Marin Firm Hopes to Support North Bay Start-Ups

A new firm located in Corte Madera, Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, seeks to make it simpler for North Bay entrepreneurs to establish businesses. The company’s creator, Zachary Kushel, claims that, in addition to producing money, it has a social mission: to promote economic growth in the region.

“We are a for-profit company, but we are also a social enterprise, so we have a dual mandate,” Kushel, who manages the company out of his house, explained.According to Kushel, Marin and Sonoma counties are currently producing a significant number of startups and have the capacity to develop many more if the correct incentives are provided.

Kushel stated, “We have all the components to build a very healthy entrepreneurship ecosystem here.” “We just aren’t fitting the puzzle pieces together.”“We want to tap into the whole intellectual and financial potential that exists in Marin County to support entrepreneurs who want to create the next great local business,” he added. “Those entrepreneurs used to be on an island.”

Kushel worked for SmithRx in San Francisco as an executive. Prior to that, he spent around three years as Glassdoor’s head of business development and a little more than three years at Cisco in global government relations.Kushel has formed a “founder network” comprising 59 chief executives of early-stage Marin and Sonoma firms to get them off their respective atolls and communicating with one another.

Kushiel’s firm also serves as a conduit for contact between companies and possible investors.Kushel explained, “We have contacts with angel groups, individual investors, and institutional venture capital funds.” “We’re creating high-value introductions,” says the narrator. Some of them have already resulted in significant capital flows into Marin-Sonoma companies.”