The move by the Walmart
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Lukas Walton’s climate-focused investment firm S2G has raised $600 million in outside funding, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 37-year-old Walmart heir, who Forbes estimates is worth $27.8 billion, has already poured $3 billion into S2G and his other investments through his umbrella group Builders Vision.
The move represents the first time that S2G has brought in outside capital since Walton founded it in 2014. It now holds $2.5 billion in assets. Its portfolio of more than 100 companies includes green cement maker Brimstone; Apeel Sciences, which is working to increase the shelf life of food; and Moleaer, which cleans water with nanobubbles, which are 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt.
Walton started Builders Vision, the organization for his investment, philanthropic and advocacy efforts that includes S2G, in 2021.The group has deployed its cash to slow climate change, promote sustainable farming and clean energy, and heal the world’s oceans.
“We are addressing some of the biggest challenges of our lifetime, so we need to constantly push the envelope on ways we can catalyze capital into innovative solutions faster,” Walton said in a statement. He declined to speak further about the fundraising.
When Forbes spoke with Builders Vision president Matt Knott in October, he said that the issues the group was working on were so large that even with Walton’s wealth, they couldn’t do enough on their own. “We have a lot of capital to deploy, but these are trillion-dollar issues,” he said then. “Even if we’re wildly successful in our own right, it wouldn’t be nearly enough. We need to get other investors and philanthropists to join us and dive into these transitions.”
Chicago-based S2G announced yesterday that the firm would launch as a registered investment advisor and standalone business, known as S2G Investment Advisers.
Walton will continue to own and invest in S2G, and the firm will continue to work closely with his Builders Vision group. The funds are for a private-equity fund, known as S2G Solutions Fund 1, according to the SEC filing.
Managing partners Aaron Rudberg, Sanjeev Krishnan and Chuck Templeton will continue to lead the firm. “This evolution of S2G unlocks greater potential and expanded capacity to support projects that benefit our planet and human health,” Krishnan said in a statement. S2G partners declined to comment further.
Walton, a grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, inherited his fortune when his father John died in a 2005 plane crash. He has long focused on sustainability and environmental advocacy, and is the environment program committee chair at the Walton Family Foundation.
Builders Vision said in an impact report last fall that its work included the development of more than 170 sustainable products and technologies. It has helped install 15,685 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, enough to power the states of Iowa and Michigan. Through a variety of techniques, including mitigation and sequestration, it has helped remove or prevent more than 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, equal to the annual emissions of about 870,000 passenger cars.
