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Future Planet & MIT Solve Alliance
The Workshop Strategy and the Wei Foward Report II
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At the end of September, on the eve of the General Assembly annual gathering in New York, it was exciting to be able to join forces with our Ally, MIT Solve - and to announce our intention to launch the Workshop Strategy. The initiative aims to invest for-profit capital in Solver Teams emerging from Solve’s Global Challenges.
The event, held at the Penn Club in New York, focused on how universities, entrepreneurs and investors can align impact and profit to accelerate change. Born out of the MIT President’s Office in 2015, Solve acts as a global hub to convene innovators to one of the world’s most enterprising universities. Many of these companies would not ordinarily be reached by investors. This includes Ventures from the global South - widening access for entrepreneurs but also enabling FPC to tap into the highly filtered deal flow from fast-growing markets.
The Queen of Raw, one of the exemplars of what is possible as an alumna of MIT Solve, gave a stirring presentation. Their solution to help our planet by reducing waste using revolutionary software is now widely used across the fashion industry, including by large corporates. Queen of Raw's charismatic founder, Stephanie Benedetto, recounted her moving origin story - her father as a recently arrived immigrant to Manhattan nearly a hundred years ago built up a business from nothing but upcycled discarded items of clothing. Stephanie's team, inspired by this approach, have developed sophisticated technology to identify and eliminate waste in textile and other supply chains. A recent example of success saved billions of tons of water around the world, water that will instead be available for citizens to drink and utilise for daily living and survival, instead of becoming polluted and unusable.
Accompanied by the FPC Team, Advisory Board Member Lord Wei spoke during the event and built on these presentations by giving a stirring tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth was much loved by the people of New York City as well as across America and the world. Lord Wei highlighted how we can all be inspired by her sense of duty and care for people, as well as the importance of global reconciliation. He invited participants in and beyond the room to contribute to the forthcoming second edition of the Wei Forward report. The new edition seeks to explore how the financial ecosystem for impactful ventures can be further encouraged, understand its evolution around the world, and consider how more investment can be directed to helping those on lower incomes lead better lives with a lower cost of living and more reliable, renewable, and secure energy.
With existing FPC portfolio companies such as Tokamak Energy, Solasta Bio and Vaccitech (to name but a few) - and many of the hundreds of companies who have gone through the MIT Solve process - there is great opportunity to deliver sustainable returns for investors while helping to build much-needed resilience and tackle poverty affecting peoples all across the world.
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Thank you to everyone who joined Future Planet Capital, Lord Wei, Stephanie Benedetto, and Alex Amouyel, for the launch of our alliance with MIT Solve and the announcement of the upcoming Workshop Strategy at the Penn Club in New York City.
We hope that you found the conversation as fruitful as we did, and thank you to those who actively contributed to those discussions.
If you are interested in learning more about our alliance with MIT Solve and the Workshop Strategy please do not hesitate to get in touch with Ed Phillips.
Over the next three months, we will also be hosting another two roundtable events in Singapore and London as part of the upcoming second installment of the "Wei Forward" Report by Lord Wei. We welcome you to join us at these events to take the conversation further, and explore how we can address the many challenges we face globally through the venture capital ecosystem and beyond.
In the meantime, if you would like to be involved in the initial research of the upcoming report, please contact Jess Hill.
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Solve Challenge Finals 2022: Unveiling the Entrepreneurs Who are Changing the World
After three years of virtual programming, Solve Challenge Finals returned to New York City during the United Nations General Assembly Week, grounding Solve in its ongoing commitment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While world leaders gathered to discuss the pressing issues of our time, Solve convened the individuals and community who are poised to solve them.
During the event, the new 2022 Solver Class was revealed – 40 early-stage social impact solutions that are addressing this year’s Global Challenges. These individuals hail from all over the world, including Myanmar, Benin, the Navajo Nation, and more. They gathered in New York City on September 18 to pitch their solutions to our community, win prize funding, and forge connections with supporters who will continue to empower them throughout their entrepreneurial journey.
There was palpable excitement and energy throughout the event as everyone awaited the announcements of the prize winners. Over $2M in prize funding was available this year thanks to the generous contributions of supporters. Prizes were announced throughout that day and were met with loud applause, cheerful tears, and the promise of scaling our collective impact.
Read the full blog post, and Solve's key takeaways from the momentous day, here.
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Challenge Investing
Within our universe, we have a significant number of companies that are helping to profitably address vitally important global challenges. If you’d like to advise, invest in or support some of the most promising growth companies based on top research then please don't hesitate to get in touch.
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