Ecologi, Chapter 2

At Ecologi we’re often reaching for the celebration klaxon for our community’s impact milestones, but it’s a little different this time around.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve taken on £4m ($5.7m) of investment led by General Catalyst to follow our dreams and grow Ecologi to the scale needed to take on climate change in a significant way.

General Catalyst has a knack for turning their investments into household names: AirBnB, Deliveroo, Snapchat, Stripe, and Monzo to name just a few.

We know there’s room for the Spotify of Sustainability being constantly in people’s pockets, giving businesses and individuals their daily dose of climate action, building constant behaviour change and carbon reduction. And it’s with the resources of a leading investor that we can make this a reality, in a timeframe suitable for turning the proverbial Titanic around and reversing climate change over the critical decade ahead.

We know there’s room for the Spotify of Sustainability, and it’s with the resources of a leading investor that we can make this a reality, in a timeframe suitable for turning the proverbial Titanic around and reversing climate change over the critical decade ahead.

Before we started Ecologi, the idea was that we’d be set up as a non-profit organisation. Our mission is altruistic and that model aligns with our vision. As half of the world’s emissions have happened within the lifetime of a 30-year-old, there isn’t the luxury of time to grow traditionally through donations and slower ‘organic growth’. But, it didn’t take long to understand that to achieve Spotify-level scale, then you need Spotify-level capital to fulfil our potential impact.

It’s not just a sum of money that we were looking for, but a partner who wholly understands the delicate conditions which Ecologi needs to thrive: putting the planet first; complete transparency; keeping operational costs minimal; and staying ethical (see our decision to withdraw from TechNation).

Amongst 50 or so investors we spoke to, it was General Catalyst who fully understood this ethical tightrope with our long term plans to raise the bar on what it means to be a social enterprise. They gave examples of supporting one of their investments to donate over eight million prescription glasses; they set up a non-profit fund for their own excess profits from an ethical company; also they understood that the future of Ecologi should be part-owned by our community via crowdfunding — an exciting development to own a stake in Ecologi and our planet too (more details at the end of this post).

As we approach our 2nd birthday, we enter a new chapter with Ecologi that will be characterised with scale. Up to now, everything has been done on the tightest of budgets with our wonderful but tiny team. We look forward to progressing our climate impact exponentially as we race towards our target to reduce 50% of global emissions by 2040.

There is plenty we have in store. We want to actually show you the impact you’re making through storytelling and technology. We want to support projects that rewild our planet and fund innovative carbon removal technology. We want to show you your carbon footprint in real-time. We want to make good on the opportunity that can come out of rounding up the world’s pocket money and putting it into the world’s most impactful climate solutions.

Now we can, so no excuses! Let’s grow. 🌿

From Elliot, Lucy, Alex and the team here: thank you for your part in supporting this ray of climate hope 💚

We showed a draft of this announcement to a few of our Ecologi subscribers and friendly critics and asked them what questions they had:

Will we still operate Ecologi as we have done?

Absolutely yes.

If we are to be massively successful in our objectives it’s because we took onboard everything that you needed us to be.

Is the source of the investment from profits of fossil fuel or high carbon industries?

No. It’s from a combination of pension funds that make investments in technology, and previous technology company profits.

What will you spend the investment on?

Now’s the time to scale up our teams to enhance the platform, grow our climate projects procurement and reporting team, and expand our marketing and partnership teams. We’ll be a company of 40–60 people over the next 12 months.

The investment will also allow us to buy larger quantities of certified carbon offsets and tree purchases upfront meaning we can plan better, get access to some projects we’d otherwise not be able to, and sometimes access better prices.

Some of the existing staff will be now paid the going rate for their level of expertise. None of the investment is to go on bonuses or dividends.

What is the investor expecting in return?

They will be looking to make a return on their investment, multiple times the amount they put in. And this is something that we can accomodate and be entirely compatible with our journey.

At some point in our future we’ll expect to come to the end of investment rounds and have a few options to suit us: be acquired and taken under the wing of a major future sustainability company; float on the stock market and be publicly owned; or even Ecologi makes their own investments in early-stage climate projects which yield their own returns. It’s far too early to say which financing route will come into effect but be assured that it’ll be a decision made with our mission in mind.

Investors will be expecting no dividends during this journey as any profits are to be reinvested back into the company.

How is Ecologi going to stay ethical?

As we grow, we will have the resources to upgrade our transparency docs and be a lot more verbose about what we’re up to. A quick run-through of what’s coming up:

• In the queue to be B Corp certified, all prep governance work is complete;
• A bonafide social enterprise with mission locked into our company documents;
• Increased detail on our quarterly financial reports such as director salary info;
• Regular “our door is always open”-style drop-in to chat with Elliot, the CEO, over Zoom;
• Lifting the lid on what we’re up to with a “Building Ecologi” blog series.

Every person on the team and now investors included knows that we have our hearts fully set on creating a company that reimagines what it is to be a social enterprise.

It’s going to take some doing, and bear with us as we get there. But please drop us a line on how we’re doing, as well maybe subscribe to our new Building Ecologi series where we’ll talk about our plans out in the open and welcome your thoughts.

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And finally, we’re thinking of running a crowdfunding campaign later this year. We’d love to ask you five questions that should take less than a minute to answer.