Momentus Capital, a community development financial institution (CDFI) branded family of organizations that includes CDC Small Business Finance and Capital Impact Partners and Momentus Securities, announced a $50 million investment in Metro Atlanta through 2027 last month. The investment will focus on the core Metro Atlanta counties of Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton and Gwinnett.
The $50 million is earmarked for local small business investments, affordable housing, education, healthcare, and other social initiatives. $25 million of that $50 million is to be set aside for capital for small businesses.
The city is ripe for investment, Momentus said, citing a 1.1 percent annual population growth rate in the city; moreover, it says, over 9000 small businesses are being launched annually into “an ecosystem of more than 110,000 small businesses.” Suffice it to say, these make it a sound region of investment.
Moreover, the city is worth investing in from a social perspective, given both its history and reputation as a city of upward mobility, but also its reality of documented inequalities and growing housing issues.
Of note is that the investment in Atlanta understands the city and its economic and cultural interconnectivity beyond just the city limits. The organization plans to prioritize the City of Atlanta itself, as well as the surrounding counties of Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton and Gwinnett at the core of Metro Atlanta.
Momentus spent a lot of time researching the Atlanta market and identifying the gaps in the market — places where their investment can go the furthest. Tommy Lester, Atlanta market lead for Momentus Capital, is a born and raised Atlanta native.
Lester said the organization looked at the organizations already in the city and the work they were doing, and how this investment might supplement or enhance some of it. He also said Momentus looked carefully at what gaps needed to be filled within the Atlanta market, and identified affordable housing and small business development as the most urgent needs.
“We really focused on what we could do for providing funds for development — helping people actually build some of the housing that’s needed — but also how we could help support some of the small businesses, recognizing that it doesn’t matter how many houses you have, if people have to leave their neighborhood to go shop or leave it for resources, that’s an extra burden on them,” he added.
Investments can go to small businesses that otherwise would struggle getting funding from traditional lenders, like through the SBA Community Advantage program that offers loans ranging from $30,000 to $350,000, or a financial strategy on how to navigate the future. A decreased emphasis on things like credit scores, too, and a more holistic look into a prospective borrower, allows Momenus to reach people that legacy investors may not.
“Instead of simply relying on credit score, we look at the actual story, we look at community impact, we look at the cash flow, and we are able to make decisions that could be outside the box of other places,” Lester said.
The investment isn’t the organization’s first venture in the Atlanta scene; Momentus recently completed its nine-month inaugural training and mentorship program for 15 local real estate developers — now known as EDI — to support more affordable housing. Lester called the program an investment in developing the participants’ “social knowledge and financial capital.”
“By the time we got to the end of those nine months, those 15 developers had roughly 700 residential units, [25,000] square feet of commercial space, and budgets of roughly $190 million total on the projects that they’re working on,” Lester said, with nearly half of those proposed units being earmarked as affordable.
Entering a storied city like Atlanta that has been undergoing rapid gentrification, however, isn’t easy; plenty of longtime residents have seen organizations talk of “investment” only to see the investment change the fabric of their neighborhood and, in some cases, displace them through rising property taxes, rent hikes, or eminent domain. Promises of affordable housing have, by many accounts, still been out of reach for many low-income families, whether by barriers in these people accessing the programs administering them, or the units earmarked as affordable housing being for relatively higher income earners, like 80 or 60 percent of the area median index.
One 2024 study estimated that nearly 11 percent of single-family homes in the five core Metro Atlanta counties are owned by three companies alone. Months later, a study from the Atlanta Regional Commission found that seven companies owned over 50,000 homes in Metro Atlanta — though it should be noted that the ARC defines Metro Atlanta as an 11-county region. A few months ago, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that an effort between Sen. Jon Ossoff and Dr. Taylor Shelton of Georgia State University found that Metro Atlanta leads the nation in private equity in single-family homes.
In short, the investments into the city and its surrounding area haven’t always produced ideal outcomes for everyone.
This context isn’t lost on Momentus, said Lester, despite the fact that they won’t be buying any properties; investment in communities requires building trust with both longtime residents and community organizations — trust that investments into their neighborhoods will work for them, not against them. Working with the House ATL coalition, Momentus works alongside other CDFIs and community organizations and contributes to the spirit of collaboration that seeks to raise each other’s efforts together. It’s part of the reason Momentus is focusing its investment on the same five core counties of Metro Atlanta that House ATL focuses on, to align more closely with other partners.
“We’re a CDFI, so our whole purpose is to put funds into communities; that doesn’t mean people aren’t still wary,” Lester said. “We certainly aren’t buying any properties, we’re putting people in positions to develop properties and then be in a position to buy [properties] on their own.”
Other past investments into the Atlanta area from Momentus include services like small business loans and “impact investments,” community development lending and business advising.
Bang for your buck
While $50 million is no pocket change, it’s just a piece of the puzzle in solving some of the city’s most pressing issues.
“The $50 million in reality is a drop in the bucket to what’s really needed here in the city; you see single projects that cost more than $50 million,” Lester said.
Later, he added that though it isn’t the sole solution to the city’s problems, it’s an investment that can have a return on investment in social good.
“The mayor says it all the time: Atlanta is a group project. And that’s really what I feel like this is — we’re just doing our share,” Lester said.
Alongside key organizations like the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), House ATL, Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs (ACE), Low Income Investment Fund, and others, Momentus will be key in ensuring that its piece to the puzzle strengthens other investments, too, instead of working in silo.
It’s also personal for many, like Lester, who have seen the city exacerbate income inequality and continually lose affordable housing in the name of revitalization.
“The thought of people that built the city and built that legacy aren’t able to grow and thrive in the city because there’s so much competition from other places and funding from outside sources, that’s something that I personally struggle with,” Lester said. “So my thought is that the more we can do to help legacy homeowners, legacy commercial real estate developers, legacy business owners — who might not own their real estate but have been a part of their community for a really long time — the more we can do to help keep those people in place while everything else continues to grow and we stimulate the growth is what my personal goal is.”
Whether that goal is realized or not with the commitment of $50 million will depend not just on dollars borrowed and repaid, but on how deeply the investment roots itself in the communities it aims to serve.
