At Maveron, we believe business should be a force for good. From our inception, we have been humbly and intentionally building a firm that believes, to its core, that consumer companies can shape the zeitgeist and values of the future.
Today, on the 23rd anniversary of our founding, we take a big step forward in announcing our certification as a B Corp. Certified B Corporations™ are for-profit companies that use the power of business to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy. “We sought to imprint a deep sense of humility, intentionality and responsibility into the fabric of Maveron from its earliest days. Twenty three years later, I am incredibly proud the firm is staying true to its founding values and guiding principles by becoming a certified B Corp,” said Howard Schultz, Maveron’s co-founder and former CEO and Chairman Emeritus of Starbucks.
In order to qualify, a company must meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Maveron now proudly joins 4,000 other B Corps around the world — including portfolio companies Allbirds and Lovevery — on this admirable list.
Why Becoming a B Corp Matters to Us
As employers, we recognize that our people are our greatest assets. Our goal is to hire, retain, and foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive team at all levels of the organization. Who we hire, how we train, how we cultivate culture — it’s not an afterthought. It’s a strategy. As a consumer fund, we are acutely aware of the disproportionate spending power and influence that women hold, and of the tremendous demographic shifts that are leading to a far more diverse consumer base. For the past 20 years, our team has always included female partners with check-writing capability. Our current investment team of seven has diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and viewpoints. It’s not just the right thing to do; by building an equitable and inclusive team, we believe we have an edge in the venture ecosystem.
As investors, we seek to partner with audaciously ambitious individuals who obsess over improving the lives of consumers every single day. While not every company we invest in has a core mission to mitigate or solve a social or environmental problem, we evaluate every company on its potential to make a positive change in the world. The decisions we make today are influenced by considering the impact it may have in the future. Often, we are looking at how technology and consumer centricity are disrupting antiquated industries — whether it’s real estate (Pacaso, Common), energy (Booster), fintech (Flywire, Otis), education (General Assembly, CourseHero), food (Imperfect, Daring) or health care (ThirtyMadison, Modern Fertility, Two Chairs, AllStripes). We look for teams that aspire to shape our culture, our values, and the way we live.
With our very first investment in 1998 into eBay, we’ve seen firsthand how revolutionary consumer companies can impact the world for the better. Since then, Profit + Purpose has become one of our core values at Maveron. So in addition to the heightened responsibility we take as employers and investors, we will be donating a portion of our carried interest profits to causes we care about, beginning with social justice. Our goal is to increase the dollars we donate year after year.
Today, only a handful of venture capital firms and a small fraction of venture-backed companies are B-Corp certified. We hope to use our own B Corp certification to evangelize its benefit and help catalyze B Corps to grow exponentially in the years ahead. We’re excited to continue partnering with founders who understand the weight of their power, and who aim to shape the future — for good.
