‘It will survive Trump’: Nicolas Celier on impact investing, megatrends, and his sailing trip around the world

Nicolas Celier, co-founder of Ring Capital, is unfazed by what he calls the "backlash" against impact investing. In fact, he welcomes it.

“We see it as very positive news,” he tells Impact Loop in an interview. “Impact became meaningless – everyone was saving the world, or at least pretending to.”

Now, with the green halo dimmed and many valuations corrected, Celier believes the sector is healthier than ever.

“We’re seeing better quality assets, better entrepreneurs, and more realistic valuations,” he says. “It’s a great thing, both in terms of real impact and investor intentionality.”

The Frenchman says his optimism is fuelled by his belief that impact investing is built on “megatrends” that aren’t going away.

“We need to transform the planet, supply chains, and adapt to climate change. We need to invest in things. Whether Trump wants it or not, it will survive him.”

From ‘worst of both worlds’ to proof of concept

Celier has been in impact long enough to have seen the field rise, fall, and rise again. When he first launched a social impact fund in 2011, the concept itself was radical.

“At the time, people from traditional finance told us that you can't have a positive impact and be profitable,” he recalls. “And from the social activists and NGOs, they said that by trying to make money from inclusion and poverty we were worse than capitalists.”

The fund – then called Investir&+ and now renamed Impactivist – started with little more than conviction. Returns, not rhetoric, ultimately changed perceptions. “The first two companies we backed delivered 2x and 4.5x in three years,” Celier says.

One of them was a coding school born in a rented flat outside Paris. Its founder couldn’t find Ruby on Rails developers, so he started teaching unemployed youth from nearby suburbs. That small experiment became Simplon.

“You can pitch theory all day,” Celier says, “but nothing convinces like results.”

A sailor’s instinct for risk

Before he was an investor, Celier was an investment banker at BNP Paribas – and, for a time, a sailor living aboard a boat in Hong Kong. After leaving his role at the bank, he spent 18 months with his wife sailing back to his native Brittany, France, an experience he says shaped his appetite for risk and his perspective on nature.

“When you’ve been living for 18 months in the blue, with just the sea and the stars, you develop a link with nature,” he says. “And when you raise a fund, it’s a bit like sailing – you set off, it’s long, and you deal with things as they come.”

In 2017, Celier co-founded Ring Capital. The impact fund now has €470m under management. It backs entrepreneurs who build what Celier calls “vital solutions to major social or environmental challenges.”

Fund breakdown

Ring Capital manages a range of impact-focused funds, from early-stage investments to scaling companies. Its €140m Series A and B vehicle, Ring Mission, backs impact startups, with ticket sizes from €0.5 to €3m.

Meanwhile, Ring Africa, co-launched with MStudio in West Africa, replicates proven startup models – from fintech to logistics – and adapts them to serve local markets in the region.

At the earlier stage, Ring’s portfolio includes the likes of MoEa, a vegan sneakers brand, and HyLight, which is developing a small airship for the maintenance of power lines. More mature companies include electricity flexibility provider Enerdigit and Yesspark, a parking rental marketplace for EVs.

Looking ahead

For Celier, the current downturn in venture funding is no reason to panic. Quite the opposite: it’s when the best companies are born.

“If Airbnb and Uber came right after the subprime crisis, that’s not a coincidence,” he says. “You make good deals in rough times.”

He believes today’s mix of megatrends, climate transformation, supply chain reconfiguration, and accelerating AI, has created a “unique historical opportunity” for founders and investors alike.

“We’re solving real problems that won’t disappear with political cycles,” he says.