Aurum Impact

Great to see Prof. Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey on stage at Impact/Week in Barcelona today! 🌍 He shared fascinating insights into how he and The Landbanking Group are redefining how we value and protect our natural ecosystems. In that vein, there's some exciting news to share! 🚀 The Landbanking Group has just launched a game-changing new approach—biodiversity units. This new feature enables land stewards to create measurable, tradable assets that represent the ecological integrity of specific areas. Each biodiversity unit reflects an area’s performance in maintaining or improving its biodiversity, connectivity, and habitat intactness, giving investors a tangible, outcome-driven way to support nature conservation. 🌿 Well done Prof. Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey, Dr. Sonja Stuchtey and team! 👏 We're so proud to support you and The Landbanking Group on this impactful journey. Learn more about biodiversity units and this major step for conservation finance here: https://lnkd.in/d4X3QgTY #ImpactWeek #LandbankingGroup #Biodiversity #ConservationFinance #EcosystemRestoration #NaturalCapital

Next week, the impact community will gather in Barcelona - if you are around and are also working on how to move more capital towards impact (investing), want to talk about how to improve impact fund DDs, or if you have exciting co-investment opportunities, please get in touch! I look forward to a vibrant community of changemakers, and especially the panel on "how to DD emerging managers" with David Gowenlock, Solveig Schulze, Benoit Tesch, and myself, representing Aurum Impact, moderated by the wonderful Otto Birnbaum from Revent! Thank you Norrsken VC and Norrsken for organizing the event!

Landler for conservation is here. We’re thrilled to introduce the latest Landler release—making financing biodiversity conservation easy and accessible worldwide, for any ecosystem. Biodiversity and thriving ecosystems provide the resilience businesses, economies and societies need in the face of climate change. It’s not enough to restore or protect nature in selected areas; we need to fund intact nature on a scale that is up to the challenge! This is why we've developed, in close collaboration with our partner African Parks Network, an innovative method to measure, manage, and monetize conservation effectiveness by land stewards who protect nature. Our approach consists of issuing biodiversity units that represent the Ecological Integrity of a defined area. Land Stewards create them by uploading their land onto Landler and investors purchase them, contributing to nature while creating financial value. The first successful example of such units is African Parks’ Verifiable Nature Unit (VNU). Recently, African Parks has announced the first-ever transactions of Verifiable Nature Unit for the Majete Wildlife Reserve, issuing 144 VNUs to the AWE for Nature Foundation and 58 VNUs to the SUN Institute Environment & Sustainability (Deutsche Post Foundation). The AMES Foundation has also pioneered this new approach by generating 14 biodiversity units in their Dabchick Wildlife Reserve. Our monitoring method uniquely balances scientific rigor with scalability and accessibility. Traceable to specific 1 km² areas globally, it offers a scalable solution for monitoring conservation goals such as protecting 30% of each country or ecoregion. Furthermore, designed to be simple and inclusive, the method requires only an area's polygon and indicator species data, collected through various means, including citizen science data. This approach ensures transparency and equitable benefit sharing, making conservation efforts more accessible and effective for all Land Stewards. Every conservationist is now able to upload their areas to Landler and generate biodiversity units. They will be stored in the conservationist's Natural Capital Account and can then be sold to any investor. Every investor is now able to purchase these units from any project originator. In other words, they can now invest in measured, verified, positive nature outcomes. Moreover, biodiversity units can be used as underlying for nature-linked financial instruments such as bonds or loans. Full announcement in the comments.

The next part of our 'Getting to know us' series is here. Jan shared his thoughts on impact assessment and special financing needs for impact hardware startups! 💡   ➡ How do you assess the impact of startups when sourcing them?   A rigorous impact assessment is indispensable for me. I want to understand 1) the impact problem, 2) the founder's motivation for tackling it, 3) the startup's technology and product (how does it work and how do you measure impact?), 4) the impact logic (is this the best approach to tackle the problem?), 5) the startup's impact potential (how big can it get?), 6) additionality (would it happen anyway?), and 7) impact risk (what could go wrong?).   ➡ Why is CapEx financing crucial for impact hardware startups?   Physical technology has the potential to solve many of the world's impact challenges (e.g., decarbonizing cement and concrete). However, scaling up impact hardware is difficult as technology readiness, customer demand, and financing need go to hand in hand. There is a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) financing challenge not served by the traditional VC and project finance models at the moment. I believe that a lot of capital is out there but requires customization to seize the big opportunities that the green transition holds. We see a lot of stakeholders working on the topic (e.g., Tech for Net Zero or The Climate Brick) and are eager to advance the CapEx financing landscape.   ➡ What is one topic you are currently excited about in impact investing?   Textile recycling is super interesting as it has such a big disruption potential. The industry is responsible for 8% to 10% of global carbon emissions, 20% of water pollution, and generates substantial waste. Shockingly, only 1% of global textile waste is recycled into new clothing. Incredible founders are working on solutions for the problem, and I cannot wait to dive deeper!   Thank you for sharing Jan! It's a pleasure to have you on the team! 🌱

🥁 We are very excited to announce our investment into Paebbl!   👩🏻🔬 Paebbl is on a mission to reduce the CO2 footprint of the cement industry by permanently storing captured CO2 in a raw material. The company converts CO2 into silica-enriched magnesium carbonate, which is sold as supplementary cementitious material to cement producers. Thereby, Paebbl is accelerating the development of carbon-storing buildings and setting new standards for sustainable construction. 🤝 Aurum Impact joins Capnamic, Holcim Holcim MAQER Ventures, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund , 2050, Pale blue dot and The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, in Paebbl's $25M Series A funding round. We are very much looking forward to working with Marta Sjögren, Andreas Saari, Jane Walerud, Pol Knops and the rest of the stellar team!

Tomorrow, Miki Yokoyama will be speaking at the Inside Innovation Panel at EXPO REAL (Messe München), discussing how startups and corporates can collaborate to drive innovation. 💡 She’ll be joined by David Oudsandji from our portfolio company Voltfang, who will share insights on their partnership with GOLDBECK. Together, they’re pioneering innovative energy management solutions for commercial buildings. ⚡️ Sounds interesting? We'd love for you to join! 📅 When: October 8, 10:00 – 10:50 AM 📍 Where: Transform & Beyond Stage, Hall A3, EXPO REAL #ImpactInvesting #EXPOREAL #Voltfang #Goldbeck #Sustainability

We're looking for our next intern! A fantastic opportunity for a motivated individual to gain hands-on experience at the intersection of impact investing and VC. If you are passionate about driving change and learning the ins and outs of impact, we'd love to hear from you!🍀🌍

📢 Portfolio News!!!   Doubling down on energy storage: We are proud to participate in Voltfang's €8M Series A financing round together with new investors FORWARD.one and Interzero as well as our existing co-investors: PT1, AENU, Helen Ventures, daphni and Max Viessmann.   ⚡The challenge: Accelerating Europe's green transition requires a more robust power grid capable of integrating a higher proportion of renewable energy sources. In 2023, Germany experienced approximately 19 TWh in curtailment losses, equating to around 4% of its total electricity generation. Energy storage is a critical component for the grid of the future.   🔋 Voltfang's energy storage solutions utilize repurposed electric vehicle batteries, providing an eco-friendly response to the increasing needs of the energy sector. These systems enhance energy efficiency, diminish dependence on fossil fuels, and enable better management of peak energy demands. In 2023, Voltfang was responsible for avoiding over 175 tons of CO2e emissions and the best is yet to come. This funding round will help Voltfang in their mission to add 40 MWh of battery capacity by 2025.   Today's edition of the Handelsblatt has the whole story!   Congrats to David Oudsandji, Roman Alberti, Afshin Doostdar and the entire team! 🎉 Thank you for letting us be part of your exciting journey! 🚀   #Voltfang, #EnergyStorage, #SecondLife, #CircularEconomy

🚀 The German Startup Monitor 2024 is here! Released by Startup-Verband, this report offers a great snapshot of the current state of the startup ecosystem in Germany, filled with insights into what’s driving change and where challenges remain. Here are some standout facts: 🌍 Startups are more international than ever! With 30.8% of startup employees coming from abroad, and English being the working language in 34.9% of startups, Germany is cementing its position as a global hub for innovation. 🌱 Social entrepreneurship and green economy on the rise. 45.6% of startups identify as social entrepreneurs, addressing societal challenges through innovative solutions. In addition, 48.1% of startups now consider themselves part of the green economy – the highest ever recorded – as they continue to drive progress in renewable energy, resource efficiency, and circular economy initiatives. 🤝 Challenges in cooperation with established businesses. Only 37.5% of startups rate collaboration opportunities with established companies as good – a slight decline from last year. It’s clear there’s still work to do in bridging the gap between startups and traditional industries. 📉 Room for improvement in diversity. After years of slow but steady progress, the proportion of female founders in German startups has declined this year from 20.7% to 18.8%. More needs to be done to support women in building and scaling businesses. Curious to learn more about what’s shaping the future of startups in Germany? Check out the full report (in German) here: https://lnkd.in/eWAA5mE5 #GermanStartupMonitor #StartupEcosystem

Happy (belated) International Day of Democracy 2024! 🌱 Yesterday marked International Day of Democracy, a day dedicated to promoting and defending the principles of democracy. This is especially relevant as 2024 is THE election year, with a record number of voters participating in major elections in countries such as India, South Africa, Indonesia, the UK, France, and the U.S. While it is encouraging to see so many people exercising their right to vote and influencing their country's future, this year has also highlighted the growing pressures on democracy. Extremist parties have gained significant ground, candidates have openly expressed anti-democratic sentiments, and political polarization has intensified, threatening the stability of democratic institutions. The results of the 2023 Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence: EIU underscored several challenges: 🌍 Only a limited portion of the global population lives under democratic governance. Currently, just 8% of people live in a full democracy, while an additional 38% reside in flawed democracies. Together, this amounts to less than half of the world’s population living in a democracy. 〽 In recent years, the global democracy index has steadily declined. Of the five categories measured—electoral processes and pluralism, civil liberties, political culture, functioning of government, and political participation—four have worsened over the past decade, with only political participation showing improvement.   For Europe, this suggests that democracy should no longer be taken for granted as it has been in recent decades. It’s something we must actively protect and cultivate. At Aurum Impact, we believe that maintaining democratic values and engaging (politically) with each other is a responsibility shared by all of us. We are tackling this challenge within our focus area "Stable and equitable Societies" and are always excited to connect with startups that are working to overcome challenges to democracy or strengthen democratic systems. If you know of a startup that aligns with our vision, don’t hesitate to reach out—we’d love to hear from you!   #InternationalDayofDemocracy #Democracy #Voting