Properties through ExO Mesh ; and sustainability related consulting projects globally for BCG . Zenia spent a decade as Chief Impact Officer at XPRIZE where she created a new prize development methodology and designed more than 25 different innovation challenges to incentivize development of moonshot technologies in areas such as hydrogen energy, carbon dioxide removal, zero-waste mining, alternate proteins, desalination, age-reversal, and water abundance . During this time, she trained as a futurist and launched XPRIZE’s future foresight practice , which produced deeply researched impact roadmaps that outlined the breakthroughs necessary to achieve preferred future states of housing, environmental conservation, human longevity, and global food systems. Her last large-scale effort at XPRIZE was the groundbreaking design of the $100 million Carbon Removal prize funded by Elon Musk that incentivized solutions for the capture and sequestration of atmospheric CO2. Before XPRIZE, Zenia served as Executive Director of International Development Enterprises (iDE) USA , a nonprofit company that creates market-based approaches to help impoverished farmers in 20 developing countries generate income. Working in post-disaster zones and some of the poorest villages, she honed an approach to poverty alleviation that begins with a deep understanding of the local context and market dynamics to create lasting impact. Her proudest achievement was iDE’s ability to lift 24 million farm families out of the cycle of poverty. Zenia's popularity as a public speaker reflects her talent for clear and inspiring communication around complex ideas. Her keynotes cover her methodology of creating audacious impact. This unique approach combines moonshot thinking with design principles drawing from biomimicry and science fiction. She is currently authoring a book on Audacious Impact , which is influenced by her 25 years of global field experience in implementing innovations to solve planetary-scale problems. Through her 25-year global career, Zenia has often been quoted as a breakthrough thinker and practical futurist in international technology publications like Wired magazine , and media outlets like the BBC . She is an experienced keynote speaker and facilitator who has created her own validated workshop methodology for foresight and breakthrough identification in sectors like energy, water, global food systems, waste, and human health and longevity. A sense of adventure and an explorer’s mindset runs through Zenia’s life and work. Growing up in Bombay she dreamt of becoming an astronaut before becoming one of the few women in the ‘80s to become a pilot. Her love of the outdoors and extreme sports are reflected in her bold innovation designs which are influenced as much bybiomimicry as they are by the confluence of exponential technologies. Zenia is bold, brimming with optimism, and determined to change the world.
Insights