INTERVIEW: RISE VENTURES
INVESTING IN
INNOVATION
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Howard Mears and Liam Allwood, co-founders of Rise Ventures, about innovation, responsible investing, and building a business community on shared values. – Written by Charlie Plumb Established in 2020, with a mission to help connect environmentally and socially responsible businesses with investors that will allow them to grow, Rise Ventures is a one-of-a-kind investment consultancy. With a strong grounding in the worlds of finance and entrepreneurship, founders Howard Mears and Liam Allwood hope to drive innovation through investment to help change the world for the better. A PLATFORM FOR SUCCESS Rise Ventures came about partly because of the devasting impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought upon the business community, an origin that has shaped the company’s approach to investing. “Rise Ventures started just before the first lockdown, about 20 months ago,” says co-founder and CEO Howard Mears. “We started the business to open the doors to private investing, because we wanted to support good small businesses. With COVID causing a lot of businesses to unfortunately shut down, there’s a massive opportunity for new businesses to innovate right now. There are thousands of dynamic and sustainable companies in the UK, but if they don’t get representation and support, they won’t grow.” 4 | SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE
Rise Ventures acts as a facilitator between businesses, investors, and the private markets, with an aim towards creating a better economic and environmental future. “We wanted to build out a platform where we can leverage our network of investors, entrepreneurs, and creatives to support the next wave of business,” explains Mr. Mears. “It sounds like a very lofty goal, but it’s something that we’re doing right now, which is incredibly humbling. We use what we call the ‘Rise Approach’, working exclusively with a select group of 10 companies, all of whom we can really get behind. We’re not just here to make a quick buck; it’s about building a reputation, rather than just making revenue. We want to provide our investors with the opportunity to work with businesses of the very highest caliber.” STAMP OF APPROVAL Part of Rise Ventures’ approach to creating that better future is to ensure that the businesses they work with are truly committed to sustainability. “We created an ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) profile,” says Mr. Mears. “It’s a hot topic now in both private and public investing, but there was no standard in the market when we came to it – each individual company had their own benchmark.
We’ve created our own model to try and help set an industry standard, and we’re working towards a level of accountability in the private markets that we haven’t seen before.” For public companies, ESG profiling is a lot easier than it is for private companies because of the lack of historic data,” explains co-founder and COO Liam Allwood. “There’s a potential for greenwashing as well. Some companies that people might not consider environmentally conscious companies would score quite well on ESG because they throw money at governance, for example. We wanted to create a level playing field that gave a correct representation to our investors. That’s why we require our partners to meet our criteria in all three areas. Everyone we work with is carbon neutral or better, and most of them are better.” PRIORITIZING INTEGRITY To Rise, it’s equally important that their partners’ commitment to change reaches all the way from the top to bottom. “The key elements we consider as part of the business proposition are the market, the industry, and the leadership team,” says Mr. Mears. “It’s not just about the founder or founders, it’s about the whole core team. There’s lots
