Giant Leap hits final close on Fund II
Tech and the youth mental health crisis 🧠; Oatly’s radical transparency 💫; and the UK’s crackdown on greenwashing 🌱.
“There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Kick start
✨ We’re thrilled to share that Giant Leap has raised around $50m to close out our second fund, Giant Leap II!
It’s been amazing to follow the growth of the impact startup ecosystem since we launched our first fund in 2016. To illustrate, we’re on track to see over 1,000 impact startups by the end of FY23 — a lot more than the 132 we saw in total in FY16.
We’re actively deploying and are excited to get to know the passionate, mission-driven founders among us, so please get in touch!
Check out the resources below for more information on what we look for and how to pitch on impact.
What we’re thinking about
🧠 Tech causing and curing the youth mental health crisis. School districts in the US are filing lawsuits arguing that TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube’s addictive AI-driven algorithms have helped cause the surging youth mental health crisis and should be held to account. The first suit was brought in Washington State, followed by more in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. A suit in northern California points to recent data showing increasing rates of depressive symptoms in high school students, arguing that this tracks precisely against the rise of social media.
Despite social media’s place in causing the harm, we’re positive that tech also has a big role to play in the cure. We see great opportunity for impact-driven mental health startups, particularly those increasing the affordability and accessibility of mental health care, to step in and plug some of this gap — a gap that will be worth $26b by 2027 in the US alone.
✅ Radical transparency. Dairy alternative oat milk brand Oatly has promised to give away free advertising to any dairy competitor that can answer the same 68 questions about its climate footprint that Oatly has. The company will reward those who do with ad slots in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and on billboards in Hollywood and Times Square. Avoiding greenwashing calls for evidence-based transparency, and we’re all for it.
On the flip side, Oatly has also recently published fckoatly.com, a website highlighting all of its past lawsuits, media scandals, and controversies in one place. If you hate this idea, don’t worry — they also have fckfuckoatly.com, where you can confirm your dislike by clicking a satisfying button and watching the counter go up.
✋ Time to get tough on greenwashing. The UK is set to ban adverts claiming products are carbon neutral using offsets. The UK’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), is set to crack down on this form of greenwashing following concerns that it misleads consumers as to the environmental impacts of products. The ASA will also keep a closer eye on the use of terms including “carbon neutral”, “nature positive” and “net zero”.
New paths
🧠 Seer Medical is hiring a Finance Manager in Melbourne.
👩💻 Future Super is looking for a Head of People and Culture (Remote), a Head of Product (Sydney/Hybrid) and an Investment Analyst (Remote).
🧻 Who Gives A Crap wants a Head of Retail (AU & US), an Integrations and Data Specialist, and a Systems and Solutions Analyst in Melbourne.
🌍 Moving to Europe and keen on climate VC? Join our former Investment Manager Charlie Macdonald at World Fund, who are currently after an Investment Manager (Amsterdam), a Climate Investment Intern and Climate Fellows (Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne or Munich).
🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 80+ available positions or fill out our expression of interest form. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
🎉 We’re very pleased that Giant Leap’s final close announcement was featured in The Australian in a write-up by Technology Editor David Swan this week, available here (note the paywall), and by Rachel Alembakis in FS Sustainability, here.
👏🏻 Congrats to HEX founder, Jeanette Cheah, for the awesome billboard real estate on Flinders Street in Melbourne — it’s hard to miss it (and why would you want to)!
👩 Giant Leap’s Investment Associate, Hannah Mourney, shared her thoughts on Women in Investing at Stropo’s panel in Sydney last week.
For the road
🌱 Seed funding for First Nations founders. Applications for the 2023 Dream Venture Masterclasses are now open! Dream Venture is a national pre-accelerator program for First Nations entrepreneurs to learn skills, build capacity and gain access to capital, with a total pool of $200,000 in seed funding available.
📚 The Anyone Can Resource Library. The Creative Cooperative and Anyone Can are launching Australia’s first Bla(c)k and Women of Colour Founders Resource Library 100% by, for and with founders, operators and investors from the community. Enter your name in the form here to get access when it drops on 12 July.
🏫 Impact in governance. Applications are open for Small Giants Academy’s Next Economy Governance course. If you’re a for-purpose board director looking to evolve your approach to governance to move beyond risk mitigation to active impact decision-making, this one’s for you.
🤝 Capital as a force for good. Tickets are also now available for Small Giants Academy’s Journey to Impact. This 6-part online course is for investors, board members, and wealth managers to come together to learn about using capital as a force for good and explore the alignment of wealth with values.
✈️ Sugarcane to jet fuel. North Queensland will soon be home to Australia’s first foray into clean jet fuel. The project will convert ethanol from sources such as sugarcane and wheat by-products into aviation fuel, in a partnership between Jet Zero Australia and Lanza Jet, backed by Qantas Group, Airbus and the Queensland government. Sweet.
💰 New funding for industry growth. The Federal Government has revealed some more details about its new Industry Growth Program — a matched grant funding arrangement for startups and SMEs. It will prioritise investment in impact-adjacent industries such as renewables, climate tech and medical science.
👣 A slight adjustment… As the co-founders of Trace, Joanna Auburn and Cat Long, highlight here and here, Tesla recently revised its overall carbon footprint from 2.5 metric tonnes to 30.7 metric tonnes. The difference? They started accounting for indirect emissions — those created by its suppliers and vendors. We agree that missing data points should no longer equate to zero emissions.
🧑🏽🎓 Startmate for students. Keen on the idea of working in a startup after uni graduation? Apply for the Startmate Student Fellowship by 4 June - this is one you don’t want to miss out on!
🥗 Calling all climate tech founders. Our friends at Climate Salad are launching a flagship Global Growth Program for high-potential climate tech founders ready to scale globally. With the GGP, you’ll have the opportunity to scale your business and join a community of like-minded founders passionate about creating a sustainable future. Get your application in now, closing 4 June!
📱 Time saver. Check out these ChatGPT prompts to save you some precious time in your work day. You can thank us later.