At Seedcamp, we invest in the brightest minds in European tech; people with the grit and vision to forge the future of technology and society, one idea at a time.
Since our inception in 2007 we have backed 500+ companies. We remain steadfast in our belief and resolve to back talent that’s often been overlooked; to support individuals democratising access to key – and often opaque – sectors and the power and impact of economic mobility and new job creation that startups bring.
We encourage our portfolio companies, although very early in their journeys, to start thinking about how to build a sustainable and well governed business that will go the course from our first investment. We believe strongly that the true way to build an impactful company that diverse talent will want to be a part of and that contributes positively to the world is to embed these practices from the earliest stage.
As well as our commitment to support our portfolio companies, we as an organisation are also resolved when it comes to our own contribution and policies. Here we map out what this means for us at Seedcamp:
- Our partners and investors: We believe in collaboration across everything we do, from investing to supporting our founders to how we work as a team, and definitely when it comes to the impact we can collectively have as investors and individuals on the world around us.
This is why we’ve partnered with and have been supporting some of the leading initiatives in the industry to help us scale our support beyond our team and provide continued access to research and experts on ESG.
- We’re one of the founding members of Included VC who are working hard on driving diversity and inclusion in Venture Capital. We have supported this initiative since its founding.
- We’re on the steering committee of ESG_VC who is working with more than 200 leading investors spanning the UK, Europe, and the USA to develop an ESG measurement framework to help founders on their ESG journey. We are also a member of Venture_ESG who are driving the adoption of ESG in the Venture Capital industry.
- Our investment strategy & founder support: We back founders who want to change the world for the better and do so responsibly, and encourage them to take a data-driven approach using the ESG_VC Framework to help benchmark their progress over time.
We help founders cut the noise and tackle any issues on their ESG journey by providing relevant resources which we continue to build out based on direct feedback and needs from our founder community. We consider ESG to be part of good company governance, which we’ve been supporting companies with since day one of Seedcamp.
We’re also continuously looking for founders who are both redefining and pioneering the space while addressing multi-billion-dollar markets and acting as role models in an effort to scale massively for stakeholder value creation. Gardin, Granular Energy, Treecard, The Electric Car Scheme, Manara, and Enzai are among the ESG-focused companies we’ve backed.
- Our operations: We believe in leading by example as individuals and investors. We care about building diverse teams who want to protect the world we live in and operate responsibly.
As an early-stage tech investor, our focus has and will always be on our social impact, but there are definitely environmental and governance areas we can and will improve on, and we’re using the ESG_VC framework to help us track our own progress as a team and company.