Earth Capital

Earth Capital is a ‘Post Seed and Series A’ stage equity impact investor, which scales post revenue, commercially viable venture solutions to social and environmental issues in South Africa.   Earth Capital has emerged in response to a range of socio-economic and environmental mega-trends both in South Africa, Africa and the rest of the planet.

We exist to fill a large funding gap for early stage impact ventures, which are typically too risky or too small in investment size, to be of interest to typical institutional investors in South Africa. In partnership with our sister company, Impact Amplifier, a well established accelerator and advisory firm, our mission is to scale these early stage impact ventures, utilizing a combination of capital and capacity. 

Approach

Earth Capital’s investment approach is to identify and develop entrepreneurs with the potential to be both “commercially scalable and impactful”. Our selection criteria is defined by a broad spectrum of metrics, but there are seven we focus on:

Scalability – How large in the commercial opportunity? And how well positioned are the entrepreneurs to tackle that opportunity? Is there a significant, demonstrable margin in the business?

Traction – Has the business demonstrated it’s ability to access the market, and to what scale?

Social impact – How does the business demonstrate clear social intent, and demonstrate the improvement and well being of the poor in underserved markets?

Equity – How does the business enhance gender and racial equality and inclusivity in terms of skills, responsibility and the distribution of economic benefits?

Environmental preservation – What will be the consequences of the business’ use of energy and water and production of waste?

Transparency/Accountability – Within both its management practices and governance how are the issues of accountability and transparency addressed?

Team – Does the founding team demonstrate the experience and skill set to execute on the business’s strategy, and manage people?

Entrepreneur Wholeness – To what degree are the founders conscious and demonstrate psychological wellbeing in how they live their life?

Earth Capital aims to create a positive impact across multiple socio-economic and environmental dimensions. The approach is both top down, and bottom up. From a top down perspective, Earth Capital has aligned its impact intentions to specific UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) detailed below. From a bottom up perspective, Earth Capital works directly with its ventures pre-investment, to target specific IRIS metrics, which align to the broader SDGs targeted below, as they scale. Earth Capital has equally developed a tool for mitigating / reducing key impact risks, alongside trying to balance the impact and commercial outcomes of the ventures.