Why we should all care about Sustainable Development

Since its inception in 2011, Bpifrance Digital Venture (Bpifrance DV) has acted as a non specialized VC fund by financing and supporting more than 90 startups in diverse sectors including HR (Talentsoft, Welcome To The Jungle), logistics (Shippeo), DIY (Manomano), fintech (Memo Bank, Swan), devtools (GitGuardian, Strapi), robotics (Balyo, Notilo Plus) and more (see full portfolio here) etc.

Although Bpifrance DV is not an impact fund (unlike specialized funds such as Citizen Capital, Alter Equity, Phitrust, etc.), this has not kept us from investing in several companies founded by entrepreneurs with a mission and whose business produces positive externalities for the company as a whole, in areas ranging from education and health to the environment and more.

For example, Garantme facilitates access to housing for people who have no access to a personal guarantor, and Cardiologs helps cardiologists read and interpret ECG to improve speed and reliability in their diagnosis.

A responsible investor

As an investment team, we regularly ask ourselves whether we should adapt our dealmaking to effectively address the greatest challenges of our time and align our corporate mission with our personal values. In this sense, we see ourselves as a “responsible” investor. (This concept was clearly explained by Gaia Capital Partners in a recent article: Clarifying the Difference between Responsible Investment and Impact Investment).

We therefore pay particular attention to projects that have a positive impact on society or the environment — projects that inspire us and that we are committed to supporting. But we also consider that change must and can come from any organisation. We believe that each company, regardless of how big it is or what it does, has the means to act for a more egalitarian, more ecological and more inclusive society.

In particular, we rely on the framework set up by the UN through its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which correspond to a global impact vision and can be implemented by all companies (e.g. reducing carbon footprint, improving working conditions of employees, diversity in the organisation, etc.).

Rather than a constraint, a competitiveness factor

This positioning is reinforced by our conviction that tomorrow’s leading companies’ missions will be aligned with the values of modern society, for several reasons:

• Customers are increasingly demanding and better informed when it comes to buying goods or paying for a service.
• Employees are looking for purposeful work and companies are using culture and values in order to attract and retain the best talent.
• Regulations on a number of CSR topics such as equal pay, GHG emissions, etc. are expected to become stricter in the coming years

Many studies also show that implementing an ESG policy affects companies’ performance. For example, in 2018 McKinsey published a study showing that companies that promoted inclusion and diversity in their teams outperformed their peers.

During our Due Diligence, we therefore consider the culture and values of a startup as key success factors just like the product positioning or the quality of the founding team.

After investing, we encourage our leaders to take ownership of these issues and to place them at the heart of their entrepreneurial project to improve their attractiveness.

Examples to follow

Several of the companies in our portfolio have taken steps in this direction, at different levels and with conclusive results:

• S4M #ecodesign: over the last few months, S4M has engaged in major efforts to optimise its code and architecture with significant gains in terms of server costs and energy consumption.
• Welcome To The Jungle #employeewellbeing: the company became a certified B Corporation this year. This certification takes into account various criteria such as the salary gap within the company, the environmental impact of the company’s activities and employee well-being. In line with this approach, WTTJ implemented several changes within its operation, such as the 4-day week for all its teams.
• Evaneos #ecotourism: the company has built and ethical tourism model since day 1. It maximises local economic benefits and selects agencies that respect their natural environment.
• Shippeo #GHGreduction: Shippeo is working on the design of GHG emission calculation modules by truck fleets, the first step towards leading a strategy to limit these emissions by their customers.
• Singulart #artforall: the company is aiming to bring more transparency and fairness to the art market. In 2019, Singulart published its impact report where it reaffirmed its values and commitments: equal gender representation (gender-diverse founding team, 44% of income from female artists), diversity, the possibility for its employees to allocate 2 days of work a year to volunteering, etc.
• OpenClassrooms #equalpay: OpenClassrooms has already closed the gender pay gap and has set itself the objective of achieving the same score at all hierarchical levels (individual contributors, managers, C-suite, board). The company has carried out significant sourcing work, particularly for the tech team and for managerial positions. OpenClassrooms notes that promoting gender equality at its workplace has helped it attract new talent (particularly women).

“Like all topics related to diversity and inclusion, if we don’t express it and discuss it at the ExCom and CEO level, things will not change. Everyone understood that it was important for us, so we’re making progress”. Pierre Dubuc, CEO of OpenClassrooms.

We are convinced that everyone can, at their level, act and influence others. The Parental Act sparked strong rallying among the tech community which helped shift the law towards gender equality. It is a fine example of how startups can be a driving force and wield true power in society.

Do you have an ambitious startup project or want to share good practices on social responsibility? Please contact us at Digitalventure@bpifrance.fr