The Urbantech Investor Playbook: 25 experts share their best practices
Forward thinking investors increasingly prioritize investing in underserved sectors of the economy and in startups with what some call ‘unfair advantages’ — such as an exceptionally-positioned founding team, product insight, or early start in-market.
Urbanization and climate action have created a unique opportunity to combine top tier financial return goals with outsized public benefits. But the best opportunities often exist across multiple traditional sectors.
Fleshing out an investable strategy prompts multiple questions. If you’re investing in the electrification of transportation, do you focus on the energy sector, automotive, or even real estate? Or if you’re investing in resilience, do you invest in local government first responders, private insurance or construction firms?
A playbook
Our investment experience over the last few years, and the increasing interest from other investors, have prompted us to surface our best practices and compare notes with leading impact investors. The result, which today we’re excited to announce, is the Urbantech Investor Playbook. Urbantech describes startup technology companies that directly improve city life and cities’ sustainability through unusual strategies and insights that many investors consider unfair advantages.
The Urbantech Investor Playbook compiles best practices from over 25 Limited Partners (LPs), — from impact funds, foundations, and family offices, — as well as direct investors like venture capitalists, wealth management firms, accelerators, incubators, and more. We particularly thank the following contributors:
Ben Zachs, Zachs Family Investment Fund
Charlie Macdonald, Impact Investment Group
Chintan Panchal, RPCK
Colin Le Duc, Generation IM
Dan Luscher, ADAP Capital
Ellen Martin, Closed Loop Partners
Ian Adams, Clean Energy Trust
Jesse Simmons, Align Impact
Jo Fackler, Impact Management Project
Justin Motika, Advantage Capital
Karla Mora, Alante Capital
Kathryn Petit, The Urban Institute
Lisa Sebesta, Fresh Source Capital
María Puch Herreros de Tejada, New Ventures
Mathilde Beniflah, Beyond Capital
Mike Belinsky, Bridgespan Group
Mike Winterfeld, Active Impact Investments
Randy Castleman, Direct Investment Resources
Richard Ambrose, Pomona Impact
Rob Eloff, Lateral Capital, https://www.latcap.co/
Sarah Freeman, Bridges Fund Management
Shuaib Siddiqui, Surdna Foundation
Vineet Diwadkar, AECOM
What it covers
To make this playbook, we asked investors to share industry-tested best practices on how to improve deal access, evaluate opportunities, and accelerate investment decisions in urbantech startups and investment managers. Specific topics we cover include:
- Sectors of the urbantech landscape
- Finding and accessing the best opportunities
- Understanding emerging technologies
- Scaling social benefits
- Choosing appropriate success metrics
- What makes a good urbantech LP
Urban Us is indebted to our friends and colleagues’ wisdom, and expect others will find the content as valuable as we do. You can access the full Urbantech Investor’s Playbook here, and we look forward to hearing your feedback and thoughts.
