Impact Shakers launches its venture fund of €20 million at the intersection of diversity & impact
A catalyst of true change: this is what we set Impact Shakers Ventures up to be. The €20mil fund will invest in early stage startups from across Europe, led by diverse founders in the areas of ClimateTech, Impact Infrastructure and Inclusion Tech. The team of Yonca Braeckman and myself, Alina Klarner, will be allocating capital to diverse impact entrepreneurs who are creating positive change for people and planet at scale, whilst combining positive impact and returns in the process. Built on the principle of “Collaboration is Systems Change”, the fund taps into the power of the pan-European ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, accelerators, academia and other stakeholders that the Impact Shakers team has been building since 2018.
Founder & CEO Yonca Braeckman: “When I started Impact Shakers in 2018, my vision was to build a global impact ecosystem that would tackle societal and environmental challenges and to do this with entrepreneurs from very diverse backgrounds. It became clear pretty quickly that if we wanted to build a more inclusive startup ecosystem, we would need to add capital to the mix. We started with a friends & family instrument and are working our way up the capital ladder with this first impact venture fund.”
General Partner Alina Klarner: “With this, we want Impact Shakers to ignite a profound shift, catalysing 10x in investments into diverse impact founders from the ecosystem. We are on a mission to show everyone what we see within our ecosystem every day — that supporting talent that might not look like the current google search of successful founders will not only create more impact for all, but will also be the most financially rewarding path going forward.”
Supporting this journey are a number of strong, reputable players on the LP side. Impact Shakers Ventures secured the anchor support and investment of the Belgian family office Victrix.
Basile Aloy, CEO Victrix: “At Victrix, we believe in enabling strong teams looking to drive systemic change. We were impressed by the Impact Shakers team, their network and access to dealflow, as well as their ability to catalyse the ecosystem towards positive change. We look forward to collaborating with Yonca and Alina for this fund — and hopefully many more.”
In this fund, we are also supported by a significant number of individual impact leaders in Europe, almost half of whom are women. Compared to the 15–17% of female investors across European LPs, this demonstrates how we have been able to tap into a different group of investors as well as founders, driven by the vision of a more inclusive and sustainable future. Crucial to this vision is the breaking down of barriers between founders and investors and even investors of investors.
“Each of us has a role to play on the path to success and to do this at the highest level of excellence, ideas of hierarchy and competition are simply harmful. Collaboration and vulnerability are key to systems change and will allow us to focus on building the most impactful and successful solutions and less on ego and short-term winning.” says Yonca Braeckman
Impact Shakers Ventures I will invest in a venture-accelerator model, meaning we will select 6–8 startups each year for an initial investment of €150,000, followed by a 6-month impact acceleration programme and the potential for follow-on investments of up to €1,500,000. During the programme and beyond, the startups will benefit from the expertise of the Impact Shakers team, as well as our ecosystem of experts, impact investors and other partners. The programme is built on three main pillars, being impact, inclusion and wellbeing. “Founders are the key factor for success of any early stage startup — we need to look after the founders and make sure they thrive and become the impact leaders the world needs”, says Impact Shakers’ co-founder Diana Pati, who will be leading operations of the accelerator.
The first investment was signed even before the fund closed. Berlin-based start-up Faircado, co-founded by the Belgian Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael, has built an AI-powered browser plug-in that automatically finds the pre-owned products (books, electronics or fashion) searched for online to make second-hand shopping the first choice. In December, the company won the Slush100 pitching competition in Helsinki, one of the world’s most important start-up summits. With a whopping €1,000,000 prize and a large number of European funds interested in providing capital, their funding round was quickly oversubscribed. Faircado’s long-standing relationship with the Impact Shakers team convinced them that reserving a place for ISV I and its ecosystem in their round would be highly beneficial to their rapid development.
“It is an absolute pleasure for us to collaborate with investors who truly share our values and vision. Yonca and Alina are incredible connectors and changemakers, and we are very much looking forward to joining forces!”, says CEO, Evolena de Wilde d’Estmael.
In the coming weeks, we will announce the first group of impact startups that will receive investment and support from Impact Shakers Ventures.
If you share the Impact Shakers vision of investing in diverse profiles tackling the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges you are warmly invited to join our ecosystem and mission and we would love to meet you. The more Impact Shakers, the stronger the revolution!
For more information, contact us on partners@impactshakers.com
Disclaimer: The above article is for informational purposes only.
