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§ Private Profile · New York City, NY, USA
Springbank is a company.
Springbank Distillery crafts premium single malt Scotch whisky, meticulously controlling every stage of its production process within its Campbeltown, Scotland facility. This comprehensive on-site operation, encompassing malting, distillation, maturation, and bottling, underpins the distinctive quality and character of its celebrated spirits.
Established in 1828 by the Mitchell family, Springbank stands as Scotland's oldest independent, family-owned distillery, still operated by J & A Mitchell & Company. The initial insight centered on maintaining complete vertical integration and traditional practices, a philosophy that has allowed it to resist industry consolidation and preserve its unique heritage over nearly two centuries.
The distillery primarily serves a global clientele of discerning whisky connoisseurs who prioritize authenticity and the specific nuances derived from its unique production ethos. Springbank's vision remains rooted in upholding its profound independence and unwavering commitment to time-honored, artisanal methods, ensuring the enduring legacy of its traditional Scottish single malts.
Key people at Springbank.
Springbank was founded by Elana Berkowitz (Founder).
Springbank was founded by Elana Berkowitz (Founder).
Key people at Springbank.
# High-Level Overview
Springbank is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York that invests in infrastructure serving women and working families[1][3]. The firm's mission centers on closing the gender gap and unlocking economic opportunity across three interconnected areas: care solutions, career infrastructure, and consumer technology[1]. Rather than pursuing traditional venture returns alone, Springbank operates on a product-led impact model, where the companies it backs create social value through their core business operations—meaning greater commercial success directly translates to greater societal impact[1].
The firm targets what it identifies as a multi-trillion dollar opportunity, with estimates ranging from $1 trillion to $12 trillion in potential GDP unlock[1][3]. Springbank invests across early-stage companies from pre-seed through Series A, supporting portfolio companies throughout their lifecycle[1]. The firm focuses on three key sectors: Care (connected solutions for childcare, eldercare, and personal wellness), Career (reimagining work through AI, data, and flexible infrastructure), and Live (consumer experiences and infrastructure around housing, finance, and community systems)[1][3].
Springbank was founded less than three years ago by a team of experienced operators with deep roots in financial services and consumer sectors[1]. The founding partners include Courtney Leimkuhler, a co-founder and managing partner who previously served as Chief Financial Officer of Marsh (a global insurance broker with 35,000 employees) and spent a decade at the New York Stock Exchange leading M&A and corporate strategy before that, with earlier experience at Goldman Sachs[3]. Jen Lee Koss, a founding partner, built her career in consumer and retail, founding the experiential retail agency BRIKA in 2012 (which was acquired by SALTXC in 2021) and spending over a decade in management consulting at firms like The Parthenon Group and The Bridgespan Group[3]. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPhil from Oxford, and an undergraduate degree from Harvard[3].
Elana Berkowitz serves as a founding partner and managing partner, bringing additional operational expertise to the team[4]. This founding composition reflects a deliberate strategy: the partners combined deep financial infrastructure knowledge with consumer market expertise and strategic consulting backgrounds, positioning them to identify and support companies addressing systemic gaps in how society serves women and families.
Springbank distinguishes itself through its investor composition and support model. The founding partners possess significant operating experience—from building and scaling consumer brands to navigating complex financial institutions—rather than purely financial backgrounds[3]. This translates into hands-on support for portfolio companies beyond capital deployment, with the team able to advise on product-market fit, organizational scaling, and strategic positioning.
Unlike impact investors who may accept trade-offs between financial returns and social outcomes, Springbank's thesis explicitly aligns the two[1]. The firm invests in companies where the product or service itself IS the impact—creating a virtuous cycle where commercial success and social benefit reinforce each other. This eliminates the tension between profit and purpose that plagues many impact-focused funds.
With less than 25% of capital concentrated in the top three investors, Springbank maintains a relatively distributed cap table[1]. This reduces dependency on any single limited partner and suggests institutional backing from multiple sources, providing stability and reducing pressure for outsized returns that might compromise the impact thesis.
Rather than narrowly focusing on a single sector, Springbank's three-pillar approach (Care, Career, Live) captures interconnected infrastructure gaps. This breadth allows the firm to identify non-obvious opportunities where technology can reshape how families and workers navigate daily life, from caregiving logistics to workplace flexibility to financial resilience.
Springbank operates at the intersection of three powerful macro trends reshaping the venture ecosystem. First, the recognition of gender and family economics as a structural market opportunity has moved from niche impact investing into mainstream venture capital. The firm's $1-12 trillion opportunity thesis reflects genuine market gaps—childcare costs, eldercare infrastructure, and workplace inflexibility represent real economic drains on productivity and household wealth.
Second, AI and automation are reshaping work and care, creating new possibilities for infrastructure that didn't exist five years ago. Springbank's focus on "reimagining productivity with AI and data" positions it to back companies that leverage these tools to solve longstanding coordination and efficiency problems in care and work[3]. This timing matters: the technology stack now exists to build solutions that were previously economically infeasible.
Third, the firm rides a broader shift in venture capital toward stakeholder capitalism and measurable impact. As institutional LPs increasingly demand ESG alignment and social returns alongside financial returns, firms like Springbank that embed impact into their core thesis rather than treating it as an add-on become more attractive to capital allocators. Springbank's 100% impact investment ratio signals this commitment[1].
The firm's influence on the broader ecosystem manifests in two ways: it legitimizes women and family infrastructure as a venture-scale opportunity (rather than a nonprofit or government problem), and it demonstrates that impact-aligned investing need not sacrifice returns or rigor. This potentially shifts how other venture firms evaluate opportunities in adjacent spaces.
Springbank is well-positioned to become a defining voice in what might be called "infrastructure venture"—backing companies that rebuild the systems families and workers depend on. The founding team's combination of financial services expertise, consumer market knowledge, and strategic acumen gives them credibility with both founders and LPs.
The firm's trajectory will likely depend on portfolio performance over the next 2-3 years. Early-stage venture funds live or die by their ability to identify breakout companies; Springbank's thesis is compelling, but execution matters. If the firm can demonstrate that companies solving care, career, and consumer infrastructure problems can achieve venture-scale returns while delivering measurable impact, it will attract follow-on capital and establish a template other firms may replicate.
Looking ahead, expect Springbank to deepen its focus on AI-enabled solutions that automate or coordinate care and work, expand into adjacent infrastructure (healthcare access, financial services for underserved populations), and potentially raise larger follow-on funds as the first fund matures. The broader venture ecosystem will watch whether impact-aligned investing in this space can deliver returns competitive with traditional venture—if so, Springbank may catalyze a meaningful reallocation of capital toward solving the infrastructure challenges facing women and working families.
