City Light is a venture capital firm that invests early in impactful companies. They partner with experienced teams building category-defining solutions in the areas of education, safety and care, and the environment - where more revenue equals better lives at scale, every time. As one of the earliest and most successful impacts investing firms, City Light has a track record of identifying and scaling impact in ways that build better companies.  The firm was founded in 2004 and is based in New York, New York. Some of its key portfolio investments are 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU), ShotSpotter (Nasdaq: SSTI), Trilogy Education, and Ready Responders.

City Light Capital

Vectors Angel is a community of impact investors helping startups to address global challenges. Its focus areas include sustainability, health and wellness, and empowerment.

Vectors Angel

VoLo Earth faces the climate crisis head-on by providing comprehensive, first-in funding and hands-on leadership to grow, propagate, and capitalize on climate solutions. Its deep industry knowledge and impact-driven methodology provide outsized investment potential and quantifiable carbon benefits.

VoLo Earth Ventures

Ulu Ventures is a leading seed-stage venture fund in Silicon Valley investing in diverse entrepreneurial teams as well as Enterprise IT, EdTech, FinTech, Healthcare, and Sustainability startups.  Ulu is the first Latina-led venture fund in Silicon Valley and is one of the largest in the country with over $200M in assets under management. As well, the firm has designed its investment process to reduce risk and produce better, more consistent returns. Ulu’s process structures intuition and applies it intelligently to investments, avoiding cognitive biases common in VC; systematically identifies key drivers of risk and uncertainty, streamlining due diligence; and calculates a probability-weighted multiple(PWM) on invested capital, ensuring consistent decision-making.

Ulu Ventures

Industrious Ventures invests in founders and teams that transform industries by reconstructing how their respective value chains work.

Industrious Ventures

Early stage climate tech VC decarbonizing the natural resources, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.

Nomadic Venture Partners

Vista Verde Group is a private investment firm that consciously avoids the constraints and cycles of a traditional fund.

Vista Verde Group

Energize Capital is a global alternative investment manager focused on accelerating digital transformation in energy and sustainability. Founded in 2016, Energize has funded 21 companies to date and is backed by strategic and institutional LPs including CDPQ, Invenergy, Schneider Electric, General Electric, Caterpillar, and more. With an unmatched depth and breadth of industry and operational expertise, Energize works in partnership with its portfolio companies to realize their full potential from early commercialization to growth scaling and into the public markets.

Energize Capital

Elemental fills two gaps that are fundamental to tackling climate change: funding first-of-a-kind projects for climate technologies in real communities, and embedding equity and access into climate solutions.

Elemental Excelerator

SE Ventures (SEV) is a global venture capital fund backed by Schneider Electric. SE Ventures invests in big ideas and bold entrepreneurs who can benefit from Schneider’s deep domain expertise and global customer reach. SE Ventures has been acting as a strategic commercial accelerant for category-defining companies in energy, mobility, prop-tech, cybersecurity and industrial automation.

SE Ventures

Banyan Infrastructure

Banyan Infrastructure is a project finance software platform designed to simplify, accelerate, and optimize sustainable infrastructure financing across the deal life cycle. Our solution oversees and automates the complex and time-consuming processes in the origination, portfolio, and compliance management of sustainable assets, which boosts profits per investment, increases deal velocity, and saves thousands of hours at every stage. Visit banyaninfrastructure.com or follow us on LinkedIn for more information.

Banyan Infrastructure provides a purpose-built project finance software designed to simplify, accelerate, and optimize the financing of sustainable infrastructure across the deal lifecycle. The company's platform enables banks, financiers, and developers to automate and track complex project finance transactions with a unified risk and data management system. Banyan's software replaces spreadsheets, emails, and varied documents with digitized loans and workflows, automating data ingestion, risk monitoring, and contractual compliance for each loan.

Banyan Infrastructure — Uptake Alliance

Banyan Secures $25M Series B to Streamline Sustainable Project Financing

Banyan Infrastructure Announces $25 million in Series B Funding to Accelerate Sustainable Financing Software Platform

Dakota Ridge Capital

Banyan wants to unlock financing for a (more) sustainable future

Banyan Infrastructure adds $25M to accelerate sustainable financing software platform

Distributed generation finance platform raises $25 million

Banyan Infrastructure Raises $25M in Series B Funding

Embedding environmental, social, and corporate governance factors into investments

Sustainable Finance

Banyan Infrastructure on LinkedIn: #sfclimateweek #sfcw #climatetech #cleantech #projectfinance

Banyan Infrastructure provides a purpose-built project finance software designed to simplify, accelerate, and optimize the financing of sustainable infrastructure across the deal lifecycle. The company's platform enables banks, financiers, and developers to automate and track complex project finance transactions with a unified risk and data management system. Banyan's software replaces spreadsheets, emails, and varied documents with digitized loans and workflows, automating data ingestion, risk monitoring, and contractual compliance for each loan.
Banyan's technology aims to address the critical pain points in sustainable project financing, which has traditionally been hampered by manual and inefficient processes. By streamlining the financing process, Banyan aims to unlock capital for renewable infrastructure, enabling its customers to rapidly grow their sustainable infrastructure portfolios and achieve net-zero targets.
The company has experienced significant growth, with a 700% year-over-year increase in the past year. In March 2023, Banyan secured a USD 25 million Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to over USD 42 million. The funding will be used to expand the company's headcount and further develop its proprietary software.
Banyan's customers include NY Green Bank, a USD 1 billion sustainable infrastructure investment fund, Standard Solar, and SMBC. As of 2024, the company is enabling billions of sustainable infrastructure investments across seven countries and thousands of projects.

Starling Bank is a digital, mobile-only bank based in the UK, offering personal and business accounts. Founded in 2014 by former Allied Irish Banks COO Anne Boden, Starling received its banking license from regulators in July 2016. The bank operates without any physical branches and provides services entirely through its mobile app.
Starling offers various personal account options, including current accounts, joint accounts, euro accounts, and teen accounts. Its multi-currency feature allows customers to hold, send, and receive euros for free, with a 0.4% conversion fee for foreign transactions. The app provides real-time spending insights, categorized expenses, budgeting tools, and the ability to set aside money in "Virtual Change Jars." Customers can also apply for overdrafts and loans through the app.
For businesses, Starling offers digital business accounts with powerful money management tools, invoicing, tax assessment, and integration with accounting software. Businesses can also hold and transact in euros and US dollars through dedicated currency accounts.
Starling facilitates international money transfers to 36 countries in 20 currencies, with competitive exchange rates and fees. Customers can opt for direct SWIFT bank-to-bank transfers for a flat fee of GBP 5.50.
In May 2023, Starling Bank reported a record pre-tax profit of GBP 195 million, a sixfold increase from the previous year. Anne Boden stepped down as CEO but remains a non-executive director and shareholder.

Starling Bank

Aspiration is a fintech company that offers a suite of green financial services products aimed at empowering individuals and businesses to combat climate change through their everyday spending and saving activities. The company provides sustainable checking and savings accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts that are fossil fuel-free and enable customers to track their personal sustainability scores.
Aspiration's key product is the Aspiration Spend & Save account, which offers a competitive 3.00% annual percentage yield (APY) on balances up to USD 10,000 as of October 2022. This cash management account comes with a debit card, mobile check deposit, bill pay, and up to USD 2 million in FDIC insurance coverage. Aspiration also has the Redwood Fund and Redwood IRA, investment products focused on sustainable companies committed to ethnic diversity, gender diversity, ethical practices, and addressing climate change.
In April 2024, Aspiration's consumer financial services brand was spun off as a separate company called Mission Financial Partners, led by CEO Tim Newell. This move allowed Aspiration to concentrate on serving businesses through its carbon credit offerings while Mission Financial Partners focused on expanding its suite of climate-friendly consumer products like banking, credit, lending, investment, and insurance solutions. A key aspect of Aspiration's approach is planting trees, with the company claiming to have supported the planting of over 100 million trees as of April 2024.

Aspiration

Classy is a cloud-based fundraising platform offering a comprehensive suite of tools to help nonprofits create engaging online donation experiences and manage fundraising campaigns effectively. Its key features include customizable donation pages, peer-to-peer fundraising capabilities, crowdfunding campaigns, event ticketing, and integration with popular CRM systems like Salesforce.
Classy's platform provides nonprofits with the ability to design branded, mobile-responsive donation forms and fundraising pages. Organizations can accept one-time and recurring donations, as well as process payments through multiple gateways, including PayPal, Venmo, and credit cards. The platform's peer-to-peer fundraising tools empower supporters to create personal fundraising pages and share them across social media platforms, fostering a sense of community and friendly competition through features like fundraising leaderboards and team fundraising goals.
For events, Classy offers event registration, ticketing, and attendee management functionalities, streamlining the process of organizing and promoting fundraising events. The platform also supports crowdfunding campaigns, enabling nonprofits to tap into this popular form of online giving.
Classy's pricing model consists of an annual subscription fee and transaction fees for each donation processed through the platform. As of May 2024, the transaction fees stand at 2.4% + USD 0.30 for credit cards and 2.5% + USD 0.30 for PayPal/Venmo.
Key customers and partnerships
Classy has been widely adopted by nonprofits of various sizes and causes, facilitating the raising of tens of thousands of dollars for their missions. The platform has garnered praise for its user-friendly interface, robust features, and seamless integration capabilities with popular tools like Salesforce and Facebook.
Classy's partnership with Facebook has been particularly noteworthy, enabling nonprofits to leverage the social media platform's reach for peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. This integration has streamlined the process for volunteers and supporters to raise funds on behalf of the organizations they support.

Classy

Tandem Bank is a digital challenger bank based in the UK, focused on providing environmentally-friendly financial products and services. The bank aims to help customers reduce their carbon footprint while offering competitive savings accounts, mortgages, personal loans, and home improvement financing options.
Tandem utilizes open banking technology to securely connect with customers' existing bank accounts, allowing seamless transfers into their Tandem savings accounts. The bank offers instant access savings accounts with variable interest rates up to 4.90% AER as of April 2024, as well as fixed-term savings accounts ranging from one to three years with interest rates up to 5.07% AER.
In addition to savings products, Tandem provides residential and buy-to-let mortgages, with discounts for energy-efficient properties based on their EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) ratings. The bank also offers personal loans, home loans for expenses like renovations or debt consolidation, and motor finance for used vehicles through approved dealerships.
Tandem's "Green Lending" initiatives allocate a portion of customer deposits toward financing eco-friendly home improvements such as solar panel installations and energy-efficient window replacements. In 2023, the bank facilitated over GBP 523 million in green home improvement lending, contributing to the avoidance of 74,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
In January 2022, Tandem acquired the consumer lender Oplo, further expanding its product offerings and solidifying its position as a "fairer, greener digital bank" in the UK market. The bank discontinued its automatic savings features in January 2021 to concentrate on developing its green banking strategy.

Tandem

Cushon is a London-based fintech company founded in 2014 that offers workplace savings and investment products, including ISAs, investment accounts, and pensions. Its key offerings include a workplace ISA, master trust pension, junior and lifetime ISAs, and a general investment account. Cushon's products are designed to be simple and user-friendly, with a mobile app that provides a personalized experience and helps engage savers with their financial goals.
Cushon's unique selling point is the "Net Zero Now" pension, launched in January 2021, which is claimed to be the world's first net zero pension. This pension aims to minimize carbon emissions from investments as much as possible and offsets any remaining emissions through carbon offsetting projects. As of April 2022, Cushon had approximately GBP 1.7 billion in assets under management, making it the fifth largest master trust pension provider in the UK. By February 2023, its assets under management had grown to GBP 1.85 billion.
In February 2023, NatWest Group acquired an 85% stake in Cushon for GBP 144 million, with the remaining equity retained by Cushon management. This acquisition allowed NatWest to offer Cushon's workplace savings and pension products to its commercial mid-market customers, enhancing its financial wellbeing services.

Cushon

Digital banks that deploy customer deposits to sustainable uses such as renewable energy projects and social housing.

Offers a platform for individuals and businesses to invest in sustainability-related companies, projects, and investment portfolios.

Solutions that allow investors to obtain sustainability-related information on their portfolios such as real-world impact (water savings, CO2 savings, etc.) and ESG-related compliance.

Companies that provide the digital infrastructure for financial institutions to offer their own sustainable finance products.

AI/ML is used to support robo advisory functions and allocate funds into ESG-based investments

Startups in this hub focus on ESG-related financial services such as sustainable investing

Banyan Infrastructure

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