Startgreen Capital
Investment in data quality for sustainable impact
Laura Rooseboom
Co-founder and Managing Partner
Industry
Private Equity
Product
Sustainable Investment
Region
EMEA
About
Startgreen Capital
StartGreen Capital is one of the largest impact fund managers in the Netherlands. Since 2006, the organization has been working together with impact entrepreneurs to build a sustainable economy, an economy that does not exhaust itself and in which everyone can participate to their full potential. StartGreen uses Worldfavor’s Sustainable Investments solution to simplify sustainability monitoring and streamline reporting.
Challenge
Before Worldfavor, StartGreen’s workload was unmanageable due to manual management of its data as the operations and data points grew, alongside new sustainability laws and regulations like the SFDR.
Solution
StartGreen uses Worldfavor’s Sustainable Investments solution to collect, organize, and deploy sustainability data from portfolio companies, allowing them to transfer the current collections of data and performance metrics between systems, ensuring their reliability and compliance.
Result
By using Worldfavor, StartGreen has seen significant improvements in data quality, enabling precise CO2 calculation and deeper insights into portfolio companies, leading to more accurate and efficient data management.
Challenges
Previously, StartGreen managed its data using Excel files, but with significant growth in operations and data points, alongside new sustainability laws and regulations like the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), their workload became unmanageable. They sought a new solution for collecting, organizing, and deploying sustainability data that would allow them to transfer existing datasets and KPIs, ensuring business continuity. As a sustainable fund manager, maintaining accurate and robust data administration was essential for demonstrating their reliability and compliance.
In their search for the right solution, StartGreen mainly focused on:
The simplicity of moving data into and out of the system as well as the capability for users to input key performance indicators themselves.
How easily the software can connect with and work alongside other software applications by integrations.
The ability to calculate emission factors for environmental impact assessment.
Solution
After reviewing eight potential partners, StartGreen chose Worldfavor and its Sustainable Investments solution, thanks to its adaptability and investor-focused features the company received initial start-up guidance, facilitating a quick learning curve for the platform's intuitive interface. Inven Capital’s investment manager and sustainability lead, Dylan Perales, states that other parties focus on large companies and offer solutions where you as a fund manager cannot collect the data of all your portfolio companies in an orderly manner. Worldfavor offer these features without them immediately needing to embark on a development process.
The transition enabled StartGreen to:
Leverage the ability to import large volumes of data through a web system, enhancing data management efficiency.
Utilize the flexibility to add custom KPIs, ensuring tailored sustainability tracking.
Conducted training sessions and distributed informational documents to aid portfolio company onboarding.
Address onboarding challenges in busy portfolio companies, establishing a foundation for efficient future reporting and time savings.
Result
StartGreen has seen a significant improvement in data quality, notably calculating a precise CO2 prevention figure of 351,150 tons for 2021. This clarity helped identify and correct errors, such as typos and incorrect figures, enhancing the audit process and providing deeper insights into portfolio companies. Additionally, the transition from Excel to Worldfavor has streamlined interactions with portfolio companies. While Excel's limitations previously prevented direct data entry by entrepreneurs, Worldfavor's user-friendly platform now facilitates their active participation in data collection, leading to more accurate and efficient data management.
The Sustainable Investments solution has lead to the following results for StartGreen:
Precisely calculated CO2 prevention of 351,150 tons for 2021.
Identified and corrected data inaccuracies, enhancing overall data quality.
Smoothed the audit process, providing deeper insights into portfolio companies.
Transitioned from Excel to Worldfavor, streamlining data collection and management.
Enabled direct data entry by entrepreneurs, ensuring more accurate data collection.
