A record-breaking year for impact VC
Small Steps Vol. 38: Impact VC tracking to top the impact charts 📈 D&I tools to address the persistent tech gender gap 🤸♀️ and distraction material for lockdowns 💃
"My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb, And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them"
- Gnarls Barkley
What we’re thinking about
🌻 For the first time on record, impact VC is on track to blitz other impact investment types in attracting funding. Halfway through the year, it makes up more than 60% of the $7b in funds raised for impact. With strong focus on energy and health, impact investors are clearly seeing what we see: impact founders are our biggest lever for change because the solutions we need for our biggest problems simply don’t yet exist.
🤦♀️ While the tech gender gap is improving in Australia, equal representation has a long road ahead. Approximately 27% of Australian VC dollars went to female founders in H1 FY21 and women in tech were 2x more likely to lose their jobs due to COVID. We agree with Liza Chong’s view, that the gap starts at the source of capital - just 14% of global funds have a female partner, and that’s gotta change.
🤸♀️ In the meantime, we’re loving seeing the emergence of new diversity and inclusion (D&I) tools to address the issue, such as Fair HQ, which offers affordable D&I recommendations and impact tracking for startups, and Circle In, which just raised $2.7m to provide support for parents in the workplace. These join scaleup leaders in the space like WORK180 (they’re hiring!), solving for fairer workplace policies, and Applied, which removes unconscious bias in the hiring process.
Career paths
🧠 Mindset is looking for a Public Relations Specialist and a Copywriter
📦 Sendle is seeking a Technical Writer
🔌 Amber is chasing a Digital Marketing Specialist
♻️ Full Cycle Bioplastics is on the lookout for a VP of Sales
🧬 Eugene is hiring a Head of Growth and a Head of Care
🔥 There’s now 80+ more jobs on the Giant Leap Fund jobs board and more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Connect with us
💯 Our Associate, Charlie, is lifting the curtain on Giant Leap’s impact methodology at 1pm tomorrow for the Startup Vic Success Series. Register here.
💡 James Chin Moody, CEO and Co-Founder of Sendle, shared his views on innovation. In short, new business ideas are most likely to come from using existing technology in new ways, as each previous advancement in technology has opened a world of possibilities we haven’t even considered yet.
For the road
💃 We’re back in lockdown season. For those of you at home, here are some of our favourite distraction and coping tools from last year:
Jackbox has some great multiplayer games, but we got a lot of joy out of Drawful last year. We won’t punish you with some of our creations from this game…
The Body Coach Youtube channel has workouts for everyone and every situation. And we mean every situation. Mid-workday office-chair workouts? Covered. No equipment workouts? Yep. Low intensity? There too. Take a look.
Airtree also recently put out this excellent mental health resource last year aimed at founders. But the information on there is really relevant to everyone.
🌊 Spare a thought for the seaweed of the world. It’s yet another casualty of the climate crisis, but potentially also a saviour: an ocean-bed full of kelp can store more carbon than a tropical rainforest the same size.
🧱 LEGO committed a 150 person team and tested 250+ formulations to finally reach a prototype recycled brick and make good on its commitment to be more sustainable.
🤲 The Kenneth Myer Social Innovation Fellowship has opened applications impact startups offering up to $150,000 in grant funds. Skalata Ventures is also looking for its next intake of companies for their accelerator program.
🦋 Pokemon Go, but for nature. The Great Aussie BioQuest is about to kick off. It’s a state-by-state competition to compile the natural world in your area. You can download the app here.
💲 Our favourite take on AfterPay’s acquisition:
