Investing in artificial intelligence and health technology

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for the high-net-worth investor and consumer. subscription To receive future issues, directly to your inbox.

After suffering from hair loss in his 20s, Giorgos Tsetis co-founded Nutrafol in 2014 to manufacture hair growth supplements. Early this year, Tsets sold the remaining $3.5 billion of his shares to… Unilever He stepped down as CEO of Nutravol.

The 41-year-old told Inside Wealth he has two goals for his next chapter: leaving a better world for his young children and investing in companies with a focus on social good.

“Early on, I had investors who made hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by doing nothing,” he said in an interview. “I made rich people richer, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” However, as a founder, he said he would be grateful to know that his success also supports issues like food access and mental health.

Six months ago, Tsetis launched his family office, Great Things, with the aim of using his investment profits to fund his charitable work. He represents a growing class of wealthy millennials like Walmart heir Lucas Walton who are setting up family offices early in life to promote issues like sustainability at the expense of wealth preservation. While many corporate asset managers have scaled back their impact investing, family offices have largely not, and next-generation managers are expected to double down on environmentally or socially conscious investing.

“I think the last thing you want to hand down to your children is wealth. I don’t necessarily think that’s helpful, even though we might think that’s true,” Tsetis said. “I want to make an impact now, and what I’m passionate about is getting my kids involved in those processes so they can see what’s going on in the world.”

Tsetis designed Great Things with a for-profit and non-profit arm, with the aim of using investment returns to fund charities that support causes such as mental health and crisis response. Tsetis said that a “large portion” of the project unit’s proceeds would go to charity, but he declined to specify a percentage.

Tsetis began investing in early-stage startups in earnest after Nutrafol’s Series B funding in 2019 and ramped up after Unilever bought a majority stake in 2022. His portfolio includes AI-driven, healthcare-focused companies, such as startup NewLimit and BreakBio, developer of personalized cancer vaccines.

His investment lens is not directly focused on impact, having backed Anthropic, xAI, and SpaceX. Tsetis admitted that he has concerns about the implications of artificial intelligence. “ChatGPT knows more about me than I know about myself, and that’s a problem,” he added. But Tsetis said investing at an early stage makes it easier for him to get a seat at the table.

“You don’t know where the future is going,” he added. “I would rather participate than be a spectator, and lead those conversations wherever I can, because I believe we need to prioritize human well-being.”

Tsetis’ ultimate goal is to give his portfolio companies a voice in how Great Things investment returns are donated.

“Imagine if Nutrafol were able to deploy $1 million at their choice,” he said. “That would have been interesting.”

Great Things has six full-time employees so far, and Tsitis’s wife, Serelina Bruisel, advises on the charity. The family office has supported non-profit organizations including Every Cure, which uses artificial intelligence to identify existing medications to treat rare diseases, and Ubuntu Pathways, an HIV education and treatment provider in South Africa.

Tsetis said he hopes other investors will strategize on how to give back rather than doing it as an afterthought.

Social responsibility “should be something people can get very passionate about,” he said. “I hope people want to do something about this problem that we currently have, which is the concentration of wealth.”