Posted In:

ESG


#456
Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder

Published:

Sep 26, 2022


Author:

Cindy Grazer

Posted In:

ESG

Published:

Sep 26, 2022


Author:

Cindy Grazer


Share:

In recent news, Patagonia’s founder and his family recently gave their ownership in the $3b company to a climate-focused trust and a group of nonprofit organizations, where all profits not directly reinvested into Patagonia will be funding projects fighting climate change. The news comes amid a renewed cycle of interest and focus on ESG related actions from corporations and government agencies, including recent trends to incorporate ESG metrics into executives’ compensation plans in addition to financial performance and shareholder returns.

Various government agencies around the world are stepping up their attention to ESG reporting and requirements, often targeting multiple industries. The EU is expected to adopt the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive in October, which provides guidance on how companies listed in the EU should report on sustainability goals. In the US, the SEC’ annoucned its most recent rules against investment funds’ “greenwashing.”

As these regulations continue to evolve and reporting burdens increase for players in the ecosystem, green fintech companies are emerging to help businesses comply with new ESG requirements. Reporting tools and data analytics to track carbon footprints are some examples of early B2B initiatives, in addition to a number of consumer-oriented products designed to allow people to directly engage in the impact they are making on the planet.

The path to a greener, socially responsible and sustainable future is long, and we expect to continue to see innovation from start-ups and other ecosystem players. This innovation, along with regulation and education about ESG, should contribute to the urgency to act. As for Patagonia (and this sheep), there’s a new fleece on life.

Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder

Portfolio News


01
Flutterwave


Underline receives new investment for infrastructure to connect communities - To support existing projects and drive continued U.S. expansion, a fund managed by Ares Management’s Infrastructure Opportunities strategy joins Underline as a strategic investor—adding a scaled global investment manager to the existing investor group. Also participating in the round are existing investors FinTech Collective and Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Read more

The 61 most promising fintechs changing the world of banking, trading, and investing, according to top investors - Congratulations to portfolio companies CapIntel, CoinLedger and Willa for being featured in Business Insider's list of the 61 most promising early-stage fintech companies. As was the case last year, the majority of those nominated work with other businesses, not individual consumers. Many investors noted B2B startups are one of the biggest bright spots in the sector as businesses and financial institutions continue to streamline their processes and cut costs where they can. Read more

Coinshift integrates Superfluid to automate crypto-native payroll with ongoing money streams - Coinshift’s native integration of Superfluid allows users to create, view, manage & edit real-time money streams directly from the Coinshift dashboard, enabling them to put web3 payroll on autopilot. As programmable and automatable second-by-second token flows, salary streams help treasury managers save hours in administrative labor and reduce complexity. Read more

Embroker expands suite of product lines available by vertical markets, deepens specific industry expertise - Embroker, the digital platform making it radically simple to get business insurance, today announced the launch of three new insurance products - one for cannabis dispensaries, one for venture capital firms and one for key business leaders. Read more

Fintech company Ocrolus co-authors study on how automation can reduce bias in lending - With non-white borrowers continuing to receive a lower percentage of capital for homes and businesses, Ocrolus executive David Snitkof has co-authored a study by New York University Professor Sabrina Howell on automation in small business lending. For the study, Ocrolus contributed data it compiled while handling document automation for the COVID-19 pandemic under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Read more

Flutterwave enables Google Pay for African businesses - As part of this collaboration, Google Pay will serve as an additional payment option for merchants on Flutterwave for business. This collaboration will offer safe and seamless payments, as well as convenient checkout experiences for customers. Read more

Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder


Patagonia founder donated the entire company, worth $3b, to fight climate change - Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, his spouse and two adult children are giving away their ownership in the apparel maker he started some 50 years ago, dedicating all profits from the company to projects and organizations that will protect wild land and biodiversity and fight the climate crisis. Read more

Patagonia founder hands company to trust to tackle climate crisis
The 83-year-old, who has a net worth of $1.2bn, said he was transferring his family’s ownership to a trust and a non-profit organisation to channel profits to environmental causes. The company expects to give $100mn a year to the non-profit organisation. Read more

Industry News


Annual Latin America Digital Transformation Report by Atlantico - On Tuesday our friends at Atlantico have published their much anticipated annual Latin America Digital Transformation Report, which has become a regional version of Mary Meeker's Internet Trends. You can sign-up to receive the report at Atlantico.Pub. Read more

Credit Suisse weighs splitting investment bank into three - Credit Suisse has drawn up plans to split its investment bank into three and resurrect a “bad bank” holding pen for risky assets, as the Swiss lender attempts to emerge from three years of relentless scandals. Under proposals put forward to the group’s board, Credit Suisse hopes to sell profitable units such as its securitized products business in a bid to stave off a damaging capital raise, according to people familiar with the plans. Read more

Nasdaq reportedly preparing crypto custody services for institutions - The company has created a new group focusing on digital assets and will start by offering Bitcoin and Ether custody services for institutions. The firm also onboarded Ira Auerbach, who previously led prime broker services at crypto exchange Gemini, as the head of its new digital assets division. Read more

How JPMorgan’s plan to kill credit cards split the bank - A great read from the FT on Jamie Dimon's push to beat a bunch of start-ups to the punch on creating a “pay-by-bank” product and create some inevitable tensions within JPMorgan’s consumer and community banking division which booked more than $5bn in card revenues in 2021. Read more

Sensitive Morgan Stanley devices were auctioned off online, finds SEC - Morgan Stanley hired a moving company that did not specialize in discarding data and tasked it with disabling thousands of servers and hard drives, the agency said. The moving company subsequently sold thousands of the bank’s devices, some of which contained customer data, to a third party before they were eventually resold on an online auction site. The bank has recovered some but not most of the equipment, the SEC said. Read more

AmEx plans 1,500-person tech hiring spree, with most jobs in US - The company is on the hunt for software engineers, coders and developers, part of a 1,500-person hiring spree for its sprawling technology arm. AmEx, which had 64,000 employees as of the end of last year, is up against a raging war for technology talent. Nearly two-thirds of human-resources professionals cited hiring qualified developers as their biggest recruitment challenge of the year, according to a Deloitte report in February. Read more

Binance and FTX make top bids for bankrupt lender voyager - The current bid from Binance is about $50m, slightly higher than the competing bid from FTX, according to the people. Voyager, founded in 2019, operated a crypto lending platform that took in customer deposits, paid them interest and lent out the assets to other parties. It went public via a reverse merger in 2019. At the time of its bankruptcy filing in July 2022, Voyager said it had total assets of $5b and total liabilities of $4.9b. Read more

Select Financings


Allocations - Miami based provider of APIs for private fund management raised $5m in Seed funding led by Flex Capital. Read more

Brightflow AI - SF based maker of cash flow analysis software for small businesses raised $15m in Series A funding led by Haymaker Ventures. Read more

CNote - California based impact investment platform raised $7.25m in Series A funding led by the American Family Insurance. Read more

Carats & Cake - New York based financial operating system for the events industry raised $10.6m in Series A funding led by 1Sharpe Ventures. Read more

Datamaran - London based provider of ESG risk management software raised €11.7m in Series B funding led by Fortive and American Electric Power. Read more

DotPe - India based offline-to-online commerce platform raised $58m in Series B funding led by Temasek. Read more

Fondue CashBack - Tel Aviv based Shopify app focused on cashback raised $10.5m in Seed funding led by Quiet Capital. Read more

Habito - London based home mortgage broker raised £5m in Seed funding led by Augmentum Fintec. Read more

Inclined - Beaverton based life insurance refinancing startup raised $15m in Series A funding led by Hudson Structured Ventures. Read more

Magna - New York based token management platform raised $15m in Series A funding led by Tiger Global. Read more

Monese - London based digital banking and remittance company raised $35m in growth funding led by HSBC. Read more

Noble - Israel based maker of a credit underwriting platform raised $18m in Series A funding led by Insight Partners. Read more

Presail - Oslo based platform for community-driven web3 funding raised $3.8m in Seed funding led by SNÖ Ventures. Read more

Portabl - Philadelphia based digital wallet and password manager for banking apps raised $2.5m in Seed funding led by Harlem Capital Partners. Read more

Sardine - San Francisco based compliance platform for crypto and fintech companies raised $51m in Series B funding led by a16z. Read more

Satschel - San Francisco based web3 compliance company raised a $5m in Seed funding led by Brand Foundry Ventures. Read more

Scratchpay - California based petcare and healthcare financier raised $35m in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. Read more

Sequence - UK based fin-ops stack for B2B businesses raised $19m in Seed funding led by a16z. Read more

Stashaway - Singapore based digital wealth manager raised $12.7m in Series D funding led by Hamilton Lane. Read more

Tres - Israel based financial data lake for web3 companies raised $7.6m in Seed funding led by Boldstart Ventures. Read more

Yellow Card Financial - Africa based cryptocurrency exchange raised a $40m Series B funding led by Polychain Capital. Read more

Zopper - India based API for insurance infrastructure raised $75m in Series C funding led by Creaegis. Read more

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