Giorgos Tsetis, co-founder of Nutrafol, has established Great Things, a family office structured around a distinctive investment and giving model. The firm allocates a minimum of 20% of annual net realized profits to charitable causes while maintaining an active portfolio of startup investments. Over the preceding 18 months, Great Things has invested approximately $40 million and made charitable commitments totaling around $7 million through both direct gifts and pledges.
Tsetis launched Great Things nearly a year prior following the sale of his remaining stake in his hair-growth supplement business to Unilever, which valued the company at $3.5 billion. He designed the family office to function as a platform for deploying wealth gains quickly into both investment opportunities and philanthropic initiatives rather than deferring charitable giving to a later stage. The 20% charitable allocation was inspired by venture capital and private equity profit-sharing structures, with Tsetis’ financial advisor noting that the model simply redirects profit-sharing mechanisms toward charitable purposes.
The family office structure supports multi-year commitments to nonprofit organizations, including an after-school boxing academy in the Bronx and Every Cure, which focuses on repurposing existing medications for rare diseases. A donor-advised fund provides financial flexibility to meet charitable commitments during years when investment returns may fall short. Tsetis projects deploying an additional $60 million over the following two years at the current investment pace.
Great Things operates with minimal overhead, relying on decision-making between Tsetis and partner Roman Kalantari, the former chief experience and technology officer at Nutrafol. The firm has recently adjusted its investment approach, becoming more cautious about artificial intelligence startups after benefiting from rapid returns in that sector, including a seven-times return on Anthropic through a secondary exit. Moving forward, the firm intends to focus on late-stage rounds and companies with durable value propositions built on proprietary technology rather than existing platforms.
Tsetis acknowledged the challenge of balancing high-return investment opportunities with impact considerations, noting that excessive focus on traditional impact investing metrics could complicate scaling the model. The firm maintains positions in companies like Polymarket, a controversial prediction-market platform, viewing such holdings as opportunities to generate returns that fund philanthropic activity.
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