Weekly update #32
Welcome to this edition of the weekly newsletter. The idea behind this activity is to gather all the information in the startup ecosystem in one place, with a special focus on the fintech market.
This week I’ve been reading a report from European Women in VC , in collaboration with Founders Forum Group and Tech Nation , called “Beyond return: Venture and growth investing fueling sustainability and societal change”. The report revolves around the impact of venture capital across all aspects of European society, economic development, ? and growth, with a focus on the return itself of those investments. But let’s start from some numbers:
Impact investing is recently gaining some traction as you can see. ? of LP say that reducing carbon footprint is a top priority, while half of VCs consulted said that ESG criteria are one of the main priorities for the next 12 months. 88% of investors use impact investing framework or tool to guide investment decisions. But that is not all.
While investments in women co-founded and impact startups have been quiet flat until 2023, they are exploding in 2024. Among the main criteria in terms of impact, we can see UN SDG chosen by 34% of the total VCs consulted, followed by 22% for responsible investments (PRI) and sustainable investments (IFRS) with 14%. Still, 33% of VCs used none of them.
Climate action is surely taking the lead in terms of development goals, followed by infrastructure, good health and obviously affordable energy. Overall, I would say that reducing carbon footprint is by far the main trending topic recently when talking with VCs, only challenged by AI. A nice discovery, the facts that money are following words in this case, with climate startup investments raising exponentially during the last three years.
Western Europe is surely leading the way in this sense. But in this image we can see a couple of points of concern. First of all, the huge difference in terms of investments between Southern Europe and the rest of the continent. Difference that became almost embarrassing if compared with the UK. The second one is the overall metric of investments made in women co-founded startups, only 11% in Europe.
Last but not least, the difference in terms of importance of those factors by geographic area. The Nordics lead the way here, with almost 70% of VCs and LPs considering impact one of the main priorities. The UK is left behind in many categories, while Southern Europe, that could be potentially disrupted by climate changes, does not care enough about reducing carbon footprint, with only 40% considering that a priority.
I would say we can see in this report a lot of the common practices and main trends we see in the VC market today, with quantitative data to demonstrate them. One thing I would love to see is the impact on returns that those kinds of priorities or decisions have on the long run. Here you can find the link to the whole report if you want to take a deeper look.
Before jumping to the latest news, a quick request from my side. I will start a small series of podcasts to interview fintech founders and VC managers active in the ecosystem. If you want to be part of it, feel free to drop me a line on Linkedin!
Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week. Robinhood acquired the european exchange Bitstamp , in a move to expand outside of the US, while Stripe moved to an invite-only based model in India. Monzo Bank posted its first year of full profitability, while bunq wants to return in the UK in 2024. Capital One forged a partnership with Stripe and Adyen to fight fraud, and in a crazy announce 苹果 will introduce ChatGPT into ios18. In the VC world the king of the week is surely Creandum , that raised a $500 million fund, followed by WndrCo that secures $460 million in two funds to invest in fintech, and Estancia Capital Management, LLC that raises $350 million. Cheers to my friends at Blackwood Ventures , that raised DDK 110 million for their first fund. In the italian market, the milan based Sibill raised $6.2 million from Keen Venture Partners . And finally, we saw some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Bcas , Novel Capital , Sipay , re:cap , Nium , Prosperos.ai, Fizz , Fibe.India (Formerly EarlySalary) and many others.
But let's take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days:
Closed deals
Insights on the VC industry
News on the market
A special look in the Italian market
And here some useful resources for everyone involved in the ecosystem:
Events you don’t want to miss
You have a cool event you want to mention or to sponsor? Feel free to send me a DM.
Startups raising funds
You want to be present in this list? Feel free to shoot me a DM on Linkedin.
Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #31