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Impact Award-Venture Capital firm of the Year


Sept 15. Brussels, Belgium – Inventures Investment Partners is pleased to announce that it has been named the Venture Capital Fund of the Year by Environmental Finance at their IMPACT Awards 2020.

Environmental Finance is an international magazine that has focused on sustainable investment, green finance, and environmental markets since 1999. They are known for their Sustainable Investing and Green Bond awards and were one of the first actors to start systematically monitoring sustainable investing markets.

Inventures was a part of the first class of awardees under Environmental Finance’s IMPACT awards, which seek to recognize best practices by impact investors around the globe. Inventures was selected by a jury of high-profile foundations, banks, pension funds and family offices, from a shortlist of five other firms. They were recognized based on the strength of their impact methodologies and high-touch process with portfolio companies.

Belgium-based impact VC fund, Inventures is pioneering by investing in social impact companies since 2011 and dedicated its second fund to supporting the UN SDGs.

“This global award is a magnificent recognition of all our impact investing work carried out over the years,” commented Olivier de Duve, CEO of Inventures. “It confirms the strength of our methodology and encourages us to continue in our pioneering role. This is meticulous work that we share quarterly with our entrepreneurs and investors, private and public, such as SFPI, Sambrinvest and Noshaq. That being said, we don't just apply impact to our investments. We wanted to push the logic to the limit by applying it to the team. For example, if the fund does not generate the impact expected by investors, the managers of the fund receive no bonus! We are one of the only funds in the world to apply the principle of ‘No impact, no bonus’.”

“More and more investors want to create positive social or environmental impact,” notes Alex Houtart, Impact Manager of Inventures. “This is what Inventures does through selecting companies based on their potential for impact. But the secret is measuring impact. We support each entrepreneur in setting up impact measurement with a very strict methodology. Impact measurement is a great tool for measuring our contribution to the SDGs but also for the internal motivation of companies and our teams. It's so much more interesting to talk about the number of lives saved by Univercells, the tons of CO2 avoided from to the hydro-turbines installed in developing countries by Turbulent, or the tons of antibiotics avoided in fish-bearing waters thanks to monitoring of Bioceanor. ”

Other firms awarded in this cohort include Mirova, Finance in Motion, Calvert Impact Capital, SAIL Ventures, TPG’s Rise Fund, Harvard Business School and Amundi. Belgium was recognized earlier this year when the Walloon Region of Belgium’s 1B EUR sustainability bond won Environmental Finance’s Green Bond Awards.

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