INVESTMENTS Intentional Investing Report
Investing in Technology, Medical Breakthroughs and Women in STEM to Achieve Positive Outcomes for Humanity and the Planet
TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the Founders
2
Snapshot & Impact at a Glance
3
Plum Alley’s Framework
4
Portfolio Diversity Data
6
Impacting Billions of Lives
7
Plum Alley Portfolio Impact Today
8
Case Studies: Environment 9
Air Quality - Aclima
10
Future of Food - Air Protein
Inclusive Growth Employment & Upward Mobility - Bitwise Industries
11
Education - ThinkCERCA
12
Health Fighting COVID 19 & Affordable Diagnostics - Mammoth Biosciences
13
INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
INVESTMENTS Letter from Plum Alley Founders on Investing with Intention At Plum Alley, we are deeply committed to driving positive outcomes for humanity, society and the planet by investing in emerging technologies and medical breakthroughs. We believe advances in technology give us the best opportunity to solve the most important challenges of our generation while driving incredible value for investors. Since 2015, we have focused on investing with intention by backing early stage companies that need to exist in the world. Plum Alley has always asked the question before we invest: "What value does this company bring to the world and does it matter?" We are equally committed to achieving a more equitable distribution of opportunity and resources by investing in companies with at least one woman founder from the STEM fields. Research shows that inherently diverse teams bring value to all aspects of business, and we believe they will outperform.
This inaugural report captures the important ways our Plum Alley portfolio companies are driving positive outcomes. We are proud that our portfolio companies contribute to a range of impact areas while also being committed to employing sustainable business practices and building an inclusive corporate culture. Frameworks for assessing impact in early stage companies are nascent and continually evolving. In the realm of early-stage companies, traditional impact or “ESG” metrics have varying applicability, particularly given company size and stage. More specifically, early stage companies often have small teams, limited history and are iterating their product with rapid evolution looking for optimal product market fit. For this report, we examined a variety of resources and developed our own framework which considers three lenses in terms of how we look at companies for investment and track progress over time.
Our Plum Alley lenses include: Core Impact & Company Purpose; Gender & Racial Diversity; and Related Benefits & Impact. We decided to start with the companies' stated purpose to identify their core area of impact. Within the core area of impact, we looked across three of our key thematic areas of focus: Environment, Health, Inclusive Growth. Additionally, we captured foundational metrics related to each company’s commitment towards building a diverse and inclusive team and culture. We are tracking this lens with a view that companies with a strong commitment toward gender and racial diversity are better positioned to tap different perspectives and creative thinking to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. Within the other related benefits and impact lens, we captured the ways our companies are contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and tangential areas of impact. For example, some of our companies have been instrumental in addressing issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the BLM movement and driving greater racial equity in our country.
This inaugural report applies the Plum Alley framework (described in greater detail on pg. 5) to summarize data gathered from our portfolio companies in January, 2021. We know that our framework will evolve and be refined over time. We welcome input from investors, founders and others who share our deep commitment to employing a meaningful and contemporary way of assessing the outcomes early stage companies can have on humanity, society and the planet. We hope you are inspired by the efforts Plum Alley portfolio companies are making to transform our future for the better. We are honored to work with our founders, and we are grateful to our investors who share our commitment to invest with intention.
Deborah Jackson Co-Founder and CEO 2
Andrea Turner Moffitt Co-Founder and President INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
SNAPSHOT
$32M
Portfolio Companies
23
Invested
Companies
93% Impact 7% Other
Portfolio Highlights 70% technology; 30% healthcare 65% Series A; 30% Series B; 5% Seed 66% of companies reported having DEI and/or ESG policies*
Impact Sectors
30% Healthcare
11% Safety & Security
Founding Teams
14% Education & Employment
27% Environment
11% Sustainable Manufacturing & Transportation
58% Gender Diverse Founders 42% Women Only Founders
7% Other
As of January 31, 2021
3
* DEI: Diversity Equity and Inclusion * ESG: Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance
Conceptual Impact Framework We examined a variety of resources and developed our own framework considering three lenses in terms of how we examine companies for investment and track progress over time. These lenses include: Core Impact & Company Purpose; Gender & Racial Diversity; and Related Benefits & Impact.
Core Impact Lens
Gender & Racial Diversity Lens
Related Benefits & Impact Lens
Magnitude of Problem
All Employees
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Serviceable Addressable Market
Leadership Team
Near Term Goals Current Measured Outcomes
Founding Team
Core Impact & Company Purpose
Other Areas of Impact
• Serviceable Addressable Market: Given a company’s go to market and product or service offering, the size of the target market.
Foundational to our review was capturing a company’s core area of impact focus. Within this lens, we looked across key thematic areas:
• Near Term Goals: Identifying a company's near term impact goals within a 3-5 year period of time.
Environment: Investing in new technologies and accelerating existing solutions towards netzero emissions, smarter energy, sustainable transportation, water quality & usage, industrial materials, circular economy, and sustainable agriculture.
• Current Measured Impact: Highlighting the current measurable impact and key business accomplishments achieved at the time of data collection which will be tracked over time.
Inclusive Growth: Developing an environment that promotes upward mobility, through education and job training, fair and rewarding work places, and expanding access to financial independence and wealth creation.
Gender & Racial Diversity Lens As part of this report, we have also analyzed diversity representation across our portfolio companies looking at racial and gender diversity of the founding team, the leadership team and all employees. We are encouraging all of our companies to embrace D&I policies and track diversity metrics across their businesses.
Health: Providing high quality, accessible and affordable physical and mental health services with individualized, preventative care that promotes a more sustainable and cost efficient healthcare system for all.
Related Benefits & Impact Lens
Our framework within this lens assessed various layers of impact:
We have captured other secondary and indirect areas of impact including identifying which UN Sustainable Development Goals each of our portfolio companies contributes to respectively.
• Magnitude of Problem: The total size of the overall problem a company is working to solve. 4
INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
AREAS OF IMPACT AT A GLANCE Our active portfolio companies are developing a wide range of game changing technologies and medical breakthroughs that will improve our lives and the planet. Three of our thematic areas of focus for driving positive outcomes include the Environment, Inclusive Growth and Health.
As part of our 2020 impact review, Plum Alley also examined the way our investment thesis supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We asked our companies to identify which of the SDGs they are addressing. We have shared below the sub sectors within three of our core thematic areas that overlap with the UN SDGs. Plum Alley is also proud that each of our portfolio companies has at least one woman founder in the STEM fields which supports UN SDG Goal 5: Gender
Equality. We are dedicated to empowering women and girls and ensuring that women are represented fairly in leadership
Our companies address several UN Sustainable Development Goals
ENVIRONMENT Smarter Energy
Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Water Quality & Usage
Efficient Production & Conservation
Sustainable Agriculture & Smarter Food Production
roles across technology and healthcare as two of the most innovative and influential sectors in our global economy.
INCLUSIVE GROWTH Employment & Meaningful Work
We also believe that diversity, inclusion and equality are at the
Education
heart of building a more
Upward Mobility
sustainable, just and equitable
Diversity, Inclusion & Equality
future for all. By ensuring our portfolio companies have diversity across the founding team, we believe this will contribute further to building inclusive cultures at scale and further amplify many of the UN SDGs over time.
HEALTH Inclusive & Affordable Healthcare
Preventative Wellness
Sustainable Healthcare Innovation
5
INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
AGGREGATED PORTFOLIO: GENDER & RACIAL DIVERSITY Self Reported by Portfolio Companies
GENDER DIVERSITY
RACIAL DIVERSITY
FOUNDERS
FOUNDERS
32% Male
42% White 34% Asian 13% Black 10% Latinx
68% Female
LEADERSHIP TEAM
LEADERSHIP TEAM
49% Male
52% White 31% Asian 7% Black 4% Latinx 4% Other
52% Female
ALL EMPLOYEES
ALL EMPLOYEES
55% Male
As of January 31, 2021
47% White 34% Asian 10% Black 9% Latinx
45% Female
6
INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
PLUM ALLEY PORTFOLIO COMPANIES HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT THE LIVES OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE AIR QUALITY: 7B people, ~92% of world’s population breathes toxic air
ENVIRONMENT
WATER:
2.5B people globally lack regular access to clean water
NATURAL DISASTERS: 218M people impacted by natural disasters
WASTE:
50-100 million tons of textile waste annually CARBON EMISSIONS: 7% or 2.5B metric tons of carbon emissions from freight trucking
INCLUSIVE GROWTH
14% or 5B metric tons of carbon emissions from meat production DISPLACED WORKERS IN AMERICA:
11.5M people in need of retraining in U.S. and
12.6M unemployed in US today
U.S. EDUCATION:
55M students in the U.S .projected to have decreased learning gains in math and reading
BILLIONS OF PEOPLE IMPACTED ACROSS THE GLOBE
MENTAL HEALTH: 8.5M women 15-35 suffer from mental illness in the U.S.
HEALTH
VIRAL INFECTIONS:
49M viral infections in need of efficient diagnostics and new disinfecting technology
CANCER: 15M patients with cancer where immunology treatments
can be effective
CARDIOVASCULAR:
115M people affected by heart disease REGENERATIVE MEDICINE: 10M bone and stem cell surgeries each year 7
INTENTIONAL INVESTING REPORT
PLUM ALLEY PORTFOLIO IMPACT TODAY As of January 31, 2021
10M people covered by the fleet measuring air pollution and greenhouse gasses in more than 150 cities in 14 countries
HEALTH
INCLUSIVE GROWTH
ENVIRONMENT
Mobile sensor technology for hyperlocal air quality intelligence
5M water quality tests conducted in the U.S. last 24 months, exceeding tests completed across 50 states over the last 10 years
Hardware and software tracking water quality and quantity
750K people impacted by improved preparedness and recovery for natural disasters for in Kumamoto City, Japan through pilot resiliency platform
AI/ML natural disaster resilience platform Patented regenerative fiber technology recycling textiles
Current pilot and collaborations underway with leading global brands, Levi Strauss, Stella McCartney, Adidas and Target
Electric & Autonomous Freight Transport Platform
35k+ metric tons of carbon emissions reduced in first month of Company partnership with Oatly bringing 5 electric trucks onto the road
Technology job retraining, software development platform
4,500 workers trained with 97% employed in tech jobs resulting in $263M of aggregate wages mostly for women and minorities
Ed tech for literacy and critical thinking grades 5-12 Mental wellness app featuring BIPOC-specific content
150k students across 36 states benefiting from
2 years of reading growth development 4M Shine app users and 1M podcast listeners many of whom are BIPOC
LED technology reinventing disinfection
250K+ lives impacted through antimicrobial solutions deployed in homes, planes, hospitals, gyms, food processing plants and more
First-to-market CRISPR based diagnostic platform
4x throughput for COVID-19 testing in U.S. with CRISPR based technology granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA
Cardiovascular diagnostic medical device
2.9M estimated potential long hauler patients in the US may be impacted by study with Mt. Sinai assessing endothelial dysfunction related to COVID-19
Dual immunotherapy cancer treatment
200K patients w/ ovarian cancer could be impacted with FDA approval
Regenerative medicine growing bone from stem cells
90k patients undergoing craniomaxillofacial (CMF) procedures every year 8
Select Case Studies - Environment
aclima.io Industry: Specialized technology that captures and measures hyperlocal air quality data in real time Company Description: Aclima’s technology is implanted in Google Street View cars and other roving vehicles to deliver accurate and granular level data to governments, corporations, utilities and other clients. The company offers data science in a way never before available to facilitate solutions and environmental justice for U.S. cities, states and other global locations. PA Investment: Series A, Series B
MACRO PROBLEM
• 92% of the world’s population breathes substandard
CURRENT MEASURED IMPACT
• Aclima’s calibrated roving and stationary hardware and software measures more air pollutants and GHGs at a 100-1000x cost reduction from existing approaches with just one application and customer dashboard.
• Deployed their technology in 150+ cities in 14 countries. With roving vehicles cover over 10 million people and producing billions of hyperlocal data points each week.
• In beta launch for local residents, an online interactive air quality report in multiple languages to foster environmental justice.
• Awards: One of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and #1 in Data Science (2021), Inc Magazine’s Best in Business (2020). NEAR TERM GOALS
Founders: Davida Herzl Co-Investors: Microsoft Climate Fund, Clearvision Ventures, Social Capital, Kapor Capital
air, exacerbating diseases and causing trillions of dollars in health problems and costs every year.
• Close more multi-year contracts in pipeline, service more customers including the Biden administration.
• Become the pre-eminent and trusted global source for air quality information for meaningful remediation, protection and health. INVESTMENT RATIONALE
• Aclima built a robust technology that has been verified by a wide range of experts and clients and provides the data needed to address methane gas and other leaks as well as data to deliver solutions for improving air quality. The problem is massive and global.
Financing Round Details: $24M Series A $40M Series B 9
Select Case Studies - Environment
airprotein.com
MACRO PROBLEM
• Current global food production accounts for over 20% of greenhouse gases and uses over 37% of the planet’s land mass.
• The global population is expected to reach 11 billion people by 2050 which is expected to lead food production demand to increase by 70%.
Industry: Developing a sustainable meat substitute produced using CO2 Company Description: Air Protein is a first to market novel protein alternative, leading the next generation in the future of food with the world’s first air-based protein by creating a cost-effective, environmentally sustainable and nutritional substitute.
• Air Protein’s technology requires 1.5MX less land and 15,000X less water when compared to beef production and utilizes carbon dioxide rather than emitting it.
• Air Protein’s technology is carbon negative with a closed loop carbon cycle with no arable land required. NEAR TERM GOALS
• Air Protein is positioned to make different types of protein such as chicken, pork, and seafood with high nutritional value in the future.
• Their products are built with a focus on clean labels PA Investment: Series A Founders: Lisa Dyson Co-Investors: Google Ventures, ADM Ventures, Barclays
and minimal ingredients: proteins, key vitamins and all the amino acids required in a healthy diet. INVESTMENT RATIONALE
• The global meat market was worth $1.8 T in 2020, globally. However, the industry increasingly faces business, ethical, and environmental challenges.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the weaknesses of the global meat supply chain.
Financing Details: $30M Series A
• Air-based protein is positioned to be the most sustainable, scalable and nutritious protein alternative, creating an entirely new category. 10
AIR PROTEIN CLOSED LOOP CARBON CYCLE
Select Case Studies - Inclusive Growth
bitwiseindustries.com
MACRO PROBLEM
racism have illuminated the structural inequities of employment and job retraining. These challenges are exacerbated in Underdog Cities across America. CURRENT MEASURED IMPACT & MILESTONES
Co-Investors: JPM, Kapor Capital, New Voices Fund, Motley Fools Ventures Plum Alley Round Details: $27M Series A $50M Series B
• In less than 5 years, Bitwise turned Fresno, CA into the 16th fastest growing tech hub in the U.S.
• Bitwise has taught 5,000 students to code with 80% of them finding gainful technical employment and created 15,000 jobs, indirectly adding 1% to Fresno’s GDP.
• Average wages of coding academy graduates is $62,700 / year, resulting in $250M of aggregate wages. Average earnings gain for graduates is ~$41,200 / year.
• Bitwise has restored and improved blighted commercial real estate, increasing value by approximately 12x.
PA Investment: Series A, Series B Founders: Irma Olguin and Jake Soberal
and 11M people are in need of job retraining or retooling.
• The COVID-19 pandemic and reckoning with systemic
Industry: Technology job training and software development platform Company Description: Bitwise Industries trains tech workers, develops software and invests in tech-friendly real estate to jumpstart local economies and bring future-focused and sustainable economic employment to those often left behind.
• An estimated 12.6M people are unemployed in the U.S.
• Awards: $5 million tax credit for job creation from the state of California. Fast Company’s 10 Most Innovative Corporate Social Responsibility Companies (2021). NEAR TERM GOALS
• Bitwise plans to expand to 10 more cities, training 40k
INVESTMENT RATIONALE
• The company is capitalizing on the future of work, which
more students and creating 38k jobs in 3-5 years.
represents a $500 billion U.S. market opportunity.
• Bitwise’s multidimensional business model creates a competitive moat and enables the company to achieve commercial scale while delivering outsized impact to local economies across the U.S. 11
Select Case Studies - Inclusive Growth
thinkcerca.com Industry: Developing scalable education technology and curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students. Company Description: ThinkCERCA is web-based literacy platform that gives teachers a technology enabled approach to teach critical thinking through the use of argumentative writing with a focus on grades 4-12.
MACRO PROBLEM
Co-Investors: Great Oaks Venture Capital, Amicus Capital, Scott Cook
provide 21st century critical literacy skills and serve the needs of diverse classrooms.
• ThinkCERCA focuses on large urban school districts addressing the needs 5-7 million students. CURRENT MEASURED IMPACT & MILESTONES
• Taught 100,000+ students across 36 states. • Proven to help students achieve 2 years of reading growth each year.
• Teachers save an average of 9.5 hours each week.
NEAR TERM GOALS
PA Investment: Series B Founders: Eileen Murphy and Abby Ross
• Teachers are under-resourced in their efforts to
INVESTMENT RATIONALE
• ThinkCERCA is also developing international summer English learning opportunities in China, potentially addressing the needs of 3 million students.
• Large addressable market with accelerated growth amidst COVID-19 pandemic. HolonIQ’s updated global market size for EdTech estimates a $63B increase from pre-COVID estimates.
• Experienced leadership team with deep expertise as life long educators and literacy experts.
• Demonstrated product adoption by large school districts across the U.S. with award winning results dramatically improving student literacy and writing growth.
Plum Alley Round Details: $15M Series B
12
Select Case Studies - Health
mammoth.bio
MACRO PROBLEM
Industry: CRISPR applications for disease detection, agriculture, biodefense, and more. Company Description: Mammoth Biosciences has established itself as the CRISPR platform providing accessible and rapid diagnostics, disease detection and targeted therapy. It is looking to solve the massive problem of lack of rapid, affordable, easy to use diagnostics.
• Mammoth’s CRISPR platform can be used to: • Reduce healthcare costs, • increase access to diagnostics and therapies for curing diseases,
• and broadly improve lives by reading and writing the code of life.
• CRISPR has been used to address many needs in a number of therapeutic applications including: immuno-oncology, neurology hematology, ophthalmology, cardiovascular, and autoimmune, liver and neuromuscular diseases. CURRENT MEASURED IMPACT & MILESTONES
• Awarded a large grant from the NIH RADx program to address the testing shortage with its high-throughput COVID-19 testing
• Published validation of its DETECTR platform to detect Covid-19 from respiratory swab RNA extracts in under 45 min.
• Secured exclusive licensing to discovery platform identifying novel Cas proteins from UC Berkeley.
Plum Alley Round: Series A, Series B, Series C Founders: Dr. Janice Chen, Dr. Jennifer Doudna, Dr. Lucas Harrington, Dr. Trevor Martin Co-Investors: Amazon, Redmile, Decheng, Mayfield Fund, NFX, DHVC, Verily, 8VC Plum Alley Round Details: $23M Series A $45M Series B $50M Series C
• Partnerships: with GSK Consumer Healthcare, Horizon Discovery Group, MilliporeSigma and Hamilton Company. NEAR TERM GOALS
• FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the
1.
DETECTR platform to be used in millions of COVID-19 tests.
• Collaboration with GSK Consumer Healthcare to make rapid, disposable CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostic tests. INVESTMENT RATIONALE
2.
• Mammoth is the first and only company to provide accessible disease detection on the novel CRISPR platform, making diagnosis cheaper, faster and accurate.
3.
• Strong founders and leadership with technology validated by the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), UC Berkeley.
• The 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to cofounder Dr. Jennifer Doudna for the discovery of the CRISPRCas9 genome editing tool utilized by Mammoth’s team. 13
4.
For more information, please reach out to info@plumalley.co