Variant Impact Fund

About The Fund

Overview

The Variant Impact Fund, registered on 9/13/2021, is the second-ever interval fund registered with a dedicated focus on environmental or social impact.

The Fund's primary objective is high current income, with a secondary objective of capital appreciation. The Fund will also aim to create a positive social and environmental impact by investing in opportunities that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as their own impact investing framework. Generally, these include a focus on "financial inclusion," "inclusive growth," and "responsible consumption."

The Fund will typically invest in private markets, including private credit, specialty finance, real estate equity and debt securities, education finance, infrastructure debt, renewable energy, and impact-oriented private funds. The Fund also carves out the ability to invest in publicly traded securities including REITs and ETFs.

Depending on asset allocation, the Fund could achieve a significant impact. Providing capital to build sustainable infrastructure, renewable energy systems, and sustainable agriculture, for example, could meaningfully contribute to economic decarbonization. By contrast, investing in publicly traded securities like REITs and ETFs are less likely to achieve impact because they do not provide working capital for climate- or society-related solutions.

Regardless, Portland, OR-based Variant Investments is no stranger to the potential offered by the interval fund structure. They took their inaugural interval fund (Variant Alternative Income Fund) past $1b AUM in July 2021, and registering the Variant Impact Fund further validates the ability of interval funds to provide much-needed capital for sustainable development goals.

The Variant Impact Fund does not brand itself as "ESG," only mentioning the term as a potential risk - due to the lack of a standard ESG definition - when evaluating other impact funds for investment.

The Fund's minimum initial investment is $1,000,000.

From the Fund's prospectus:

The Variant Impact Fund (the “Fund”) is a closed-end management investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “Investment Company Act”), and organized as a Delaware statutory trust on June 10, 2021. Variant Investments, LLC serves as the investment adviser (the “Investment Manager”) of the Fund.

Investment Objective and Strategies

The Fund has a primary objective of providing a high level of current income. Capital appreciation is a secondary objective of the Fund. The Fund will also seek to generate positive social and environmental impact by targeting investment opportunities that are both aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (“UN SDGs”) and consistent with the Fund’s impact investing framework.

The Fund intends to invest in a wide range of opportunities across three core impact objectives: (i) financial inclusion; (ii) inclusive growth; and (iii) responsible consumption. Such investments are typically domestic and foreign privately-held investments that are outside of traditional public equity and bond markets. These assets may include, but are not limited to private credit, specialty finance, real estate equity and debt securities, education finance, infrastructure debt, renewable energy investments, as well as purchases of interests in impact-oriented private funds in the secondary market. The Fund may also invest in publicly-traded securities, such as real estate investment trusts (“REITs”) or exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), which are consistent with the Fund’s impact investing framework. The Fund allocates its investments across multiple strategies in both developed and emerging markets with varying levels of liquidity and credit quality, including distressed and defaulted investments. The Fund may use derivative investments and may have exposure to long and short positions across its asset classes to obtain the desired risk exposure consistent with its investment strategies.

Percentage and dollar changes represent the increase or decrease in the NAV from the preceding trading day.