Masawa was born out of a personal mental wellness journey and a desire to use capital as a tool for meaningful change. We’re the world’s first and only mental wellness impact fund, responding to a rapidly growing need for improved mental wellness via an accessible range of innovative tools that enable positive social change. By directing capital towards opportunities with significant social impact and financial returns, we can address the lack of accessible mental wellness support that prevents millions of people from fully living life.

Our strong focus on impact, organizational health and financial returns are the foundation of what makes our approach successful. We make sure that the founders we invest in are an excellent fit across all three dimensions by performing meticulous due diligence. Our diligence scorecard considers the product’s ability to scale up, economic viability and financial returns, impact thinking and evidence as well as the founder’s vision and commitment to team wellness and organizational health. All these criteria are wrapped into a Masawa Hexscore (to be opensourced soon!), a guide for whether the opportunity is right for us. Doing this not only mitigates business and impact risks but also acts as a critical enabling driver of organizational results.

We firmly believe that by prioritizing internal impact in the form of organizational health and founder wellbeing, Masawa will achieve not only outsized financial returns, but also exponential social impact. The mental health investment market has quadrupled in the last four years and is expected to keep growing, with mental health funding set to exceed $1 billion for the year 2020. Nevertheless, more capital (especially in countries other than the USA) is needed to effectively address the growing $270bn market opportunity and respond to the vast global demand for mental wellness. It opens up a perfect chance for Masawa to step in and leverage capital for social transformation.

As an organization that strives to improve global mental wellness while battling the stigma around it, we also deem it essential to start meaningful conversations, speak up, and amplify others’ voices. That’s why we are starting this blog and you are reading this text. We aren’t experts on it all (and aren’t afraid to admit that), but we are eager to continue learning.

Stay tuned for lots of great things to come!