Impact report 2016-2017

Impact Report 16 / 17

We question everything, bend the rules, swim against the tide, move mountains, pull, test, tear, we keep on innovating, learning and collaborating to do good business and make the world better.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM

Impact Hub Amsterdam is part of the fast-growing global Impact Hub network of impact entrepreneurs and innovators with more than 16,000 members in over 100 cities around the world.

To make change happen, we facilitate entrepreneurial solutions to society’s biggest challenges. We give you access to a valuable network, as well as business expertise, resources and capital, organise events, host a collaborative working space, and run a series of accelerator programs. We provide almost everything to move your entrepreneurial initiatives for a better world forward.

From our home at KIT - the Royal Tropical Institute - we welcome 10,000 guests, host more than 250 impact events and accelerate more than 150 enterprises each year. Since 2008, we’ve helped more than a thousand entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale their impact business.

If you want to change the status quo and business as usual, join our unique impact ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, organisations, techies and creative minds who are committed to build a more just and sustainable world.

WE WORK TO ACHIEVE THE SDG s

Implementing the SDGs could create more than US$12 trillion of business value annually and generate almost 380 million jobs by 2030.

– Business and Sustainable Development Commission, 2017

In September 2015, 193 countries unanimously adopted the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which make up an ambitious

Business as usual can’t continue and the SDGs provide us with a road map for solving challenges ranging from widespread poverty and rising inequalities to environmental degradation and climate change.

In addition to the SDGs, we are also inspired by the work of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative. We believe that by looking at the interlinkages between the SDGs, we have the opportunity to make more impact than by tackling each goal individually. For this reason we identified 6 impact areas - each of them covering multiple goals - to focus on >>

1 New economy & responsible consumption

2 Peace, governance & education

3 Social inclusion & urban solutions

4 Energy, mobility & infrastructure

5 Health & lifestyle

6 Ecosystems, natural capital & climate change

Together with our local community and global Impact Hub network, we are fully committed to inspire, support and enable entrepreneurial action towards solving the biggest challenges in all 6 areas.

agenda for social, economic and environmental improvement across the globe.

Entrepreneurs, whether they work in startups, or as intrapreneurs in governments, NGOs and corporations, will be key to creating the innovations and partnerships that will enable us to reach the SDGs.

– Ashoka in Forbes, 2016

RAISING THE BAR

Our guiding principle is to be a resilient impact business that lives its purpose and values. >>

>>

Our guiding principle is to be a resilient impact business that lives its purpose and values. This was tested in the course of the last year and a half, which marked a major transition in our journey as a space, as an organisation and as an agent for social change. As Ishiguro says in The Remains of the Day: “It was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one’s development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one’s ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.” And so here we are, with the lessons of another move, a team grown, a community deepened, a business stretched and an appetite for more systemic impact through our actions and activities. Welcome to 2017, the year of opening new doors.

We kicked off the year by opening our freshly renovated space in the historic building of KIT - the Royal Tropical Institute. We intensified our collaboration with the City of Amsterdam, continuing as an expert to the 2015 - 2018 Social Entrepreneurship Action Program and building a new model for public-private collaboration through the Amsterdam City Fellowship. We exported our community-building expertise to activate and host Fashion for Good’s Circular Apparel Community as an amplification of an impact area several of our members were already influencing. We were invited to further share our expertise and step in as part of the community team at the KIT to co-create and catalyse conditions for collaboration between all these amazing tenants dedicated to advancing the SDGs. We expanded our acceleration programming with corporate partners committed to making their sectors more sustainable through entrepreneurship - with Wessanen for organic food, with Booking. com for sustainable tourism. And we opened doors to new learning together with our members.

How do we scale impact and stay true to our core? How to grow a team and still stay entrepreneurial? How much growth is enough and can we further innovate our business model? These are questions we have asked ourselves and our entrepreneurs ask themselves every day. We grow because our members grow - and continually spur us to become better, and ask better

questions. Thank you to all our members for sharing the conviction that entrepreneurial action can be a vehicle for societal change and that we need an Impact Hub that keeps opening its doors to new partners and possibilities.

At the European Forum Alpbach’s 2017 Political Symposium, 17 leaders from 9 Impact Hubs found themselves in conversation with former heads of state and other leaders of key European and global institutions about the state of the world. “The next 10 years are critical; we should be looking at a time period of 5 to 10 years in terms of turnaround and a scale of change that can shift things.” So we asked ourselves: what should we figure out as a ‘next generation’ of leaders? What can we optimistically pull off when scientific predictions about our planet are so dire? What is it we expect to accomplish through our incessant busy-ness?

And here lies our vision for the near future: a new economy. One in which the commons is more about giving than taking, one in which extractive resources are taxed instead of labour contributing to societal improvement, one in which social capital becomes both an investment in and insurance for an uncertain future, one in which circularity is the ethos of our interventions, one in which time is abundant and trust is the currency, and one in which unlikely allies come together to create value like we haven’t yet seen.

So here’s to our members past, present and future for their perseverance and idealism. May you - and like-hearted partners - always find an open door, a healthy bite, an encouraging friend and a new business opportunity at your Impact Hub.

Thank you to all who have come before us, all who have stood by us and all who are with for us to rise further to the challenge. The future is bright when you’re in a community like this. And we make no apologies for that.

Let’s Hub!

Barbara, Catalina, Eliza, Evan, Evelien, Floor, Frederik, Henrike, Ilse, Krisje, Loes, Milena, Manon, Robert-Niels, Sabrina, Stijn, Tamar, Tatiana & Wieke

It was a full and vibrant year and we want to share a few highlights with you!

1. Studio Roos Meerman

2. The Dutch Weed Burger

3. Yoni

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM MOVES TO KITROYAL TROPICAL INSTITUTE In January 2017, Impact Hub Amsterdam moved into the historic building of KIT - the Royal Tropical Institute. KIT is a knowledge institute for international and intercultural cooperation and focuses on sustainable solutions in the global south.

The KIT building is home to 35 initiatives such as Land Life Company, which restores degraded land worldwide, and B Corporation Europe, which advocates business as a force for good. Impact Hub brings an entrepreneurial community of more than 300 impact makers into KIT’s wider ecosystem, with a view to find and catalyse valuable synergies.

By joining Impact Hub’s entrepreneurial energy with KIT’s 100+ years of experience in international development, we can do more together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, convene courageous conversations, and innovate around systemic challenges.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM HELPS TO BUILD AND ACTIVATE FASHION FOR GOOD’S CIRCULAR APPAREL COMMUNITY (9) In March 2017, Fashion for Good launched as an industry-wide collaboration and global initiative to transform the apparel industry. Established with a grant from founding partner C&A Foundation, Fashion for Good aims to scale fashion innovation and new business models.

To bring together brands, producers, retailers, suppliers, nonprofits and funders, Fashion for Good inhabits a historic building in the heart of Amsterdam for its Circular Apparel Community, hosted and activated by Impact Hub Amsterdam.

“To achieve systemic change in this industry we need to connect diverse players in new and meaningful ways,” says Tatiana Glad, Impact Hub

Amsterdam’s co-founder and director. “We are delighted to contribute by building a strong community around this shared purpose and support them to take sustained and collaborative action.”

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM ONE OF THE OFFICIAL STARTUP VISA FACILITATORS IN THE NETHERLANDS

As an official facilitator for the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO)’s startup visa program, Impact Hub has supported a dozen impact startups from countries ranging from China, El Salvador and Iran to the US and Australia with their startup visa application process and customised entrepreneurship development support. These start-ups receive bespoke tools to accelerate their business and have access to countries covered by the Impact Hub’s global network to explore further scaling their impact.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM BECOMES PARTNER OF EU’S SOCIAL CHALLENGES INNOVATION PLATFORM Launched in 2017, the Social Challenges.eu platform positions itself as an online ecosystem to match pressing social challenges with innovative solutions and funders that can finance them. Together with 11 other Impact Hubs across Europe, Impact Hub Amsterdam convenes multi-stakeholders around select challenges. The top 3 winners of each challenge are eligible for grants of up to €30.000 each to prototype their solutions.

T WO SUSTAINABLE FOOD BUSINESSES WIN ORGANIC FOOD AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE, CO-CREATED BY WESSANEN AND IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM (6) The sustainable food accelerator we co-created together with organic food corporate Wessanen, in partnership with Triodos Bank and Impact Hub >>

4. Diana Scherer

5. Yoni

members Crosswise Works, has 2 winners, who each received €10,000 euro, access to a broad network of experts and additional support from Wessanen and Triodos.

Charly’s All is Fair creates handmade vegan cheese alternatives, while Botanic Bites makes clean and green protein loaves from local and leftover ingredients.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM HELPS STIMULATE CAPITAL FLOWS TOWARDS IMPACT ENTREPRENEURS As part of the 2017 Amsterdam Capital Week and building on a successful Capital Impact program in 2016, Impact Hub Amsterdamtogether with the City of Amsterdam, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Crosswise Works and Intellecap (Sankalp Forum) - hosted events such as Unpack Impact to shed light on how entrepreneurs and investors can work together to advance the SDGs.

Successful partnerships such as that between Rural Spark, which brings sustainable energy to the Indian countryside, and their investor, Stichting DOEN, were unpacked to share their learnings with others. To facilitate interaction between investors and social entrepreneurs and keep stimulating the flow of capital towards impact startups, we also hosted the Integrated Capital Lab during The Hague’s 2017 Impact Startup Fest, as part of an ongoing series of such labs in partnership with the City of Amsterdam.

SEVEN STARTUPS SPLIT € 2 MILLION AWARD BY BOOKING.COM THROUGH SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ACCELERATOR PRODUCED WITH IMPACT  HUB Together with Booking.com, Impact Hub developed the Booking Booster accelerator that aims to turn tourism into a force for good. For 3 intensive weeks in June 2017, Impact Hub and Booking.com experts helped 10

startups to develop ambitious plans for scaling their businesses and impact globally.

During the final pitch event, the jury - which included Tatiana Glad, co-founder and director of Impact Hub Amsterdam - awarded a total of €2 million to Backstreet Academy (South East Asia), Authenticook (India), Seabin Project (Australia & Spain), Local Alike (Thailand), Awake (Colombia), Good Hotel (UK & Antigua), and Desolenator (Global).

STICHTING DOEN AND IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM JOIN FORCES FOR SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ACCELERATOR (1/4/8) 2017 sees the launch of the New Material Award Business Model Challenge, an accelerator co-created by Stichting DOEN and Impact Hub Amsterdam. Our program helps designers nominated for the New Material Award - an initiative of Stichting DOEN, Fonds Kwadraat and Het Nieuwe Instituut - to bring their innovative materials or sustainable products to market.

The 11 participants, whose designs range from plant root-based textiles that can repair themselves to circular furniture made of recycled plastic, present their business plans and ideas at the 2017 Dutch Design Week.

IMPACT

HUB AMSTERDAM MEMBER AFRICAN

CLEAN ENERGY WIN DUTCH EDITION OF THE GLOBAL CHIVAS VENTURE COMPETITION

In January 2017, African Clean Energy (ACE), whose mission is to stop the waste of human potential that occurs when people fall ill from inhaling cooking smoke, won first place in the Dutch edition of the Chivas Venture international contest for world-changing startups. Together with 29 other impact enterprises from all over the world, ACE attended the Chivas Venture grand >>

House of Eléonore

6. Charly’s All is Fair

7. Windchallenge

final in Los Angeles and introduced their high-tech, smoke-free and biomass-fuelled cook stove to a broad audience of changemakers and investors.

INVESTMENT READY ALUMNI THE DUTCH WEED BURGER OPEN FIRST RESTAURANT (2)

After selling 100,000 vegan burgers in 2016 at food and music festivals and getting their products on the menu of Dutch café chain Bagels & Beans, The Dutch Weed Burger opened their eponymous vegan fast-food joint in Amsterdam West.

The Dutch Weed Burger, who are alumni of our Investment Ready program, make their vegan protein alternatives from ingredients such as roasted soy bits and kombu seaweed which is responsibly farmed in Zeeland by fellow Impact Hub members Zeewaar.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM MEMBERS YONI EXPAND TO LUXEMBOURG (3/5) After getting onto the shelves of more than 1400 Marqt, Etos and Albert Heijn shops in the Netherlands, Yoni’s organic feminine care products can be found on the shelves of mainstream Cactus supermarket chain in Luxembourg from summer 2017.

Yoni, alumni of Impact Hub’s Scaling program and winners of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce’s Innovation Top 100 award, believe that women should know what they’re using, which is why they list ingredients on the packaging of their certified organic cotton, perfume- and plastic-free products.

INVESTMENT READY ALUMNI WINDCHALLENGE INTRODUCE INNOVATIVE DESIGN THANKS TO €1.5 MILLION INVESTMENT (7) “We genuinely love to contribute to your independence. By offering a small and reliable wind turbine we enable you to generate your own local sustainable

energy”, says Eline Mertens about the Windleaf turbine. This is the latest innovation introduced by Windchallenge, which she founded together with wind architect and leading small turbine expert Sander Mertens.

Windchallenge met a key investor during Impact Hub’s Investment Ready Program. The €1.5 million euro funding helped them significantly lower costs and improve performance of their turbines, thus making them more appealing to an ever growing range of global customers.

IMPACT HUB AMSTERDAM MEMBERS INSTOCK

OPEN TWO NEW RESTAURANTS After launching in 2014 with a pop-up restaurant in Amsterdam West and then opening a permanent location in Amsterdam East, our members and Impact Hub Scaling program alumni Instock expanded to Utrecht and The Hague in 2016.

They also published a cookbook, and produced the Pieper and Bammetjes craft beers made from rescued potatoes and bread.

Pursuing their mission to turn food surplus into delicious meals, Instock saved nearly 294,000 kg of food from being wasted, bringing them closer to their 300,000 kg target.

9. Fashion for Good

8. Studio Roos Meerman

START MET HAPPEN

OUR MISSION We believe that the power of good nutritional behaviour can be used to improve the quality of life of residents in shared care facilities and reduce costs for healthcare organisations. Thus, we facilitate transitions to healthier food policies for care providers, and provide coaching and advice throughout this process. To make good nutritional behaviour more accessible, we also develop tools such as fresh DIY meal boxes. These help people with special care needs feel more self-reliant, as well as turn cooking together into something easy and fun for both shared living residents and their carers.

OUR IMPACT Our business began in May 2016, with an idea that received a € 27,000 grant at 2016’s Sociale Helden West competition, our focus is on growing our enterprise. We’re proud to have participated in De Uitdaging accelerator co-created by Impact Hub, Nyenrode Business School and the City of Amsterdam. Since then, we hired a person with

distance to the labour market, while care provider Cordaan funded our pilot and became our launching customer. We’re also one of the finalists of the health-focused Amsterdam City Fellowship accelerator chosen to continue collaborating with the municipality on innovative solutions to healthrelated urban challenges.

THE HUB EFFECT De Uitdaging program inspired us to hire our first employee with a distance to the labour market and to officially become a Leerwerkbedrijf (learn/work company), meaning that our business now helps train and guide people with disabilities. During the Amsterdam City Fellowship accelerator, we felt that the specialised expertise of our Impact Hub and municipality mentors fit perfectly with our growth phase and related finance and strategy issues.

Pien ter Hoeven, Founder

YONI

OUR MISSION We aim to break the taboo around menstruation and believe all women should have access to healthy options for their period. The feminine care industry has been dominated by four main players who provide little transparency to consumers in terms of the composition of the tampons, pads and panty liners they sell. To lead by example, we list the ingredients on the packaging of our perfume- and plastic-free tampons, pads and panty liners, which are made from certified organic cotton and - for the backing and individual wrapping of our pads and liners - biodegradable plastic derived from cornstarch.

OUR IMPACT After being available in more than 500 Marqt and Etos shops in the Netherlands in 2015, we launched our Yoni products in over 850 Albert Heijn shelves in 2016, bringing the total number of stores that carry our organic products to over 1400. With our launch at Albert Heijn, we were immediately introduced to the company’s Belgian

stores and, in 2017, we expanded to the Cactus supermarket chain in Luxembourg. To raise awareness, visibility is important, so we’re happy that our products were mentioned by more than 80 Dutch and Belgian publications. To top that off, we won the Dutch Chamber of Commerce’s Innovation Top 100 award for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, which proves that the attitude towards feminine care is changing for the better.

THE HUB EFFECT Impact Hub’s 2016 scaling program gave us the tools we needed to go from startup to scale-up. For instance, during a visit to Impact Hub King’s Cross in London, we met Boston Consulting Group, who were a valuable sparring partner for topics such as expanding our range and entering new European markets. In addition, having access to the Impact Hub global network helps us connect to other impact entrepreneurs with whom we can exchange learnings from our respective experiences in different markets.

Mariah Mansvelt Beck & Wendelien Hebly, Co-founders / Ilse Vonk, Chief Operating Officer / Christel Willers, Content & Community Manager / Lieselotte van Belle, Purchase & Logistics Officer

BOTANIC BITES

OUR MISSION We make purely plant-based protein alternatives to encourage consumers to explore food options that have a positive impact on human health, animal welfare, our climate, and social justice. Many people are reluctant to switch to meat alternatives because they think, for instance, that meat is the best source of protein. We make our delicious roulades, burgers and sausages from local ingredients, which are mostly leftover vegetables sourced directly from regional farmers - think oddly shaped tomatoes that cannot be sold to supermarkets or mushroom stems that usually get thrown away.

OUR IMPACT We only started our business in October 2016, so we’re currently working hard to educate the public on unsustainable food practices and to raise awareness of our plant-based alternatives. And we’re doing so by participating in massive events and fairs, such as the 2017 Dutch

Design Week and Veggie World, Europe’s largest and oldest vegan trade fair. At Dutch Design Week visitors will join us in making sausages out of oyster mushroom stems grown in the Netherlands. As it’s possible to grow up to 15 more times plant protein than meat on the same surface, our sausages can be 15 times longer than their meat counterparts.

THE HUB EFFECT Winning Wessanen’s Organic Food against Climate Change Challenge, which was facilitated by Impact Hub, was the right push at the right moment. We found Wessanen’s real-world expertise as an organic food corporate very helpful for learning how to scale production and get on supermarket shelves. And during workshops on topics like finance, we got valuable input from other Impact Hub members such as Triodos on insurance for our products and the cash flow necessary for maintaining our operations.

Ecosystems, Natural Capital and Climate Change

SDG 6,13,14,15

Doreen Westphal, Founder

BINBANG

OUR MISSION We make the household and office separation of waste and resources such as paper, plastic, glass and organic leftovers easy and fun with modular, stackable bins built of recycled materials. Our circular economy-based business model helps our customers use the bin for 10 years, during which we repair any broken parts and after which we take the bin back and repurpose it. As municipalities don’t yet provide services for nonrecyclable waste, such as used diapers, we also run a number of collection programs that help direct such waste to the right processing agents.

OUR IMPACT After building our business in 2016, we’re proud that 2017 saw us reach the milestones of €1 million in revenue and the distribution of 25,000 bins made of 75 tonnes of 100% recycled plastic. These bins reached 5000 households, from whom we helped save 250 tonnes of waste from incineration, which amounts to nearly 20% of the waste that usually doesn’t get recycled. We’re also

happy to have secured partnerships with three Dutch municipalities, as well as the Landal Green Parks network of holiday villages. For the latter, we have the ambitious aim to completely close the plastic and organic waste loops.

THE HUB EFFECT We’re very happy to have been part of the 2017 edition of Impact Hub Amsterdam’s Investment Ready Program, which is the best push when you’re in the scale-up phase. Thanks to our pitch at the program’s Demo Day, we secured meetings with three investors and are well on our way to raise our target of €500,000. We also connected to entrepreneurs we could learn from, be inspired by and collaborate with as each other’s customers. For instance, we’re helping fellow Investment Ready participants Kitchen Republic separate organic waste at their food startup incubator, and eco-materials enterprise MgAubel better deal with their office waste collection.

Anja Cheriakova, Co-Founder and CEO

SUSTAINABLE APPAREL COALITION

OUR MISSION We provide all of our members in the fashion industry - from brands through retailers to manufacturers - with the tools that help them measure sustainability and talk about it using a common language. Whether it’s a big factory in Vietnam or a niche brand in Norway, our Higg Index helps all brands, retailers and production facilities in the fashion supply chain measure and share sustainability performance information with industry partners and with consumers. This is crucial because we believe that only with the active and systematic involvement of fashion consumers can we initiate a positive race to the top that sets the apparel sector on the path to sustainability.

OUR IMPACT As of 2017, we’re excited to share that 10000 factories across the world currently use our Higg Index to evaluate their environmental and social performance. In addition, we now have more than 200 members, ranging from luxury conglomerate LVMH to high-street brands like G-Star to nonprofits such as the world’s largest conservation

organisation, WWF. In January 2017 we also successfully completed a three-year Footwear Product Environmental Footprint Pilot in collaboration with the EU Commission and leading footwear brands to develop the methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts produced over the footwear life cycle.

THE HUB EFFECT Being part of the Fashion for Good community built by the Impact Hub really helped us to deepen our collaboration with organisations such as the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) program. We are now working together with ZDHC on their chemical management system, as well as a shared tool for environmental performance assessment. Thanks to the Impact Hub’s ability to host and convene multiple stakeholders, Fashion for Good became the hotspot for sustainable fashion in Amsterdam. It’s also a partnership and growth accelerator, and the only place I can bump into our own members at the coffee machine.

Baptiste Carriere-Pradal, VP Europe

CROSSWISE WORKS

OUR MISSION We are a project and training agency that works on stimulating impact entrepreneurship in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Our strength lies in connecting people. As such, we have extensive experience in creating and strengthening cross-sectoral partnerships that bring out the best in all parties involved. There are plenty of other organisations doing great work in business development and other agencies can also smoothly facilitate processes or produce impressive events. But few combine these skills with a focus on impact entrepreneurship in emerging markets. At Crosswise Works we do just that and we love it.

OUR IMPACT In the past 12 months, we (co-) produced 14 events, including Amsterdam Capital Week’s flagship event, Capital Impact, coached three business challenges for students, and provided numerous trainings. Our proudest moment was hosting a trade mission tour on exploring the

potential of public-private partnerships between Zambian and Dutch parties on sustainable water in agriculture. Thanks to our team’s organisational and content expertise, several partnerships are likely to apply for the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO)’s Sustainable Water Fund. For RVO, we also organised the launch of the Dutch Good Growth Fund for Startups in five different cities.

THE HUB EFFECT While we already had a close relationship with the Impact Hub, we moved in with a team desk here in early 2017 and we immediately felt like we moved to the place where it’s happening, where we’re constantly bumping into entrepreneurs with great potential. We have also collaborated with Impact Hub on acceleration programs such as Wessanen’s Organic Food Against Climate Change Challenge, for which we facilitated a tour of Amsterdam’s most promising new sustainable food businesses.

Kaline van Halder and Eva Rootmensen, Program Managers

HEROES & FRIENDS

OUR MISSION Our goal is to get more people engaged in meaningful projects. We want to activate people’s passion for a cause and translate it into concrete action with real impact. In addition, we built our social crowdsourcing platform to better serve the transition to a more collaborative direct economy, as we saw a lack of efficiency in typical crowdfunding. The latter mostly relies on asking for money, which means people’s goodwill remains untapped. With Heroes & Friends, people can also contribute by becoming a projects’s online ambassador or picking up a task.

OUR IMPACT 2016 was all about getting our business ready for takeoff and we’re excited to share that, since the beginning of 2017, more than 200 projects were added to our social crowdsourcing platform. For these, over 1000 ambassadors helped raise more than €150,000, as well as generate more than 7100

in-kind contributions, ranging from GPS cameras that help monitor illegal logging and land grabbing in the Amazon to skateboard helmets for an initiative to teach Cambodian children how to longboard.

THE HUB EFFECT The connections we make at Impact Hub events often yield exciting collaborations, such as the abovementioned Amazon project added to our platform by forest criminologist and researcher Prof. Tim Boekhout van Solinge, whom we met at the Impact Hub’s grand opening in March. We also work closely with Impact Hub members like Starters4Communities, whose alumni often help solve challenges encountered by projects active on our platform. At the Impact Hub we also get our daily dose of encouragement and feel like we’re part of a big entrepreneurial family, which is really important for a young company.

SDG 1,8,9,12

Tim Manschot, Coen Dahlhaus and Menno Manschot, Co-founders

CLOSING

THE LOOP

OUR MISSION We offer solutions for the circular procurement and life cycle extension of mobile phones. Our mission is to make the mobile industry waste-free and show that electronic reuse makes social and business sense. By collecting scrap mobile phones on behalf of corporates such as the Schiphol Group and ING, we offset each company’s telecommunication footprint: for every phone a company uses, we save one from e-waste dumps in developing countries. We also ensure the life cycle of each phone is turned waste-free by collaborating with partners such as Sims Recycling Solutions, the world’s largest electronics recycler.

OUR IMPACT We have already collected more than 1.5 million end-of-life mobile phones in emerging markets; 900,000 of these were gathered in 2016 alone. By collecting these phones, we prevented 25 tonnes of e-waste ending up in dumps, recycled 9 kilos of gold, and prevented 250 tonnes of CO2 emissions. We were also able to contribute to

the incomes of more than 1500 people in African countries such as Rwanda and Uganda by paying them for their broken phones. In 2016 this total payout amounted to the equivalent of 120 Ugandan year salaries.

THE HUB EFFECT The Investment Ready Program was a great way to test our business model. We went from being a non profit to a limited company during the program. This was also thanks to learning how to add financial value to our sustainable mobile phone collection efforts by, for instance, offsetting phones on behalf of government and corporate customers. We also appreciated being part of a group of entrepreneurs with global experience as we could learn from others who were collaborating with international partners. And, after our pitch at the program’s Demo Day, we met our current investors through the network of impact investing cooperative Pymwymic.

Joost de Kluijver, Co-founder and director

Love the risk of the new. We are all in this together.

AFRICAN CLEAN ENERGY

OUR MISSION More than 4 million people die every year from household air pollution. Our mission is to manufacture and distribute affordable, safe energy products to underserved families in emerging markets. Such products include our biomass-fuelled ACE1 cookstove, which ensures smoke-free cooking and provides solar power for LED lighting and mobile phone charging. By replacing harmful cooking methods with safe alternatives, we want to alleviate health problems, relieve poverty, reduce the burden on the environment, and stimulate emerging economies.

OUR IMPACT In 2016, we sold nearly 12,000 ACE 1 cookstoves, reaching more than 50,000 men, women and children in emerging markets. We prefinanced our products for 5000 families, meaning they can pay off the cookstoves over 9 to 12 months. As for our operations, we have more than 70 full-time

employees spread across Lesotho - where we have an office and our flagship factory - Uganda, Cambodia and the Netherlands. We also pride ourselves on our diversity, as 55% of our workforce is female. In addition, our business is 50% owned by women, who also take up 50% of management roles.

THE HUB EFFECT The Impact Hub makes us feel like we have a large, extended family of social entrepreneurs who are really supportive and the personal connection really helped us grow our business. For example, Tatiana Glad, Impact Hub Amsterdam’s co-founder and director, introduced us to the BMW Foundation, who became one of our biggest investors. With this investment, we were able to scale up our production, expand to Cambodia and make the first step towards showing there is a strong demand in Asia for high-tech African goods.

Ruben Walker, Commercial Director and Judith Joan Walker, Operations Director

STARTERS 4 COMMUNITIES

OUR MISSION We help young people kickstart careers driven by the desire to make a positive impact. During our training and work experience programs, recent graduates learn about social entrepreneurship while helping local community initiatives tackle some of their most pressing challenges. In this way, we bridge the gap between education and work, while actively contributing to more resilient and cohesive neighbourhoods, cities and, ultimately, societies.

OUR IMPACT In 2016, 177 young professionals and graduates completed our five-month long S4C training program in social entrepreneurship and bottom-up urban development, supporting 56 community initiatives. This was a success on both sides, as 95% of our S4C alumni believe we

contributed to their career while 90% of the community initiatives they supported felt strengthened to reach their long term goals. This inspires us to keep working hard towards our goal of having worked with 5000 graduates on 1500 impact-driven projects by the end of 2020.

THE HUB EFFECT In 2016, we started the Young Changemakers Community, which the Impact Hub co-facilitates. This community serves as a springboard to an impact career for young professionals keen to start their own social enterprise or to fix social and environmental problems. Our collaboration with the Impact Hub helped us connect aspiring social entrepreneurs with established impact businesses, thus strengthening the impact ecosystem.

Manon Becher, Founder

SUSTAINER HOMES

OUR MISSION One third of CO2 emissions worldwide come from construction or use of buildings, but little has been done to solve this problem at a scale that matches its urgency. So we developed a circular building system for high-quality housing that emits 90 percent less CO2 than traditional homes. What’s truly unique about this system is that it’s completely modular: if someone wants to move, we can reuse the building’s materials - which are all carefully registered and documented - in other projects. Although we started with houses, we aim for our system to be used for up to 90 percent of a typical built environment.

OUR IMPACT In 2016, we built one holiday home and started construction on the second. But in 2017, our business really took off. In cooperation with Rabobank, we installed a demo house for highquality sustainable living in the centre of Utrecht. We also created a Living Lab at TU Delft’s Green Village. This modular testbed will be used to research

innovative and sustainable building, new materials, water, and energy concepts. And we’ve built a visitor center for a refugee project in Almere. For the remainder of 2017, we’re working on 15 homes that will save up to 4.000 tonnes of CO2 during their lifetime.

THE HUB EFFECT We were a building company when we started the Investment Ready Program but our coach helped us reorient towards being a ‘software’ business, which sells the design to contractors. This major pivot in our model made us focus on what we’re good at. And thanks to Investment Ready, we received a loan from Triodos Bank. We also got the chance to connect to like-minded entrepreneurs, such as fellow participants MgAubel. We’re now exploring the opportunity to kickstart a modular office in their eco materials factory and simultaneously run an experiment for a bigger project. It’s a win-win situation and we’re really going the extra mile for each other.

Gert van Vugt, Co-founder and CEO

MGAUBEL

OUR MISSION We specialise in the development and production of smart-eco materials that help address a serious crisis few people know about: European infrastructure is crumbling. For instance, there are more than 40,000 bridges in the Netherlands alone, most of which are made of concrete. And each year, 1000 of these bridges need repairs because they are over 40 years old and not designed to cope with today’s heavy traffic. And the infrastructure of the industrial sector is in a similar situation. Our sustainable materials help rebuild infrastructure faster, at a lower total cost and with less environmental impact.

OUR IMPACT In early 2017, we successfully delivered the repair of a floor application, saving 20 days of downtime for a section of the Port of Rotterdam’s container terminal. And this year summer of 2017, we moved from the Yes!Delft incubator to a brand new facility at the Port’s RDM innovation cluster. Here we

can apply the materials science we learned in the labs of Delft University of Technology to the challenges of partners in the Port of Rotterdam area. As we’re next door to Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, we’ll also be able to offer more students the opportunity to work on new materials projects and encourage them to opt for engineering degrees.

THE HUB EFFECT We joined the Impact Hub’s Investment Ready Program at the right time, when we were completing commercial pilots such as the one for the Port of Rotterdam’s container terminal. The program helped us improve our business strategy and really accelerated our growth. Investment Ready also prepared us for approaching investors and financial institutions. In addition, we are working with new partners, such as fellow program participants Sustainer Homes, with whom we are exploring the possibility to set up a modular office in our tech innovation centre.

Marc Goedkoop, Founder

We offer a unique acceleration trajectory, designed to help impact entrepreneurs at the most crucial stages of their development start, grow and scale their business and make positive impact in the Netherlands and beyond.

photo credits: Naam van Achternaam

OUR ACCELERATION PROGRAMS

In addition to our in-house programs, we collaborate with corporate, governmental and nonprofit clients to co-design customied accelerators across multiple sectors and impact areas. >>

START

Ready for take-off? Contact Ilse Kwaaitaal, Business Model Challenge Manager, at ilse.kwaaitaal@impacthub.net

GROW

Want to get to your next level? Contact Manon Klein, Investment Ready Program Manager, at manon.klein@impacthub.net

SCALE

Do you have big international ambitions? Contact Wieke van der Zouwen, Scaling Manager, at wieke.vanderzouwen@ impacthub.net

Investment Ready

Business Model Challenge

We designed this three-month incubator and accelerator to help early growth stage entrepreneurs save time and money while they develop a scalable business model. The program, which includes 3 training days and 4 masterclasses leading up to a pitch battle, has two tracks, Intensive and Light.

The Intensive version is for entrepreneurs who have not yet figured out their ideal business model. Meanwhile, the Light track is for entrepreneurs with proof of concept and detailed knowledge of the Business Model Canvas theory.

Together with experts and mentors from organisations such as Accenture in the Netherlands, we share the business growth techniques used by the nearly 300 startups we supported to date. In addition to developing a solid financial business case, entrepreneurs get the opportunity to test their products or services in a supportive atmosphere, so that they can learn what sets them apart from the competition and better understand their target customers.

The Investment Ready Program, whose main partner is ING Netherlands, is a five-month peer learning-based accelerator for scalable solutions to global sustainability challenges. It consists of 12 training days during which we guide entrepreneurs through a systematic review of their business model, strategy and team in order to help them craft a validated growth and investment plan. The program culminates in a Demo Day, during which the participants pitch to our network of purpose-driven impact investors and funds.

What makes the program unique is that, instead of a jury, entrepreneurs themselves crown the program’s winner by ranking each other on more than 20 investment criteria. This proven, fully transparent peer-reviewing model generates an intensive learning process: participants engage in a productive feedback cycle, and get in-depth knowledge of the other entrepreneurs’ ventures. And this knowledge has helped several of the participants decide to start business collaborations with their peers upon the program’s completion.

Impact Hub Scaling

This accelerator brought together 8 European Impact Hubs with a common goal: to help entrepreneurs scale internationally and amplify their their impact. During a 12-month, participants became immersed Impact Hub’s international network, and got knowledge and skills from top mentors and experts based in Amsterdam, Athens, Bucharest, London, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, and Vienna. From joint venturing to expanding and franchising, every scaling approach is different, which is why the program offers support and advice tailored to each participant’s needs, target markets and desired impact.

Our successful Impact Hub Scaling program concluded in June 2016 and helped scale 100 enterprises, including our members Instock, Moyee, OnePlanetCrowd, Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Yoni. We also offer our scaling services and expertise as part of programs such as the Booking Booster, Booking.com’s sustainable tourism accelerator, and on a bespoke basis for innovative impact scaleups.

Are you excited to implement one of our accelerators or co-design a program tailor-made for your sector and sustainability goals? Then contact Frederik van Droffelaar, Programs Lead, at frederik.vandroffelaar@impacthub.net

START GROW SCALE

The Amsterdam City Fellowship. Commissioned by The City of Amsterdam

The Amsterdam City Fellowship, which is part of the City of Amsterdam’s Social Entrepreneurship Action Program 20152018, facilitates collaboration between impact entrepreneurs and the City of Amsterdam. The aim of this close collaboration is to co-create and implement innovative solutions to healthrelated urban challenges. In this 8-month accelerator, which runs until December 2017, impact entrepreneurs develop their innovative products / services and receive expert guidance and mentoring from the municipality and Impact Hub’s extensive network.

After a Business Model Challenge phase - during which we helped participants adapt their products to client needs and explore potential sales avenues - Rain(a) way, VraagApp, Start met Happen and Totem Open Health were selected to continue collaboration with the municipality to work on making Amsterdam more climate resilient, ensure that people with cognitive disabilities or living in care institutions feel more empowered, and increase the potential of wearable tech to monitor serious health conditions.

Organic Food Against Climate Change Challenge. Commissioned by Wessanen

With the mission of ‘healthier food, healthier people, healthier planet’, multinational food company Wessanen wants to contribute to a green future by changing the way we produce our food, as well as encouraging consumers to improve their diet and make more sustainable choices. This is why, in addition to selling a range of 97% vegetarian products, the company decided to join forces with the Impact Hub and open up their network and expertise to entrepreneurs that address key challenges of the global food system and its climate impact.

During an intensive two-month accelerator, Impact Hub and Wessanen mentors and experts collaborated help 9 startups grow their business and impact with in-depth trainings on topics such as business modeling, scaling approaches, marketing, branding and packaging, and finance. The program culminated in a high-quality pitch battle in June 2017 that yielded not one but two winners: handmade vegan cheese producer Charly’s All is Fair and plant-based protein alternatives maker Botanic Bites.

Booking Booster. Commissioned by Booking.com

As the global leader in connecting travellers with the widest choice of incredible places to stay, Booking. com wanted to give its customers the best experience in every destination they travel to. So the com pany partnered with our Impact Hub network to co-create the Booking Booster, an intensive three-week accelerator that aims to turn tourism into a force for good by improving the sustainability of destinations through cultural heritage, environment and inclusive business.

During the program, Booking.com and Impact Hub mentors and experts helped 10 startups develop ambitious plans for scaling their businesses and impact globally. And we supported them in figuring out crucial topics ranging from marketing on a shoestring to finance and investment to impact measurement. Seven of these 10 enterprises - whose solutions range from floating bins that collect plastics in marinas to a peer-topeer travel platform that supports local communities - won grants from the Booster’s €2 million fund to put their validated scaling plans into action.

For application deadlines and a complete overview of our acceleration programs and services, go to amsterdam.impacthub.net

EVENTS

At our beautiful Impact Hub we organise and host events for our members and the wider entrepreneurial impact ecosystem. >>

and

impact. They cover everything from interactive workshops and highprofile keynotes to pitch contests, hackathons and

co-productions. A few of our highlights over the past year include:

SOCIETAL TRANSITIONS MASTERCLASS - This annual 5-day masterclass teaches participants to apply systems thinking to lead change in their professional and personal environments. Drawing from the combined expertise of the Erasmus University Rotterdam’s Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), the Transition Academy and the Impact Hub network, this event taps into the latest research and practice on social innovation and the transition to a more sustainable society. Next edition starts May 2018.

INNOVATION LAB ZUIDAS - Amsterdam Smart City - the innovation platform for a future-proof city - joined forces with Impact Hub, TransportLAB and UrbanConnectors to dive into an underexplored issue: the human impact that ongoing construction would have on the thousands of people working, living and commuting through the Zuidas business district. Project managers, policymakers and mobility experts were brought together to work on co-designing the district’s ideal mobility experience in 2025.

THE FUTURE OF BANKING PRODUCTS - Our

members Triodos Bank discussed the rapidly changing financial industry and how it can contribute to a more sustainable society. Triodos believes that banking can and should be a powerful force for good, serving individuals and communities alike. Though it has the same the same fiduciary duties to its customers as any bank, Triodos only lends money to people and organisations working to make the world a better place.

AN OCEAN OF OPPORTUNITIES - Together with the Stockholm Resilience Centre and our members Heroes & Friends, we invited businesses, nonprofits, local government and science institutes to learn and share about one of the greatest environmental challenges of our timeplastic pollution. The speakers, which included Dopper, Plastic Whale and the Plastic Soup Foundation, also held lively Q&A sessions with an audience of nearly 100 changemakers.

PRE-CAMP FOR TRANSPARENCY CAMP EUROPE

- We invited open data experts, diplomats, artists and entrepreneurs to meet the finalists of

>> Our events are focused on sharing knowledge, growing networks, fuelling enterprises,

making a positive

partner

the first Transparency Camp Europe app competition. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Impact Hub and Open State collaborated with social innovators and tech startups in 8 European cities on digital transparency solutions in ‘diplohacks’, a start-up style approach to solving societal problems, combining the skillsets of diplomats, entrepreneurs, techies, designers, journalists, academics, and social innovators.

AWESOME FOUNDATION AMSTERDAM PITCH

NIGHTS - In July 2017, Impact Hub became the hosting partner of the Awesome Foundation’s Amsterdam chapter. The Foundation’s idea is simple: each month they make our city better by awarding a €1000 grant to someone with an innovative, community-driven idea or project to make. During their monthly pitch nights, the 5 best ideas battle it out for this no-strings-attached grant, which comes out of the pockets of the local chapter’s trustees.

MEASURECAMP 2017 - The first Dutch MeasureCamp was an extension of a wildly successful web analytics event previously held in London, Paris, Prague and Hong Kong. Self-labelled as an ‘unconference’, MeasureCamp is an open, free-to-attend event that, unlike traditional digital analytics conferences, works with a collaborative

social framework in which the attendees themselves choose what they want to learn in small discussion groups.

UVA MINOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEMO DAY

- This was a memorable day for the 24 student startup teams of the University of Amsterdam (UvA)’s Minor Entrepreneurship. Four finalists were selected to pitch their business model to a large crowd of fellow students, UvA professors, startup coaches, and investors. The jury, which included our Scouting Lead and Business Model Challenge Manager Ilse Kwaaitaal, then awarded the Best Student Startup of the 2017 spring semester’s program.

FAIL FORWARD NIGHT - Every entrepreneur runs into problems - they’re just not always comfortable talking about it. But at Impact Hub we believe that experimentation is essential for innovation. As part of the 2017 edition of our Investment Ready Program (IRP), we invited 3 seasoned entrepreneurs - including IRP alumni MUD Jeans and The Dutch Weed Burger - to share their experiences with overcoming difficult moments. Save the date for the second edition, which takes place on 20 October 2017 at Impact Hub.

To attend an event or book our space, go to amsterdam.impacthub.net

THE GLOBAL IMPACT HUB NETWORK

5 CONTINENTS

100 CITIES

93 OPEN HUBS

77,000 M2 OF SPACE

11 HUBS IN THE MAKING

16,000+ CHANGEMAKERS

80 %

AT A GLANCE 700+

IMPACTMAKERS (CO)FOUNDERS

Our members and network include entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, activists, academics, mentors, and experts.

47% START

Early stage startups working on a scalable business models and ideas.

5% ENABLER

This includes members such as consultants and experts who help our impact entrepreneurs grow their business and impact.

The vast majority of our members started their own business.

33% GROW

Fully operational small businesses backed by their first investors.

15% SCALE

Enterprises ready expand to new local and international markets.

58% UNIQUENESS

Most of our impact entrepreneurs offer products and services with no equivalents on the market.

75%

Our entrepreneurs work on simultaneously creating social, environmental and financial value. Though positive impact comes first, Impact Hub members are all about doing good while doing serious business. By reaching more customers with products and services that really make a difference, they help us get closer to achieving the SDGs.

65% OF OUR MEMBERS GREW THEIR INCOME

Two thirds of our members saw their income grow by at least 10%. Compared to their 2015 revenue, which also means that their impact-driven products and services reached more consumers.

OF OUR MEMBERS PUT IMPACT FIRST 1+ MILLION CUSTOMERS REACHED

In 2016 and 2017, our members reached more than 1 million customers and beneficiaries with their impact-driven products and services.

The 5 SDGs most frequently addressed by our members

Our entrepreneurs collectively contribute to all 17 SDGs and often work on achieving at least 2 or more interconnected SDGs to create a much greater impact than by tackling each goal on its own. In 2016-2017, these were the 5 SDGs most commonly found among the impact targets of our members.

THE IMPACT OF OUR MEMBERS

MEASURED IMPACT >>

1800+ HOURS OF PEER-TO-PEER SUPPORT

Our members spend more than 1800 hours each month offering support to each other.

1200 M2 FOR EVENTS, COLLABORATIVE WORKING AND OFFICES

Our new home at the Royal Tropical Institute gives us twice as much space to host more entrepreneurs, as well as our acceleration programs and impact events.

1250+ IMPACT EVENTS

We are on track to have hosted more than 1250 events in 2016 and 2017: from interactive business workshops and high-profile keynotes to pitch contests, hackathons and co-produced partner events.

66% OF OUR MEMBERS FOUND NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Thanks to the growing Impact Hub network, two thirds of our members discovered new opportunities to create positive impact in their professional careers.

400+ ACCELERATED STARTUPS

In 2016 and 2017, our acceleration programs have helped more than 400 entrepreneurs start, grow and scale their impact businesses.

of our members said we enabled them to develop new skills and capabilities

of our members said we inspired them to develop new ideas and initiatives of our members said we connected them to new partnerships and collaborations Our measured impact Impact Hub Amsterdam

THE HUB EFFECT

Impact Hub Amsterdam is a force to be reckoned within the social impact scene - with deep local and international connections. The first port of call for any social entrepreneurs in the Amsterdam area.

The Boston Consulting Group helped us get a new perspective on what to do in an operational sense, as well a more detailed understanding of the market we’re working in. It’s this dynamic of peers, coaches and consultants that makes the Investment Ready Program at Impact Hub Amsterdam a truly unique and valuable experience.

We can absolutely recommend this time investment in the Business Model Challenge, which gives you the opportunity to bring your ideas to life in an inspiring co-working space. As we continue to grow and face new challenges, we still rely on Impact Hub for support and advice, and benefit a great deal from our membership.

I believe we need to join forces to build and scale companies that create true value. Impact Hub is an organisation that facilitates and motivates that process, and is thus crucial in the growth of a new economy.

Niki van

Wijk,

Program mentor of 2017 Investment Ready Program winners House of Eléonore

–

– Colleen Geske - International Community Liaison, IN Amsterdam

– Arthur Nijhuis, Founder of Rechtstreex, winners of the 2016 Investment Ready Program

– Maja Grcic, Co-founder of Takecarebnb, winners of the 8th Business Model Challenge

OUR PARTNERS

We would like to thank the partners of our acceleration programs.

For the Business Model Challenge: Accenture, Remember To Play, RS Finance, Start Hub Store

For the Investment Ready Program: Best3Minutes, Boston Consulting Group, de Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, En Serio, Generous Minds, Hub Store, ING and the ING Foundation, Stichting DOEN, Twentie Four, 72andSunny.

For Impact Hub Scaling: Amsterdam Economic Board, Business Boost International, Edelman PR, European Commission, EY, Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione CRT, House of Performance, IN Amsterdam, J.P. Morgan Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Van Doorne.

For our client programs: Amsterdam Impact - the City of Amsterdam, Booking.com, DRIFT, Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen, Mediacollege Amsterdam, NRCLive, Transition Academy, Wessanen, WWF NL.

We would also like to thank: Fashion for Good, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Klaverblad Foundation and Triodos Bank.

And last but not least, special thanks to Maaike Perenboom, AKKA Architects, Herman Miller and our valued investor-shareholders.

Member Portraits: Demi Koen

Text: Catalina Iorga

Design: Alt-8, full service design studio

We would like to give a huge shout out to our extended community of members, investors, corporates, organisations, mentors, experts, academics, and activists for joining forces to build a new economy and to grow impact business in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and across the globe.

Together we can build the new economy.