 Oh, wow. This was good afternoon slush. How are we doing? Great So How many of you know what impact even what impact investing is? Well, you're gonna find a lot about it in the next half an hour We we've got some incredible speakers lined up today and I'm gonna ask each of them to do a very brief introduction on themselves. Then we'll get straight into questions so Anna do you wanna You've you've you have a long experience from impact investing as CEO of the sweet fund as The deputy CEO at norsk in and now the chair of summer equity Do you want to just say a little bit about your background experience and skills? Absolutely. Hello everyone. So my name is Anna riot During the last 10 and 15 years I have tried To fight poverty and climate change Through different kind of platforms everything from the business side from the UN civil society But I have figure out the last seven years That if I should do this Most efficiently because we are running out of time We are in a hurry when it comes to climate change and fighting poverty We should use all forces of investing Today only 1% of the capital of the VC capital for example is going to Africa so using the tool of investment as an enabler to drive change and particularly focusing on technology to scale those Challenges and I do that today at so micro team so my pretty focus on on Solving global challenges and it's quite interesting because at summa we see that some of the Largest challenges in the world are also the greatest business opportunities So looking at three investment teams is our focus the first one is around climate change and resource Efficiency the second one is this around Changing demographic so everything around the health education and so on and the last one is is tech and system So all these three teams and we truly believe by investing in these teams We can also deliver higher or at least as high return as any other Private equity firm because these are real challenges. There are real gaps in the market that we can soul and at the same time make a Lot of money Of course. So Andrew. You're a venture partner at obvious ventures based in San Francisco Just a little bit about your track record. Why you do what you do and what what makes Andrew Andrew? Yeah, sure So Hello, my name is Andre. I am an American working at obvious my background has been in two parallel tracks Actually, one has been traditional philanthropy. So that's a charitable giving where we it's it's like nonprofit venture you could say And the other has been on the sustainability track That ultimately took me to Sweden where I co-founded the first pan Nordic clean tech fund in 2008 The thesis being that the problem is now we're running out of time even 10 years ago And yet the Nordics had a lot to offer by way of experience in mark in servicing markets with what are considered environmental technologies At obvious we broaden the scope through what we call a world-positive lens So it's effectively having an impact on the resources side of of the equation but also on human well-being in terms of health and also in terms of empowering people to pursue fulfilling lives and creative ones Very nice. So just a little bit about Where I put into this picture. I used to be a Wall Street banker I gave that up and moved to South Africa about eight years ago I now run the or co run the largest accelerator outside of the US It's called start a bootcamp in 20 countries across the world and we just launched our Africa operations two years ago What we essentially do is we understand what African entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs solving traditionally African problems need To scale and one of the biggest limitations is access to market not just access to funding and how important is impact as a measure of success So we work with large insurance companies banks retailers and telcos all across the world But specifically in Africa and help entrepreneurs scale and get traction early on and more importantly Validate a good product market fit one of the the things we'll talk about shortly is how does impact measure? from a return perspective versus traditional VC and Outside of that I do quite a bit of angel investing into African tech startups But the ultimate goal of having a triple bottom line return economic social and ecological so Speaking about impact. It is obviously a very hotly contested and debated term And I'll start with you. What is what does impact mean to you personally? And for some equity and some of the other Forms that you work in and why is it important to you? Why is it important for the planet to look at impact at the same footing? as just common returns So if I start there, why is it important? I Would love you all to close your eyes for just 10 second and Imagine if we are going to fulfill the UN global goals That means that within 12 years We will have a world without extreme poverty Zero hunger education for all healthcare for all Equality and we have managed to save the planet This is one of the most beautiful vision. We have right now and at the same time We have a world falling apart with extreme poverty with a lot of challenges when it comes to war and Climate change and so on and increasing racism here in Nordics increasing Nationalism in the Europe and so on so I believe that all of us should use every platform we have to be part of this beautiful vision of Getting a better planet for people and environment So that's the reason why it's important for me And that's also very in line why it's important to summa Summa believes that investing in global challenges will not only Be extremely important But it will also give our LPs and investors The best type of returns and the reason why is because it's future proof Yeah, and with that I mean that if the world is going to take the path of the global goals We can't continue investing in things that harm us We really need to shift all the capital the private equity capital the VC capital pension funds into companies Entrepreneurs that have a solution of some of the global challenge So that is our vision and then if you call it impact or positive investing or solving global challenges That is not so important to me obviously It's more important that Everybody think about how can I use my platform as an entrepreneur or investor? To make a change and be part of this positive moment. Yeah, absolutely And I mean just before I get to you Andre one of the things that I speak about often is about how the the world's population is growing at a danger sleek Exponentially high level outside of Western Europe and the US In the next 80 years Africa Will account for Almost 35 percent of the entire world's population The population of Nigeria is going to surpass the US in 2050 Out of the 20 largest cities in the world 12 will be in Africa So you have a problem where? Infrastructurally you cannot solve things like health care education food security Transportation by building more roads or schools or hospitals You can only so solve that through technology through software through the sharing economy through telemedicine and things like that So it's very important to understand how you use technology to do good and at the same time create economic wealth So in your experience, I mean how important is impact from an investment standpoint that obvious and how do you think? You're making a difference So I think echoing a little bit what Anna mentioned one of the advantages of having a High conviction around what the world will need in the future allows you to map Areas of interest for further exploration and following yeah, and that's actually an advantage particularly around socio-ecological questions where Most other venture capital it's very difficult to look down and down the street and around the corner So people talk rightly so about the disruptive power of artificial intelligence and things that are happening now But the question is how do you apply those disruptive technologies to solving? What problem or delivering what service that the future will value and pay for and so from our perspective Looking through this world positive lens. We can then say okay If you want to find a real dream company, maybe there's an entrepreneur in the audience who's got this to take health care as an example Yeah, what could be? What disruptive tool can we use to enable a health care solution that works not only in the developed world We're for different reasons we have high costs But we have barriers to entry and access issues in other countries that may not have the the kind of Developed world health care system and then you have something that's applicable to both Renewable energy is a classic case in point. So or mobile phones the classic case in point where all the sudden It was so cheap that you never had to build the infrastructure for that we inherited when we grew up in the world of And I think it also boils down to the the concept of building nice to have products versus need to have products and the the 90s and 2000s and arguably part of the the first half of this decade Silicon Valley has Has almost created this need for entrepreneurs to build things that are nice to have and I give this example often about a friend of mine that's That built a drone technology that would and this I could you know, this is true where this drone would deliver organic smoothies to a high-rise office in San Francisco and He raised millions and millions of dollars because there was a demand for it But I did no good whatsoever and I said what why don't you use that exact same technology to deliver ARVs To villages all over Africa and do good and use technology to create something positive The returns may be a bit longer Five to seven to ten years versus two years, but it still creates a positive change. So In your opinion on that point there are there are there different measures of impact Depending on what geography you're looking at so does impact in Sweden Defer from what impact means in the middle of Africa or in Latin America Is it important to have a more broader culturally sensitive lens when you measure impact? So the very easy answer on that is yes And again, if you don't look at impact as a Particularly sector or Strangering over there. Yes, of course, but instead of focusing on solving global challenges Then it's quite simple because they are in the different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa The challenges are different Compared to here in Sweden compared to in China and then you should absolutely focus on the largest challenges within your market or Globally, so for example Looking at Sweden. We would probably not do invest in a FinTech company But having spent a lot of time in in the sub-Saharan Africa I believe that FinTech is one of the really most powerful tool when it comes to impact Absolutely because financial inclusion is so important and driving change and reducing poverty and and it's good for inclusion Yeah, and that's the same with with Energy as well. I mean less than less than five percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to formal insurance or banking And those are problems that governments cannot solve that corporate's console but startups and venture capital can solve So this concept of private philanthropy or venture philanthropy is probably another way of describing Exactly, and yes one completely and another example. I think with circle economy And waste management for example. Yeah, that is probably needed all over the world so there you can start with with a Company in Africa or in the Nordics and make sure you scale it globally So so you have a base problems that are really Universal and then you have land specific problems. Yeah, I would also add that the the question perhaps isn't so much is Is impact different in different geographies as much as it is Does venture capital with the expectations of venture returns? Map on to impact investing's geographically. Yeah, and the answer is not always It not always in develop world and not always in the developing world Yeah, and so it's really a case-by-case scenario that the real pitfall is when someone thinks that If I want to raise money, I just need to go to venture capital The real question is whatever business you're in even if it's not impact Do you meet the really, you know that the rigorous return targets that venture capital requires and if not You may be able to make a very good business case for receiving lots of money For impactful change for example in micro finance loans. Yeah, so there's as you know a very mature business doing that It's five to seven percent, but that's great And and very and sort of low risk in an area which 10 15 years ago People would have said oh you can't service that that's too that's too high risk And that's been enabled through the rigorous application of you know ICT tools and and data crunching. So I think it really depends sort of which tool you're trying to use to have your impact I think the one thing that all three of us can unequivocally agree upon is when it comes to impact driven venture capital The returns that let's be very clear The the returns that impact VC funds look for are exactly the same as traditional VC There is no difference arguably you might even look for higher returns because you have to cover Bigger cost same and that's the same for private equity as well Doesn't matter the size. It's it's very clear to know that this is not glorified philanthropy It's not social entrepreneurship impact venture capital looks for our eyes that are on par with traditional venture capital. So That as a cornerstone What are some of the criteria that for example summer equity would look like? What would look at when making impact investments all across the world? so I believe it's it's The criteria that you look at it in any type of investment. So very traditional Criteria the add-on is that We have first of all decided on these three investment teams that we believe will have a stronger Underlying growth than many other Investment teams in the world right now. So that is one different and the other one is that we really uses Sustainability and the global goals not only to reduce risk to avoid, you know Child labour in supply chain or decrease Corruption We really use it as a leverage to get better return We truly believe if we find these companies in these investment teams and then make them even more sustainable more Circular then they will be the winner of tomorrow and then we also work We're looking maybe a little bit more on the teams the entrepreneurs Are these entrepreneurs really value driven? Do they have a strong purpose? Because we can also see and we have some research together with the heart with Harvard that Purpose driven organizations are performing Much better than regular companies So maybe that is something that we trill trying a little bit harder than other to look for a quiet profit from purpose Yes, absolutely Andre. Yeah We take this sort of the classic three T's approach and then bolt on obviously world positive So it's your team your technology and your TAM or total addressable market Yeah, you know those are usually the key ingredients that you know have this alchemical If you're successful outcome that you have the returns you want then again with our world positive approach We start with ourselves because let's not kid ourselves. I mean those who need to reform are also the investors And so make sure we have you know, we put in in our term sheets We have a world positive term sheet where we ask to put down on paper what the values of the organization will be But the intent is we look for signals of entrepeneur aspiration and intent So that can be a touchstone because every organization as it grows Particularly if it becomes if it goes public will be buffeted by all sorts of Winds and forces to try and go this way and that and as far as we can tell the biggest single predictor of if they make good Choices is if they're rooted in their DNA in in a in a place of value Yeah, and so and then going forth from there We as we said have our selection criteria in our different buckets I'm gonna I'm gonna now ask our panelists and I'll ask myself as well about to give us One or two concrete examples of investments that either ourselves personally or through our funds have made Into impact driven enterprises and what specifically you like the most about them something that you most excited about so It could be one could be two and I could start if yes, sir Okay, so we've invested in about 35 companies all across the African content early-stage companies the one company that I'm right now most excited about is a company called M post and The biggest returns from a VC perspective are not Companies that innovate product but innovate business models. So M post pretty much digitizes post boxes So about 90 or 95 percent of people all over the African continent and in Asia and South America do not have formal postal addresses Now that may seem like not a very trivial a problem to have But these people that don't have formal post boxes are excluded completely from commerce They can't have Insurance policies delivered to them. They can't have good ship to them. They can't have bankcourt sent to them So this particular company wanted to create a digital post box So they created a technology that converts their mobile phone number and there's and the closest zip code into a recognizable postal address So their address now would just be John Smith 0 7 9 3 7 4 yada yada yada dot 1002 Nairobi Kenya So any package anywhere in the world be it insurance policy or or something from Amazon would be shipped directly to the post box and Every single postal union in the world Recognizes that address and it gets delivered to you directly either picked up or delivered to your office And it costs five dollars a year to set it up So now you have this impact this indirect impact of hundreds of thousands of millions of people that are now Formerly served by insurance companies banks and retailers and that creates a huge amount of social and economic wealth And it's done through a tech startup, but it's a business model innovation where insurance companies and banks are involved in another company That I love quite a bit is a company called got bot They develop chatbots for financial services firms and insurance companies But they very cleverly teach call center workers and how to move between a human mode and a bot mode So in regions of the world like in Sub-Saharan Africa where the majority of call center workers are women single moms That have to come and spend eight hours in the office and have a nanny look after their kids You now have a robot at a bot making their job more efficient So no jobs are lost, but this particular mom could now work from home So these are examples of two companies that are creating a lot of social good But delivering more than 50% annual returns to investors So impact investing should always be looked in the same lens as VC and returns will come so on that note just a couple of I'm excited the Of so many of our investments But if I earlier been very passionate of the particularly social impact I am now also very driven about climate and The reason why is that it's so urging it's really really so we need to find those company That can really make a change and we have one company in our portfolio that I think is Amazing today, we know that around 40% of the energy is used by in in buildings like this and 36% of the ce2 emission is coming from buildings and that we even don't talk about we talk about transportation renewable energy, but this massive challenge with buildings using so much energy and Having such a such a negative impact on the environment and we have a company called e-gain and It's a smart system using really every Number and figure about weather forecasting Learning everything about the buildings and bringing everything together and then can make optimized the building itself Making sure that the building only uses the energy needed in every 24 7 being very exact and I think that is super fascinating and it saves around the 10 to 20 percent of the cost also for the customers So it's a really win win win the customers is winning because they were using their cost The company is going very is very successful and the planet is winning. So that's the type of company Like love it. Oh boy so One of one kind of esoteric, but cool and concrete company is Zymergyn, so Zymergyn uses a combination of different tools which on a standalone basis or agnostic But when you put them together in the service of Green chemistry, it's quite exciting. So we use machine learning as a way to power the identified the process to identify Compounds of Most probably high use in an industrial setting But which you cannot get at a dust real scale because they're naturally occurring in plants And so what we do is we use effectively large bioreactors that are born out of the fermentation space To grow the compound in question for to solve the problem So you know company X or Y comes in says yet We have an additive that we're using in our industrial process, which is really toxic or persistent and problematic We'll say well Let's find the solution that exists in nature and scale it up in a way that is light touch And I think that sort of illustrates a lot of what I'm trying to refer to earlier about looking for the Tools that enable disruption and then figuring out how to put it together to really improve the outcomes in any given space another quick one would be You've seen this before in EVs like in Teslas. We have an investment in Protera and Protera is an electric bus company Okay, and it's completely unsexy, which is why I take this opportunity to brag about it here It's but what's really cool is Protera just through better design is able to do 600 miles on one charge in a vehicle which has no localized emissions Which when you add them up in urban centers is a real air quality issue Even here in Europe you have big problems when it comes to local diesel emissions and lower operating cost And so you end up getting a really a better service and immediate local impact and provided that the electricity you're charging it on Is green it's a bit of a triple win very nice. Well done. We're almost out of time We have a couple of questions from Slido's I'm going to start with one that I think would make more sense Okay, if you think of getting Critical mass to influence a certain global issue Who do you start with the public? companies politicians or Anyone else who do you start with to get critical mass to influence a certain global issue? Anna you I think you need to work on all these for me Partnership is the new leadership So so really bringing everybody together in the same room as we are now Decide on the challenge present the challenge show the gap Show how you can solve it if you have a solution And try from there. I think we are Too much working in silos the VC world in one silo entrepreneurs in another Politicians academia in other so really get together and make sure to to to get new perspective Absolutely. Yeah, a bit of a trick question I think you know it really depends perhaps on when you're asking that question so that when I grew up You could actually go to Washington DC and get things done. It seems a bit different today for example Same in Sweden And then we have the issue of you can get a lot done locally I mean I'm a big proponent of local action because we tend to deal with each other directly rather differently Then we do in big rooms where we don't know each other There but we know as social creatures we respond differently and also local Experimentation and problem-solving is very potent because it deals with the immediate now and can also be a learning lab But it really is a case-by-case scenario if something it's sort of stupid to get a venture capitalist and say could you please solve the problem on Global carbon taxes the answer is no I cannot yeah You know we can contribute to making it more politically palatable by coming up with solutions That mean that sectors don't lose in that transition, but you can't really couch the responsibility one player. Hey look It's the goon squad Listen, thank you all for listening and thank you Anna. Thank you Andre. Thank you. This is a fantastic panel. Thank you guys very much Thank you so much. Thank you