How Hookline& Helps SJF Ventures Drive Content and PR Results Across its Portfolio

Key results:

Consistent content and PR placements in publications like Adweek, the Associated Press, Axios, Forbes, ImpactAlpha, Smart Cities Dive, and the Wall Street Journal
Compelling case studies for portfolio companies to use throughout their sales cycles
Satisfied VC partners and portfolio company executives

SJF Ventures is an impact venture capital fund based in North Carolina that has invested in more than 90 startups committed to building a more sustainable and equitable future, including companies focused on climate resilience, access to quality healthcare and education, and stronger civil institutions. SJF seeks to not only provide financial capital but also use its expertise to support portfolio companies in driving measurable impact.

For SJF, part of that mission is to support its portfolio companies with communications services that amplify each company’s impact performance. Coordinated content and media relations efforts help portfolio companies garner nationwide attention while simultaneously reaching audiences of investors and founders that are crucial for the fund.

In 2024, SJF brought Hookline& on board to increase these efforts — applying the content marketing firm’s unique combination of thought leadership and media relations to elevate the VC and its portfolio companies. The approach has already paid dividends on a national scale.

CHALLENGE

Making a splash from coast to coast

As an impact investment firm, SJF seeks to accelerate the positive benefits its portfolio companies bring to society, “bending the curve” to improve impact performance across its areas of focus. The firm’s investments range from Take Command, which improves job quality by enabling small employers to offer health insurance, to Authorium, which uses AI to streamline complex government processes.

Many of these companies face an uphill battle when it comes to communications, operating in niche industries or in unexpected locations. SJF portfolio companies are located everywhere from St. Louis to Bozeman to Williamsburg, VA, while the VC itself is headquartered in Durham, NC. When competing with startups and investors in Silicon Valley and New York, these companies need a sharp strategy and a compelling story to gain top-tier media attention.  Kelsey Jarrett, Director of Impact at SJF, recognized that SJF’s best opportunities for media coverage would come alongside new investment announcements — particularly if those could be tied to trending news stories. SJF and Hookline& set out to maximize those opportunities — keeping the media focused on the impact potential of each startup — while creating engaging executive thought leadership that broke down the large-scale problems SJF is trying to solve every day.

Solution

Balancing PR punch with thoughtful content

From the first funding round, Hookline& maximized SJF’s media opportunities. The team worked closely with Jarrett and Anna Rumer, Senior Associate, Portfolio Acceleration at SJF, to hone the firm’s key messages. Together with SJF’s subject matter experts in each sector, they crafted a clear business case — backed by tangible metrics — for the firm’s impact work.

The agency handled the PR outreach for each of SJF’s investments, working closely with the portfolio companies and quickly becoming trusted partners to the startup founders and SJF’s managing directors. With each announcement, Hookline& aimed to balance top-tier publications with the key industry trades that mattered most to portfolio companies.

Hookline& also helped SJF Ventures launch a monthly LinkedIn newsletter, Field Notes, that delivers the firm’s thoughts on trends shaping impact investing directly to its audience’s inboxes. SJF has used the channel to highlight its support for companies streamlining government operations and protecting public services, explain the opportunity for impact investors in cybersecurity, and dive deep on the firm’s impact measurement and reporting.

Hookline& helped SJF extend the reach of its marketing activity, turning in-person events and industry webinars into custom content. The agency garnered attention for the research that SJF’s investors conduct in their respective focus areas, placing the firm’s market map of tech solutions for climate adaptation and resilience in ImpactAlpha.

SJF Ventures holds quarterly roundtables during which experts lead discussions among the portfolio on relevant topics for growing startups. To ensure all portfolio companies, even those without an upcoming funding round, benefited from the expertise of Hookline&, SJF Ventures invited the agency to lead one of these roundtables and share its content and PR best practices.

RESULTS

Positive impact, portfolio-wide

Hookline&’s approach paid dividends immediately. The firm delivered consistent top-tier results for funding announcements, including Axios for Tradeverifyd, the Wall Street Journal’s Pro VC Daily newsletter for Iron Sheepdog, and Adweek for Respondology. The team also placed bylines for both SJF Ventures (ImpactAlpha) and its portfolio companies (Government Technology Insider for Authorium).

SJF’s Field Notes newsletter now has more than 2,000 subscribers, many of whom hold leadership roles in impact investing. Newsletter articles regularly catch the eye of founders solving problems in SJF’s impact sectors and solidify the firm’s reputation as a thought leader in its space.

The partnership between Hookline& and SJF creates a rising tide for the VC and its investments. Portfolio companies now know they can lean on SJF when they want to make a media splash, while SJF benefits from the glow of each new piece of coverage.