H/L Ventures Named Notable Leader in Sustainability: How We Strive To Build Impactful, Diverse Startups

We at H/L Ventures are honored to be named one of Crain’s Notable Leaders in Sustainability. Our firm helps inspiring founders build start-ups at the nexus of Growth, Impact, and Diversity.? Protecting and promoting people and the planet are not only worthy goals, but also lead to valuable, resilient, relevant companies that can often outperform.? Layering on our dedication to active engagement helps us keep these companies and their founders growing and healthy.

When we launched H/L Ventures almost 15 years ago, impact investing was considered largely experimental, philanthropic, concessionary, and somewhat of a sideshow.? Diverse founders were receiving virtually no attention in an extremely homogeneous sector.? Certainly, there would be moments like 2008-2009 in the climate sector, during which investors crowded into sustainable companies in the hope of a price on carbon.? But those would be fleeting and the bubbles bursting would further hamper social finance.

Today, we have made much progress, but so much more remains to be done.? In the green economy, we have advanced by leaps and bounds.? The costs of renewable sources of power have come down; Federal, state, local, and utility-based incentives have continued to expand (most notably with the recent Inflation Reduction Act; and public acceptance of advances like rooftop solar, community solar, electric vehicles, and more is at an all-time high.

Of course, the flip side of all of this is how desperately long things have taken.? Our newscasts are marked by increasingly frequent, deadly storms and heatwaves, and severe drought–a stark reminder of the missed opportunity of a decade in which most investors ignored cleantech. That this retreat was a mistake is evidenced by the ever-increasing body of successes that sprung up in that time. Despite a lackluster funding environment, companies found innovative solutions that allowed technologies like residential solar to scale and grow into a viable market. Along with such clean-tech victories has come the growing realization that impact investing can, in fact, be a sound financial bet.

We’ve never wavered in this belief or our commitment to fostering companies with transformative solutions that can help build the green economy and solve what is the challenge of our lifetime. Our current portfolio includes companies that electrify and weatherize buildings (Blocpower, Sealed), enable community solar (Solstice), make cooling smarter and turn refrigerators into batteries (Therma), reduce plastic use (Loliware), reduce curbside emissions (Automotus), and cut down on food waste and associated carbon emissions (Do Good Foods), among others!

Given the current macroeconomic climate, we believe that investing in companies that offer solutions in practical industries like energy, materials, mobility, and more represents a refreshing alternative to backing the latest NFT.?

The fact is that to solve the climate crisis, we need every sector to join the effort.? The Inflation Reduction Act is a huge step forward, and the innovation economy and impact investors are ready.? We are ready to step up with gamechanging solutions, create value in our portfolio companies, back diverse founders, and do our part to advance the cause of people and the planet.? As impact investors, we are proud to sound the clarion call for that cause, and thank Crain’s once again for this recognition and for partnering in this mission.