2024 sees our second foray into the world of ESG reporting at Kfund, gathering data on ourselves as a fund and on our portfolio, to better understand what we’re doing well, what we’re doing less well, and where we can improve in the future.
Last year’s report saw us attempt this for the first time, with mixed results. While it was valuable to begin the exercise, we found that there was little awareness of the realities of ESG reporting (across demographics, governance factors and climate considerations) from our (largely early-stage) portfolio companies, as well as limited value in the data without the capacity to compare and contrast over time.
This year we’ve built on what we achieved with the first edition, using a more sophisticated set of tools (such as the VC-focused Kara platform) to analyse our own activities and those of our portfolio, and are beginning to see some of the value of comparability in the data.
In this time we’ve seen a relevant increase in funds under management within Kfund, launched two new funds (with two more in the works), and notably improved the ethnic and gender diversity of our team - something we continue to be proud of.
In terms of funds under management, we’ve increased to €583m from €429m, adding Kfund 3 (€70m) and Kfounders (€10m), as well as closing the Leadwind fund at €235m.
We also improved female representation in the team (by nearly 10% to 43% female), bringing in Nadhila Wardhana, Celia Buendia, Maria Recalde, and Maria de Medrano, as well as Miguel Elizondo, before we count Jonathan Sousa as a Venture Partner and Juanjo Mostazo converting from Venture Partner to CTO.
Excluding the Venture Partners, this brings us to 22 people across 6 locations speaking 10 languages, with over 130 years combined experience in the sector.
We added 13 portfolio companies across Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A and Series B, increasing our presence in Latin America with our first three investments, and doubling down on the earliest stages across Europe with 10 pre-seed deals (most of which are yet to be announced).
And in terms of our operations, we are pleased to remain on track towards a 50:50 gender split in the team by 2026, as well as aiming to be a Net Zero organisation by 2030, offsetting 100% of our team travel and switching key suppliers (paper, coffee capsules, cleaning supplies etc.) to recyclable alternatives.
In 2023 we kicked off a new initiative - building relationships with universities and business schools in Spain. This has been in an effort to bring us closer to talent and potential founders in the ecosystem, as well as spread the word about tech and start-ups to students of all backgrounds as they look towards choosing a career path.
Since our founding in 2016, we've supported founders numerous startups emerging from Spain’s top schools - ESADE, CUNEF, UPF, UC3M, IE, ICADE - all of which we have visited in the last year to share insights on Kfund and the industry, answer students’ questions, and bring in portfolio companies and LPs for their insights too.
From these talks we’ve found that the ambition and talent among students in the tech sector is impressive, with even the youngest students displaying strong knowledge of market trends. This said, we observe the need to promote more women in the sector, and initiatives such as this one can help spread the word to a more diverse audience in schools.
Along with this, we’re proud launch partners for baby vc in Iberia - the non-profit program that helps upcoming junior VCs break into the sector through a bootcamp full of masterclasses with the most relevant investors in the geography, mentorship sessions and investment challenges. Well done to Silvia and Jorge from the team on getting these two initiatives going!
2023 was a year of maturation in our thesis building regarding climate tech. Coming from the perspective of traditional B2B SaaS investors, and with only a handful of climate companies in the past + present portfolio (Trebellar, iF Returns, BCome, Lucera and one TBA deal) building our understanding and expertise across such a broad macro-trend has taken time.
We’ve loved getting to grips with everything from grid flexibility to climate resilience insurance, and have broadened our expertise writing on topics across climate fintech (a macro- category that covers the convergence points between financial services, financial technologies, and solutions focused on climate change), the future of the grid, solar in Spain and the Spanish Climate Tech Ecosystem.
We are also founding partners in the successful Climate Coffee, a fast-growing (+750 member) network of climate enthusiasts who meet monthly in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, and soon to be Berlin to network, share ideas and create opportunities. Other partners include Techstars Sustainability Paris, Founders Future, Ship2B Ventures, Climatize, MadBlue and more TBA.
And lastly, we're very excited to be working with the exceptional Kira Ventures team on a new project focusing on early stage climate infrastructure across Southern Europe - more info on this coming very shortly!
This year we received data from 30 companies, covering 2887 employees (85 avg. per co), 69 total founders (2.3 per company), 66% of which were in Spain, with the next biggest concentration in the US (17%) then Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Singapore and Belgium (3% each). This broke down 13% pre-seed, 45% seed, 25% Series A, 14% Series B and 3% Series C reflecting our investing focus and maturing portfolio.
In terms of environmental factors, we found 0% of companies are measuring their footprint internally, and that 98% of emissions captured in the survey were Scope 3 - coming primarily from travel, accommodation, food, software, hosting and professional services.
This reflects the fact ~80% of our portfolio are B2B SaaS companies with minimal Scope 1 or 2 activities, but also the complexity in changing emissions with the core causes so abstracted from the businesses themselves.
We also saw that 24% of our companies now have environmental policies, and 7% are setting climate strategies at Board level - something to be worked upon in the next year to increase these numbers.
At a social level, our founder gender split charts directly in line with the European tech average (15%), with 77% identifying as male, and 8% not reporting this data. From an ethnicity perspective, 67% of all founders identify as White/European, 21% Hispanic/Latino, 8% not reporting and 4% East Asian.
The gender pay gap across the portfolio was noted with men earning an avg. €414 more than their female counterparts across 30 companies, likely again skewed by prevalence of male founders and men in the C-Suite - something we wish to push towards equality in the coming years.
And regarding governance, we were pleased to note 73% of our portfolio companies have a Board of Directors in place (with those lacking skewing towards 1-5 person companies), and of these 96 total Board Members, 44% being founders, 40% being investors and 11% being independents.
As a management company we are pleased with our own progress this year: offsetting travel, actively working to make our office carbon neutral, focusing on gender and ethnic diversity as we continue to grow our team, diving deeper into climate tech, and ensuring good governance practices across all of our funds. However, these things are straightforward for a small team in a services industry, and the important work to be done is alongside our portfolio companies in the coming years.
We are proud of our portfolio for committing to the ESG reporting this year, although again see considerable work to be done to improve actions across environmental, social and governance considerations. In the former we want companies to focus on beginning to track their emissions, while the latter two are more around ensuring good governance and robust policies, much of which can be shared between organisations to expedite positive action.
As always, we extend our deepest gratitude to everyone involved in creating this report. Any questions? Get in touch and, If you’d like to receive this content directly in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.
2024 sees our second foray into the world of ESG reporting at Kfund, gathering data on ourselves as a fund and on our portfolio, to better understand what we’re doing well, what we’re doing less well, and where we can improve in the future.
Last year’s report saw us attempt this for the first time, with mixed results. While it was valuable to begin the exercise, we found that there was little awareness of the realities of ESG reporting (across demographics, governance factors and climate considerations) from our (largely early-stage) portfolio companies, as well as limited value in the data without the capacity to compare and contrast over time.
This year we’ve built on what we achieved with the first edition, using a more sophisticated set of tools (such as the VC-focused Kara platform) to analyse our own activities and those of our portfolio, and are beginning to see some of the value of comparability in the data.
In this time we’ve seen a relevant increase in funds under management within Kfund, launched two new funds (with two more in the works), and notably improved the ethnic and gender diversity of our team - something we continue to be proud of.
In terms of funds under management, we’ve increased to €583m from €429m, adding Kfund 3 (€70m) and Kfounders (€10m), as well as closing the Leadwind fund at €235m.
We also improved female representation in the team (by nearly 10% to 43% female), bringing in Nadhila Wardhana, Celia Buendia, Maria Recalde, and Maria de Medrano, as well as Miguel Elizondo, before we count Jonathan Sousa as a Venture Partner and Juanjo Mostazo converting from Venture Partner to CTO.
Excluding the Venture Partners, this brings us to 22 people across 6 locations speaking 10 languages, with over 130 years combined experience in the sector.
We added 13 portfolio companies across Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A and Series B, increasing our presence in Latin America with our first three investments, and doubling down on the earliest stages across Europe with 10 pre-seed deals (most of which are yet to be announced).
And in terms of our operations, we are pleased to remain on track towards a 50:50 gender split in the team by 2026, as well as aiming to be a Net Zero organisation by 2030, offsetting 100% of our team travel and switching key suppliers (paper, coffee capsules, cleaning supplies etc.) to recyclable alternatives.
In 2023 we kicked off a new initiative - building relationships with universities and business schools in Spain. This has been in an effort to bring us closer to talent and potential founders in the ecosystem, as well as spread the word about tech and start-ups to students of all backgrounds as they look towards choosing a career path.
Since our founding in 2016, we've supported founders numerous startups emerging from Spain’s top schools - ESADE, CUNEF, UPF, UC3M, IE, ICADE - all of which we have visited in the last year to share insights on Kfund and the industry, answer students’ questions, and bring in portfolio companies and LPs for their insights too.
From these talks we’ve found that the ambition and talent among students in the tech sector is impressive, with even the youngest students displaying strong knowledge of market trends. This said, we observe the need to promote more women in the sector, and initiatives such as this one can help spread the word to a more diverse audience in schools.
Along with this, we’re proud launch partners for baby vc in Iberia - the non-profit program that helps upcoming junior VCs break into the sector through a bootcamp full of masterclasses with the most relevant investors in the geography, mentorship sessions and investment challenges. Well done to Silvia and Jorge from the team on getting these two initiatives going!
2023 was a year of maturation in our thesis building regarding climate tech. Coming from the perspective of traditional B2B SaaS investors, and with only a handful of climate companies in the past + present portfolio (Trebellar, iF Returns, BCome, Lucera and one TBA deal) building our understanding and expertise across such a broad macro-trend has taken time.
We’ve loved getting to grips with everything from grid flexibility to climate resilience insurance, and have broadened our expertise writing on topics across climate fintech (a macro- category that covers the convergence points between financial services, financial technologies, and solutions focused on climate change), the future of the grid, solar in Spain and the Spanish Climate Tech Ecosystem.
We are also founding partners in the successful Climate Coffee, a fast-growing (+750 member) network of climate enthusiasts who meet monthly in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, and soon to be Berlin to network, share ideas and create opportunities. Other partners include Techstars Sustainability Paris, Founders Future, Ship2B Ventures, Climatize, MadBlue and more TBA.
And lastly, we're very excited to be working with the exceptional Kira Ventures team on a new project focusing on early stage climate infrastructure across Southern Europe - more info on this coming very shortly!
This year we received data from 30 companies, covering 2887 employees (85 avg. per co), 69 total founders (2.3 per company), 66% of which were in Spain, with the next biggest concentration in the US (17%) then Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Singapore and Belgium (3% each). This broke down 13% pre-seed, 45% seed, 25% Series A, 14% Series B and 3% Series C reflecting our investing focus and maturing portfolio.
In terms of environmental factors, we found 0% of companies are measuring their footprint internally, and that 98% of emissions captured in the survey were Scope 3 - coming primarily from travel, accommodation, food, software, hosting and professional services.
This reflects the fact ~80% of our portfolio are B2B SaaS companies with minimal Scope 1 or 2 activities, but also the complexity in changing emissions with the core causes so abstracted from the businesses themselves.
We also saw that 24% of our companies now have environmental policies, and 7% are setting climate strategies at Board level - something to be worked upon in the next year to increase these numbers.
At a social level, our founder gender split charts directly in line with the European tech average (15%), with 77% identifying as male, and 8% not reporting this data. From an ethnicity perspective, 67% of all founders identify as White/European, 21% Hispanic/Latino, 8% not reporting and 4% East Asian.
The gender pay gap across the portfolio was noted with men earning an avg. €414 more than their female counterparts across 30 companies, likely again skewed by prevalence of male founders and men in the C-Suite - something we wish to push towards equality in the coming years.
And regarding governance, we were pleased to note 73% of our portfolio companies have a Board of Directors in place (with those lacking skewing towards 1-5 person companies), and of these 96 total Board Members, 44% being founders, 40% being investors and 11% being independents.
As a management company we are pleased with our own progress this year: offsetting travel, actively working to make our office carbon neutral, focusing on gender and ethnic diversity as we continue to grow our team, diving deeper into climate tech, and ensuring good governance practices across all of our funds. However, these things are straightforward for a small team in a services industry, and the important work to be done is alongside our portfolio companies in the coming years.
We are proud of our portfolio for committing to the ESG reporting this year, although again see considerable work to be done to improve actions across environmental, social and governance considerations. In the former we want companies to focus on beginning to track their emissions, while the latter two are more around ensuring good governance and robust policies, much of which can be shared between organisations to expedite positive action.
As always, we extend our deepest gratitude to everyone involved in creating this report. Any questions? Get in touch and, If you’d like to receive this content directly in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.
