Investing Like a Forest: Funding Resilient Ecosystems Instead of Unicorns
An exploration into a new paradigm of funding.
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
What if we reimagined investing as a force that doesn't just fuel growth—but actually regenerates life?
In a time of planetary crisis and cultural transformation, the way we fund innovation and change is more important than ever. Yet most of the investment world is still caught in an outdated model: betting on unicorns.
The "unicorn" approach treats startups like racehorses in a high-stakes game. Investors scatter capital across a portfolio, hoping that 1 or 2 out of 10 companies will deliver outsized returns. Success is measured in isolated financial outcomes, often at the expense of community, ecology, and long-term resilience.
This model might have worked for software platforms and rapid scale businesses. But when it comes to funding the regeneration of life on Earth—climate solutions, bioregional economies, commons-based infrastructures, cultural repair—we need a new paradigm.
We need to invest like a forest.
What's broken in traditional investing
Extraction mindset: Capital is expected to extract more value than it contributes. Exit is prioritized over enduring impact.
Isolated success: Each project or company is treated as an island. Little attention is paid to fostering ecosystem health.
Short-term thinking: Most funds operate on 7-10 year cycles. Many of the most vital regenerative efforts require generational time horizons.
One-dimensional returns: Financial ROI dominates. Social, ecological, and cultural value are often treated as "externalities."
These critiques are powerfully echoed in a recent article by Marie Arbelias Schuster from EvoluteSix, titled "Redesigning Finance: Investing Like a Forest, Not a Dot Portfolio”.
Published just last week, it challenges the mathematical myths underpinning traditional portfolio theory—especially the false assumption of “ergodicity” (a term I’m still trying to grasp, but worth looking up) —and calls for a shift toward investing in systems of value rather than isolated entities.
NOTE: Marie’s article, published serendipitously during the writing of this piece, signals a growing coherence across the field. To emphasize the level of serendipity: the title of this article was already created BEFORE she published her article. Her work—and that of EvoluteSix—was already an important inspiration. I’ve integrated parts of her writing here.
What does investing like a forest mean?
Forests don't bet on individual trees. They cultivate dense, diverse, interdependent networks where value circulates in many forms. A thriving forest is resilient not because each tree maximizes its own yield, but because the whole system learns, adapts, and regenerates together.
Following this inspiration from nature, a new field of practice is emerging: Systemic and Regenerative Investing. Rather than funding isolated ventures for short-term returns, this approach invests in interdependent ecosystems capable of adapting, composting failure, and regenerating value over time.
Common principles are:
Systems thinking: Success is measured at the ecosystem level, with attention to interdependence, not isolated projects.
Circular capital flows: Returns flow back into the commons to fund future waves of regeneration and ecosystem health.
Multi-capital outcomes: Financial, ecological, social, and cultural returns are valued and tracked.
Participatory governance: Portfolio and capital pools are stewarded with community involvement.
Shared learning: Projects commit to cross-pollinating insights and practices, strengthening the ecosystem as a whole.
Rethinking ROI: A Framework from EvoluteSix
Marie Arbelias Schuster brings fresh clarity to this shift by proposing an expanded lens on return:
Resilience ROI: Can this system absorb shocks and self-correct?
Regenerative ROI: Does this capital regenerate the sources of its returns?
Equity ROI: Is the value distributed fairly and wisely?
Continuity ROI: Does it last beyond the founders, beyond the cycle?
She also invites us to look beyond measuring outputs, toward more dynamic indicators such as:
Bioregional vitality indices
Value velocity within networks
Stakeholder well-being dashboards
Designing Governance for Regenerative Portfolios
To truly sustain regenerative returns, we must reinvent not just what we invest in—but how we govern and share value.
One inspiring model is the FairShares Commons—a legal and governance structure that enables equitable, multi-stakeholder ownership and distribution of value. It invites stakeholders to co-create and co-govern businesses, sharing both power and wealth. It distributes fractional profit to reinforce the whole and adapts as roles and needs evolve.
“This is finance designed for complexity—and for fairness.” — according to Marie.
Even though this model is still in its early days of implementation — and quite ambitious — it seems that the time is getting ripe. And this model doesn’t stand alone. Many more are starting to experiment with new ways of governance and finance, that are more inclusive, democratic and (eco)systemic.
Emerging examples
While this movement is still young, I am seeing promising pioneering efforts:
EvoluteSix – A venture studio and holding company advancing business ecosystems and regenerative governance. EvoluteSix also helps organizations implement the FairShares Commons model.
FairShares Commons – A legal and governance model that enables equitable, multi-stakeholder ownership and distribution of value in mission-driven enterprises.
TransCap Initiative – A think-and-do tank focused on prototyping systemic investing for real-economy transformation.
TWIST – A global community of practitioners developing systemtic investment practice through learning and experimentation.
Innrwrks – A transformation lab and venture studio co-creating infrastructure and methods for living system transitions. Creators of the Regenerative Community Organism (RCO).
RegenBEE – A regenerative business ecosystem engine, stewarded by Seeds of Tao.
Allelo - Builds investable Networked Adaptive Organisms (NAO) that align early-stage startups into cooperative ecosystems, enabling shared ownership, risk reduction, and systemic impact.
r3.0 – A global non-profit platform that generates pre-competitive blueprints for redesigning the economy, finance, and corporate reporting.
Capital Institute – A thought leader in regenerative economics, advancing frameworks like Regenerative Capitalism and financial models aligned with planetary boundaries.
CoFundEco - Co-creating funding ecosystems for regeneration based on the r3.0 frameworks.
Atreyu – A living systems-based investment initiative focused on deep relational due diligence and regenerative capital design.
What unites these efforts is a move from extraction to reciprocity, from transaction to relationship, from competition to collaborative resilience, and from linear to living. They reflect a deeper story—one in which finance becomes not a tool for control, separation or fixing just individual problems, but for coherence, continuity, and long-lasting contribution.
Marie writes that in a “non-ergodic” world, what matters is not your average bet, but how well your investments survive the journey. That journey is shaped by feedback loops, mutual support, and the slow composting of failure into insight. It is in these dynamics—not in quarterly returns—that our capacity for enduring value lies.
This is the future of capital stewardship: not betting on isolated success, but cultivating regenerative capacity in the systems that hold us all.
A new paradigm for funding and economics
Ecosystem funding goes beyond new principles and frameworks. This is about a complete shift in consciousness that embraces the interconnectedness of life. It starts seeing our economy and all that comes with it, not as a machine, but as a living system. We, as humans, remember that we are part of the larger web that is called life. And we are finding our rightful place as custodians of that web.
This shift in consciousness is extensively and beautifully discussed by Roger Briggs in his book “Emerging World”, where he describes humanity’s evolution from a Mental Consciousness towards a Planetary Consciousness and Culture (highly recommended read).
This consciousness shift is rippling through in all layers of society, including in the world of economics.
Last week John Fullerton from the Capital Institute discussed the essence of regenerative economics, together with Tre’ Cates from nRhythm, giving a broad yet deep understanding of what this shift really means in the realm of economics & business. Watch the recording below:
Principles to guide the shift
If you are a funder, investor, or ecosystem builder curious about this path, here are some guiding principles:
Fund relationships, not just transactions. Prioritize projects and people that strengthen relational capital.
Invest in portfolios of interdependence. Look for ways to nurture islands of coherence, not isolated stars.
Design for circularity. Enable capital to flow back into the commons and future projects that strengthen the whole.
Support multi-capital accounting. Value and track social, ecological, and cultural impact alongside financial returns.
Honor learning and emergence. Build in processes for shared learning and adaptive evolution.
Steward for the long term. Shift from extractive exits to ongoing contribution and resilience.
Weave ecosystems. Support the role of ecosystem weavers to tend collaborative relationships, hold context, and nourish coherence.
Why this matters
If we continue funding regeneration with extractive mindsets and isolated bets, we risk reproducing the very dynamics that have led us into crisis.
But if we can learn to invest like a forest—with humility, patience, reciprocity, and a deep honoring of interdependence—we have a chance to seed systems that can truly sustain life.
This is not just a technical challenge. It is a cultural one.
The good news is that this movement is already emerging. The more we tell these stories, share prototypes, and invite more funders and builders into the conversation, the more fertile the ground becomes.
Invitation
If you are:
A funder who wants to explore ecosystem investing
A project steward seeking regenerative-aligned capital
An ecosystem builder weaving collaborative portfolios
...I invite you to connect. This is not a path any of us can walk alone. But together, we can learn to invest like a forest.
With gratitude to Graham Boyd, Marie Arbelias Schuster, Dominic Hoffstetter, Ruben Daniels, Joshua Prieto, John Fullerton and all those experimenting at the edges of this field. If you know of other efforts aligned with this vision, please share them.
Let’s keep weaving.
Thanks for this!
As I look at the list you shared, I wonder who in that group is actually doing the regenerative labor regardless of "filling their belly"? Who in those groups are working nurses, struggling with private equity in healthcare, who is a frustrated teacher, ecological builder, farmworker, garbage person, etc...? Who is doing the literal regenerative work already, without funding mechanisms or pools that make managers wealthy?