We are active, hands-on early stage investors investing in brave, ambitious start-up and scale-up companies founded on scalable business models addressing the climate crisis.
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
PURPOSE AND VALUES
It is a prerequisite that the start-up’s founding team cares deeply about climate change and the sustainability challenges facing the planet with the sustainability contribution at the very core of the business model.
FOUNDING TEAM
We invest in dedicated founding teams with preferably at least two founders that know each other well with long term commitment and no immediate exit ambitions. We look for founder expertise and other relevant accomplishments, which we can complement with our commercial competences and sustainability expert knowledge.
HIGH IMPACT VERTICALS
We invest across six verticals that offer high potential impact and attractive commercial prospects. We focus on key industries that must decarbonise such as energy, food & agriculture and the built environment as well as frontier solutions to be scaled within circular economy, bio solutions and climate tech.
SUSTAINABILITY CONTRIBUTION
We strive to find investments that address some of the biggest challenges within climate change and can contribute to systemic changes. We are raising an Article 9 fund under the SFDR regulation and look for quantifiable sustainability contribution when evaluating the potential impact and relevance of the investment case.
GEOGRAPHICAL MINDSET
Most of our investments will center around Denmark and the Nordics due to our aim to be close to our investments and actively involved in their development. However, our investments might extend in reach in accordance with our geographical expertise and in cases where an active partnership can still be realized despite geographical distance.
Could we be a match for your start-up? Send your pitch deck to: pitch@thefootprintfirm.com
We invest in key industries to decarbonise…
ENERGY
We invest in solutions that support the decarbonisation of the energy grid and the reduction of energy use.
FOOD & AGRICULTURE
We invest to fuel the transition to a regenerative, protective and waste-free food system.
BUILT ENVIRONMENT
We invest in solutions that accelerate sustainable construction and living to enable a decarbonisation of the world’s largest asset class.
… and frontier solutions to scale
ENABLING CLIMATE TECH
We invest in climate technologies that help us reduce GHG emissions and save earth’s resources.
BIO SOLUTIONS
We invest in new materials that can replace key drivers of pollution and emissions.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
We invest in solutions that enable reuse, upcycling and recycling of waste streams to enable a circular economy.
WHAT WE CONTRIBUTE WITH
SUSTAINABILITY CONTRIBUTION
A central contribution to all our investments are investing our time and knowledge in firming up and proving the sustainability contribution of the business case. We see this as the utmost important contribution from us as an active investor and will continue working on, challenge and pushing forward the ambition on the impact angle throughout our ownership. We are experts in Article 9 compliance and help our start-ups through the process.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
As active investors we see it as key that we contribute through participation in and strengthening of the board of directors. We have the experience that a relevant board with dedicated resources can be of immense value to a start up, but also that a dysfunctional board can be the exact opposite. We use our extensive network and experience to help the founders establish the best possible board and will invest our time in keeping the board relevant at all time through the start-up journey.
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
We work structured with our investments to establish a solid financial structure with insightful reporting. In our mindset this includes reporting on sustainability dimensions that we see as a central part of the value creation towards future funding rounds. Our CFO has a strong hands-on experience with investor owned companies and work closely with the start up teams on financial reporting and modelling when needed.
BRANDING & MARKETING
It is our experience that most sustainability start ups will benefit from stronger branding and marketing, why we support our start ups within this area when needed. We have strong experience in developing trustworthy core stories anchored in facts and quantitative data for communicating on sustainability and place high value on the ability to use own activities to inspire others and create insights on the sustainability agenda.
COMMERCIAL EXCELLENCE
We support our start ups with our commercial skill set. Our team members have on average ~10 years of professional experience from various organisations and management consulting across countries, industries and within business development, go-to-market, sales strategies and scaling etc. We work every day with establishing a solid link between companies’ commercial offering and relevant sustainability impact and firmly believe that these are not opposites but on the contrary can create significant synergies.
FUNDRAISING JOURNEY
We live and breathe sustainability – exactly as our start ups do. While sustainability is rapidly becoming a hot investment topic, we believe we are in a unique position to advice founders in establishing the link between purpose and business and will make it a key priority to raise funding on mission-aligned terms.
Ticket size
Our usual ticket size is EUR 0.5 to 2 million. We believe in cooperation and depending on the stage of the case, we can drive the fundraising with the founder team and help teaming up with angel investors, VC funds, family offices, strategic investors or other types of financing.
What is important to us is not the ticket size, rather it is doing what’s best for the case in the long run by bringing in the right funding and the right competencies at the right time.