Future Economy Lab | Secondmuse Capital

FUTURE ECONOMY LAB ™

Our Future Economy Lab is a global research and design lab that collaboratively creates financial and investment mechanisms, as well as strategies to support economies and innovations that are both sustainable and inclusive.

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Mobilizing Investment for Affordable Home Ownership

Over 9 million U.S. homeowners spend more than 50% of their income on housing. RootedHomes and SecondMuse Capital’s Future Economy Lab are addressing this crisis by designing a blended financing mechanism to lower homeownership costs for low-income families. Using modular housing and the Community Land Trust model, this initiative ensures affordability and equitable access to sustainable homeownership.

Collaborators: RootedHomes

Learning to Earning

Globally, one in five young people are not in employment, education, or training, while 87% of employers face skills gaps. To tackle this, we explored innovative finance to guide underserved youth from training into meaningful jobs. Collaborating with capital providers, educators, and community organizations, we co-designed strategies to increase capital flow and improve employment outcomes.

Collaborators: Generation Unlimited, World YMCA

Financing Gender-Smart Climate Businesses in Asia

Building on SecondMuse’s extensive networks and regional expertise through the Frontier Labs suite of programming and The Incubation Network, we will run a series of labs to address capital needs of gender-smart, climate focused, small and medium sized enterprises. Each lab will focus on a unique challenge, such as how to scale nature-based solutions or support informal workers.

Supported by: Visa Foundation, SecondMuse Foundation

Abundantly Investing in Girls and Gender Expansive Youth of Color

Alongside girls and gender expansive youth of Color (ages 13 to 24) across the U.S. and its territories, and with the support of a variety of stakeholders including capital providers, direct service providers like nonprofits and community organizations, government, and academics, we are co-designing financial mechanism(s) and strategies to increase investments to these young people and their communities that are designed with and not only for them.

Collaborator: G4GC, Goldman Sachs, Pivotal

Property Ownership for Small Businesses

By collaborating with small business owners, industry and ecosystem experts, and investors to understand the barriers to mortgage lending and opportunities to overcome them, we aim to co-create a financial instrument(s) for mobilizing financial capital and other resources to small business owners so that they can purchase property.

Collaborators: Silver Lining, Wells Fargo

Collective Ownership

While engaging capital providers, entrepreneurs, academics, philanthropies, and legal advisors across varying industries and organizational life stages, this Lab co-designed a financial mechanism that unlocks greater access to capital and technical support while both reducing barriers and influencing existing systems towards supporting collectively-owned organizations.

Collaborators: National Cooperative Bank (NCB), One Project, Zebras Unite

New York Climate

Through engaging a diverse group of investors as well as a large entrepreneurial community in partnership with SecondMuse's Venture For Climate Tech program, this Lab sought to identity what financial mechanism could create a sustainable ecosystem around early stage climate technology innovation and innovators.

Collaborators: Venture For ClimateTech

Education

The K-12 and post-secondary market is ripe for transformation, yet structural barriers limit equitable investment, particularly for entrepreneurs of Color and women. This Future Economy Lab identified 14 principles for change, emphasizing diverse capital types, holistic support, and better impact measurement to improve outcomes for students and entrepreneurs alike.

Collaborators: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Zebras Unite

Canadian Climate

Tailoring climate finance to Quebec’s landscape requires deep knowledge of its resources, entrepreneurial activity, and investor culture. Collaborating with 50+ organizations, we designed a $50 million blended finance fund and shifted focus to embedding climate finance into the broader Future Economy Fund, advancing equity and sustainability.

Collaborators: McConnell Foundation, Real Ventures, Maison de l'innovation sociale

Mobilizing Investment for Affordable Home Ownership

Learning to Earning

Financing Gender-Smart Climate Businesses in Asia

Abundantly Investing in Girls and Gender Expansive Youth of Color

Property Ownership for Small Businesses

Collective Ownership

Education

Canadian Climate

Mobilizing Investment for Affordable Home Ownership

Learning to Earning

Financing Gender-Smart Climate Businesses in Asia

Abundantly Investing in Girls and Gender Expansive Youth of Color

Property Ownership for Small Businesses

Collective Ownership

Education

Canadian Climate

Mobilizing Investment for Affordable Home Ownership

Learning to Earning

Financing Gender-Smart Climate Businesses in Asia

Abundantly Investing in Girls and Gender Expansive Youth of Color

Property Ownership for Small Businesses

Collective Ownership

Education

Canadian Climate

Circularity

We support initiatives that prioritize reusing resources and reducing waste, creating systems that benefit both the environment and local economies. This includes working with communities to develop innovative solutions to recycling and waste management systems.
Climate Technology

We work with communities to develop solutions that address climate challenges, such as renewable energy, tools for climate resilience, and initiatives to mitigate climate risks.
Education

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Gender Equality

We champion initiatives that create opportunities for women and equity-deserving groups to lead and thrive by co-designing solutions that remove systemic barriers and build inclusive futures.
Health & Well-Being

We focus on initiatives that improve access to healthcare, mental health support, and overall well-being. This includes digital health tools, wellness initiatives, and community-based health solutions that enable people to live healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Housing & Real Estate

We collaborate with communities to create innovative home and property ownership models that address affordability and access to ensure stable and equitable living conditions for all.
Others

We also work across other areas not listed, where industries intersect, such as technology, financial inclusion, and community-driven projects. Our approach is rooted in understanding local needs and designing collaborative solutions.

We are committed to innovative product design that uses the following approach:

The Future Economy Lab ™ (FEL) Process

1

Envision

The FEL team and our partners kickstart our process together by defining the current state of capital in the target sector and developing a common vision of our desired future state of capital.

2

Define

We use various research tools—such as desk research, interviews, and landscape mapping—to understand the ecosystem's needs and challenges. We synthesize the data during sense-making sessions with partners and begin creating initial models of potential solutions.

3

Design

Next, we design new financial mechanisms and identify the need for complementary ecosystem development programming to address the gaps and catalyze new solutions to the challenges we’ve surfaced.

4

Launch

Lastly, we launch these new solutions. We refine the financial and impact models in order to raise new capital mechanisms and begin new programs with the support and collaboration of the communities themselves.