The Better Ventures 2022 Impact Report: Key Takeaways
We’re proud to release our 2022 Impact Report, showcasing the impact our portfolio is delivering as our companies scale. The report underscores the importance of standards, frameworks, and measurement for better understanding the real world impact our firm and portfolio companies have on the world. In our efforts to lead in this category, we’ve invested time and effort in both adopting standards for what we measure and aggregating numbers across companies so that we can report total impact on people and the planet. In this report, we lay out the latest impact our companies are delivering, both on an individual company basis and aggregated across the portfolio in five different impact metrics. We are proud of the success of our portfolio company founders, and we share in the satisfaction that together we’re showing you can make money and do good without compromising on either.
Let’s delve into the key highlights from this latest report.
CO2 Reduction and People Served Scale Non-linearly
Our findings in this year’s report show marked improvements in two of our key areas of measurement: CO2 emissions avoided and people served. Importantly, as our portfolio companies scale, their ability to create impact grows, so our aggregate numbers are accelerating in a nonlinear fashion.
Established Companies Delivering Now, While Emerging Companies Hold Vast Potential
This year, we highlight companies that are both established and emerging, recognizing their potential to drive significant impact. This speaks to our investment stage and limitations of measuring real world impact at the early stages of company growth, and also demonstrates the huge potential for future impact as the emerging companies mature. Many of these companies at the intersection of impact and technical innovation work for years on emerging, game changing technologies and it takes time to bear fruit. But when the impact comes, the floodgates open, and millions of people are impacted and many of tons of carbon are avoided.
Mission Driven Founders Uniquely Able to Deliver
Time and again, we find that mission-driven founders possess a unique grit that differentiates them from other founders. This is especially true when they have personal connections to the problems they’re solving. Likewise, employees at these companies feel a deep drive to deliver results thanks to the meaning and purpose they find at work. We call this the magnetic force of impact.
We hope this report serves as a model for other organizations aiming to integrate standards based impact strategies into their investment thesis. By focusing on both financial success and positive change, we can build a better future together. Read the full report here.
