StartGreen Capital
Financial and social returns go hand in hand
With Laura Rooseboom, Co-founder and Managing Partner, and Dylan Perales, Investment Manager and Sustainability Lead.
StartGreen Capital uses Worldfavor Sustainable Investments to access the sustainability data of their entire portfolio in one program - gathering insights both from individual companies and aggregated on a fund level.
Industry
Investment management
Company
StartGreen Capital is one of the largest impact fund managers in the Netherlands. Since 2006, the organization has been working together with impact entrepreneurs to build a sustainable economy: an economy that does not exhaust itself and in which everyone can participate to their full potential.
Country
Netherlands
Visit
6
FUNDS
26,783
CROWD INVESTORS
450
MILLION € UNDER MANAGEMENT
About
Who is StartGreen Capital?
As one of the largest impact fund managers in the Netherlands, StartGreen believes that building sustainable progress is only possible with continuous innovation, supporting entrepreneurs who work with vision, drive, and guts to achieve financial and social returns. With their sustainable focus and tailor-made investments, StartGreen acts as a financial catalyst for entrepreneurs to help realize a renewable economy.
All the companies in StartGreen's portfolio contribute to at least one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a focus on energy transition, local and circular economy, and diversity & inclusion. And because each fund has a dedicated team, StartGreen can offer a unique mix of loans, equity investments, and crowdsourcing.
Background and scope
The scale of modern sustainability reporting
In the past, StartGreen relied on Excel files to administer their information and data. But as operations and additional data points increased significantly, and new sustainability laws and regulations (such as the SFDR) came into phase, the workload reached a critical point.
They began looking for a better way to collect, organize, and deploy their sustainability data. StartGreen already had existing datasets and sustainability KPIs that they wanted to be able to transfer to maintain business continuity – and as a sustainable fund manager, it was crucial to be able to carefully administer that information and demonstrate that the data they relied upon was robust.
In their search for the right solution, StartGreen mainly focused on:
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The ease with which data could be imported and exported
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The ability to enter KPIs yourself
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How simple it was to integrate with other software
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Calculation of emission factors
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The vendor’s focus on investors vs. companies, and on multinationals vs. SMEs
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The vendor’s internal IT and sustainability expertise
“There are many start-ups in the market that are jumping on the demand for sustainability data, but the question remains of whether they will still exist in two years' time. Worldfavor has shown that they live up to what they say they deliver, and the organization seemed future-proof to us.”
Laura Rooseboom, Co-founder and Managing Partner
Solution
Easy sustainability monitoring and reporting
After talking with eight candidates, StartGreen chose Worldfavor and its Sustainable Investments solution – it was tailor-made for investors and offered the freedom and flexibility they requested. After signing the agreement, StartGreen began writing their annual impact report. And right away, they could import large quantities of data via a web system: "At StartGreen, we already had a lot of content. We felt it was important to have the freedom to add our own KPIs while also not being tied down to a single provider right away. These things were both well-facilitated by Worldfavor." says Perales.
Switching gears for future gain
In the beginning, Worldfavor provided start-up guidance, but the intuitive flow of the tool meant that StartGreen quickly grasped how to use it. "We definitely got help and explanation on how to work with it," says Perales. "But when we started doing it ourselves, we basically immediately understood how it worked."
Once they were up and running, the onboarding of the portfolio companies could begin – which was still a challenge, despite Worldfavor's support with webinars and other resources: "People working at our portfolio companies often are busy with a thousand and one things at a time. We have had several sessions internally and externally, shared information documents, and made a lot of calls to walk the entrepreneurs through the questions. Those discussions with the entrepreneurs were also important to fine-tune the data queries," Perales said, "This entire process took altogether more time than the old process, but now that the onboarding has been completed, we can largely use the same set-up again next year. This means that there will be a net time saving in the upcoming reporting cycles."
"Other parties focus on large companies and offer solutions where you as a fund manager cannot collect the data of all your portfolio companies in an orderly manner. Worldfavor offered these features without us immediately needing to embark on a development process."
Dylan Perales, Investment Manager and Sustainability Lead
Results
An investment in data quality and efficiency
The quality of StartGreen's data has clearly improved. For example, they were able to calculate with certainty how much CO2 was prevented by their investments throughout 2021 (351,150 tons). "With the help of this clearer overview, we have discovered quite a few notable data points where there was a typo or a zero too many or too few," says Perales. "The audit process went a lot more smoothly, providing more assurance on data quality and insights into the companies and data. That's really quite an improvement."
In addition, since onboarding, the interaction between StartGreen and portfolio companies is a lot smoother. "Excel can do a lot, but it is not exactly a robust system," says Perales. "To ensure accurate data collection, we did not let the entrepreneurs enter data into Excel themselves. With Worldfavor, you can do that very easily. Their program makes it possible to involve the entrepreneur in data collection."
Going forward
A solid grip on the acceleration of green investment
StartGreen expects the demand for non-financial data to only increase. "Our portfolio will most likely continue to grow, as will the number of data issues, " says Rooseboom. "More themes are emerging and the acceleration of investment in sustainability is evident. Especially when it comes to large institutional investors who also need robust sustainability data to account for themselves."
StartGreen looks forward to reaping the time savings sown this year from onboarding portfolio companies, and plans to integrate other processes with Worldfavor. While they currently focus on retroactive reporting, they also want to use Worldfavor in the other steps of the investment chain – like assessing the sustainability of potential investments upfront. "We were convinced that in the changing sustainability reporting landscape, the difficulties of moving on in the old-fashioned way would only ever increase. With Worldfavor, we can continue to develop the management and deployment of our sustainability data to face that future with more certainty," Perales concludes.
Worldfavor solution used by StartGreen
Sustainability INVESTMENTS
Worldfavor's platform helps investors integrate ESG into their portfolio to create real, long-term impact. With its intuitive UI, portfolio companies get up-to-date sustainability guidance and can easily report on all the ESG data needed to align with regulations like SFDR and GRI – no matter their level of experience. Our in-house experts will help you feel confident knowing you're pulling the correct data for all stakeholders – which also means there's no need for consultants.
