Both by Ring #20 - Joining forces to build a real European impact ecosystem
Featured with Elodie Donjon @European Investment Fund
Dear community,
Impact investing is an exciting and rapidly growing industry powered by investors who are determined to generate social and environmental impact as well as financial returns. While it "only" accounts for 23% of the global impact investment market, the European market has the capacity of pioneering impact methodologies and regulations to massively support solutions for a fair transition. Between 2017 and 2022, it grew from $4.5bn AUM to $19bn, and this is just the beginning. Europe gathers a wide range of impact investors with diverse and complementary know-hows: experts clean tech investors from Scandinavia and DA-CH, pioneer social investors from Italy or Spain, impact generalists with strong methodological focus in Belgium or France, and a rapidly growing and dynamic market in Central and Eastern Europe.
All of us are stronger together. So we decided to join forces to promote impact investing at European level. Working closely with solid networks such as Impact Europe, we launched the #UnitedforImpact initiative in December 2023. It originally gathered 32 GPs from 14 different countries, who co-signed a public op-ed to call on EU institutions to better define impact investing in SFDR. We are now 47 impact investors from 16 countries, aiming to highlight the specificity and methodology of impact investing, with the ambition of massively redirecting capital towards companies that put at the heart of their business models the resolution of environmental and/or social challenges.
As an informal community of European investors, we unite our efforts in advocacy and we are carrying several proposals among which:
The introduction of a clear definition – and a dedicated category – for impact investing in SFDR;
A reasoned use of EU funding to leverage further private capital towards impactful environmental and social solutions;
The creation of a ‘mission-driven company’ status at EU level.
Investors are at the forefront of the fight against climate change and for a fairer society, and private investments need to be massively reoriented to finance the twin environmental and social transitions. Impact investing should be the cornerstone of sustainable finance. Many impact investors across Europe are already demonstrating the relevance of this new model, but we call on EU authorities to make it happen at a large scale!
Servane Metzger, Chief Impact Officer @Ring Capital
The interview
'There is not a standard picture of impact in Europe but we need to work together to build a real European impact ecosystem.'
Elodie Donjon, Investment Manager @the European Investment Fund (EIF)
How would you describe the impact investing dynamic in Europe?
At the EIF, we started making our first impact investments in 2013, under the “Social impact accelerator” mandate (the first pan-European public-private partnership addressing the growing need for availability of equity finance to support social enterprises). Since then, the ecosystem has completely changed, with a marked acceleration in its growth over the last 3 to 4 years. But impact investing remains very different from one country to another.
If we compare Europe to other geographies: the United States of America remains the most advanced market, while Asia is at an early stage of development. As for Africa, a lot of projects are being developed there — it is an emerging market, but a promising one. Europe, however, continues to be a driving force in impact investing, particularly in the area of climate change: every year, the number of teams targeting this segment and the number of investments made are exponential. Unfortunately, the growth of environmental impact investment seems to be taking place at the expense of social impact.
Ring ecosystem’s insights
When you are part of Ring Capital’s ecosystem, there's never a dull moment! Here's the latest news.
🎉 Several companies supported by Ring are part of the Impact 40/120 index (Mouvement Impact France), which highlights the 40 future impact unicorns and the 120 impact companies to follow as they grow.
From sustainable construction (Hiboo, Vestack), finance (WeeFin) and mobility (Karos) to inclusion and education matters (each One, Ecole O'clock, Konexio, Solinum), all of them are addressing major social and or environmental challenges.
As investors, we have the mission to divert capital towards these essential issues. With this index, these companies and non-profits are rewarded for their constant work to improve our future.
Congratulations to them!
🏆 We are delighted to be supporting the 2nd edition of Innova Europe, a competition organised by EDHEC Business School, along with 10 other schools among Europe's leading academic institutions. The aim of Innova Europe is to help build a more sustainable and inclusive future by accelerating ambitious projects. The competition targets students or graduates of one of these 11 institutions with projects at the “Idea Stage” or “MVP Stage”.
If you are one of them, apply before May 18 and see you for the European Grand Final on September 26!
Ring news
🚀 Generations, Ring pre-seed & seed fund powered by EDHEC, announces its participation in HyLight round of €3,7m
We are delighted to announce our participation in HyLight’s round of €3,7m, alongside Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Collaborative Fund and business angels such as Tesla’s cofounder Marc Tarpenning and former SpaceX launch director Abhishek Tripathi.
Today, 80% of pipeline inspections are operated by helicopters. These inspections are mandatory and therefore trigger important costs and greenhouse gases emissions, every year, for companies maintaining their pipeline network.
With its hydrogen powered airships, HyLight develops the first sustainable, efficient and with better autonomy alternative to drones, helicopters and satellites for infrastructure inspection (especially for power lines and pipelines). We are proud to be taking part in the decarbonisation of aerial inspection through this investment.
🎧 Have you listened to our podcast Beyond Impact’s new episode on biodiversity?
Faced with a veritable collapse of biodiversity, how can companies be mobilised? How can biodiversity be sustainably integrated into economic strategies? What obligations do companies have? What tools do they have?
In the latest episode of Beyond Impact, we discuss these issues with three distinguished guests: Antoine Cadi (former Head of Research and Innovation - Head of Biodiversity Footprint Measurement @CDC Biodiversité), Sabrina Gonçalves Krebsbach (Sustainable Sourcing and Biodiversity Specialist @Kering) and Arthur Pivin (Manager @Carbone 4).
👉 What about you? What solutions has your company developed to meet this challenge?
Discover the podcast on:
Top reads and ressources
❗️‘Economy and politics reducing global appeal of impact investing, survey’
🔎 France Invest’s study, ‘Fonds à impact et réglementation, un état des lieux pour comprendre les enjeux’
📊 Mouvement Impact France’s study, ‘Exit et entreprises à impact’
See you next month ✌️