Sustainable Private Capital Investments

Within the context of sustainable investments, one can mainly differentiate between public capital investments and private capital investments, whereas each of the two brings along its very own framework of challenges and opportunities within the sustainability debate. In the light of our upcoming event with Übermorgen VC and Ananda VC, we briefly want to introduce you to the specific world of private sustainable investments and its importance within the sustainability debate through the mean of two selected investments that were initiated respectively by Übermorgen VC and Ananda VC.

Übermorgen VC is a Seed-Stage venture capital firm with a sharp focus on climate related technologies. Übermorgen aims to solve one of our biggest generational challenges, namely climate change, by investing into early-stage start-ups that develop innovative technologies and business model solution that can help mitigate climate change. As such, Übermorgen primarily focuses its capital deployments in sectors such as green mobility, regenerative agriculture and food technologies, carbon capture, storage and utilization, clean energy sources as well as advanced manufacturing & resource efficiency.

Recently, Übermorgen has invested into the Hamburg-based start-up UNOWN, which builds one of the first operating systems (OS) that will enable and further develop the concept of circular fashion, by introducing access economy for people, brands, and retailers. As such, UNOWN is providing Europe’s first lifestyle platform that allows customers to rotate their wardrobe while maintaining a sustainable lifestyle and enables fashion brands to have a fair share of the second-hand market. UNOWN aims to revolutionize the way WE (brands, retailers, and customers) buy and sell clothing while saving 100’000 tons of CO2 every year through a more efficient resource allocation and generating a higher perceived value per asset. The company’s SaaS-based business model will unlock more potential relative to a revenue share model and enable access to deep data use.

UNOWN has been founded in 2019, is currently at Pre-Seed-Stage and has raised 0.9 Mio Euro up to date. This specific investment is especially interesting due to its broad impact in term of sustainability. Not only is the company contributing to mitigate the climate change but is also promoting a new form of sharing economy in an industry that desperately needs to challenge the way it operates and is as such not only addressing the environmental sphere, but also the business and social aspects of sustainability through a systematic and circular approach towards business.

Our second impact venture capital firm is Ananda VC, a company that has over 12 years of experience in the deployment of private capital in start-ups based in the DACH, UK, Benelux, and Nordic regions. Ananda has a portfolio of 30 companies which actively address 9 of the UN SDG’s and positively influence over 9 Mio lives globally. In order to achieve such impressive results, Ananda is following a specific investment philosophy which is centered on generating a sizable social and/or environmental impact.

For instance, Ananda’s latest investment in UK-based closed loop medicine (CLM) aims to develop a personalized digital healthcare solution through the development of single prescription drugs and digital therapy services. Closed loop medicine represents followingly the next generation of patient centric pharmaceuticals and aims to enhance individual quality of life. The company has been founded in 2017 and has raised 17 Mio pounds up to date at its Series A stage. Even though CLM is not actively addressing environmental issues, the company addresses the key social issues and is as such also contributing towards a more sustainable future.

As described above, the deployment of private capital into carefully selected target companies can sensibly help us achieve a more sustainable future while creating value for a variety of stakeholder. As such, sustainable private investments typically generate more value than traditional capital deployments, as these investments not only generate a monetary profit, but also creates value for a variety of other stakeholders that can directly or indirectly benefit from the capital deployed. Therefore, Venture Capital firms play a substantial role in shaping our future by selecting and promoting start-ups that are addressing current and future needs.

Sources

Ananda, (2021), Let’s build stuff that truly matters. Together., Retrieved 20 November 2021, from https://ananda.vc

Closed Loop Medicine, (2021), Developing personalised digital healthcare solutions to improve outcomes for patients and clinicians, Retrieved 20 November 2021, from https://www.closedloopmedicine.com

Crunchbase, (2021), Closed Loop Medicine, Retrieved 20 November 2021, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/closed-loop-medicine

Crunchbase, (2021), UNOWN, Retrieved 20 November 2021, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unown

Übermorgen VC, (2021), The people behind Übermorgen, Retrieved 20 November 2021, from https://www.uebermorgen.vc