Inventures’ promise is to measure impact. We are delighted to share our first-ever public impact report for our Fund II. This report is the culmination of years of work in finding, financing, and supporting Europe’s top impact start-ups since our Fund II launched in 2017.
In the report you’ll find: a letter from Olivier de Duve, our Managing Partner, on impact; a deep-dive into our methodology; individual portfolio-level impact performance; a 2021 outlook, and more. Some highlights from Portfolio II in 2020:
Inventures became carbon neutral and won Impact VC of the Year from Environmental Finance Magazine
Our companies created 270 jobs in Europe and around the world
45% of our companies had women co-founders or executives
A word on our methodology as well. We root our impact process in industry best practices. First, we run through the Impact Management Project Framework with each company to get a sense of their What, Who, How Much, Contribution and Risk. Using this analysis, we work together on their individual impact theory of change (input, output, outcome and impact) to measure year-on-year impact progress, define KPIs and set yearly targets. Today, these methodological choices have become best practice in the sector. Inventures is proud to contribute to impact by developing tools and know-how that benefit everyone.
Some examples of the impact generated by Portfolio II companies since the implementation of the measurement indicators:
- 116,070 kWh generated by Turbulent's environmentally friendly micro-hydro turbines;
- Prêt-à-Pousser saved 1,235 kg of food waste and 3.9 million liters of water;
- 732,000 citizens used the Citizenlab platform, submitting 134,000 ideas and 2 million votes.
This first impact report and the financial performance of the investments demonstrate the compatibility of generating a positive social and global impact with a financial return.
Over the past few years it has been exciting to see the impact sector mature. Inventures has been part of expert groups to develop guidelines for the future in different areas: Blue Economy with the European Union, SDG Impact for Private Equity with the UN, reviving the economy through Sustainable Tourism or mobility in Belgium, all extremely useful initiatives to set impact standards in these categories. There is still a long way to go before we have universal impact measures and processes, so Inventures encourages all readers to send us any comments on this report! This will help to further refine the methodology and create more impact.
We wish you good reading.