As Eka Ventures announces the close of its fund, we are delighted to share background on why we invested earlier this year.
Our mission is to grow the social investment market to improve people’s lives in the UK. One of the ways we do this is through our venture investments, supporting an ecosystem that nurtures and scales innovative ways of tackling social problems.
We believe it is possible for purpose-led startups to deliver strong financial returns and meaningful social impact. At the heart of this are values-aligned venture investors who are thoughtful about impact and bring deep expertise in venture investing.
Eka Ventures shares our belief that purpose-led startups can deliver social change, and is building its firm on the premise that impact and financial return can go hand in hand.
A strong track record in venture investing
Eka is a VC firm investing at Pre-A and Series A into consumer technology companies that are building a healthy, inclusive and sustainable economy. Founding partners Jon Coker, Camilla Dolan, and Andrew Richardson bring a wealth of experience in scaling early stage businesses and have invested and collaborated together extensively prior to forming Eka. Over the last decade, they have invested with companies including Elder, an elderly care platform helping people stay in their home for longer and Gousto, an online grocery business delivering healthy and affordable food through a low waste supply chain.
Thoughtful thesis
Eka’s investment thesis is built on ‘shared value’, whereby social and/or environmental impact is delivered in parallel with financial returns. They see a compelling role for this approach in preventative health care, inclusive financial services, and sustainable supply chain technology. High quality impact practice is at the core of Eka’s investment approach, as they look to assess both the impact potential and the ways in which impact drives value for each company they support. Their first investment, Urban Jungle is a great example of a startup that has a focus on impact and is seeing commercial value in taking this approach. Urban Jungle is a technology-enabled insurance provider, using behavioural data to assess an individual with factors that they can control rather than demographics. This helps them design affordable products that are more transparent, fairer and more effective at reaching and serving customers who need insurance most.
Eka’s strong team dynamic, expertise in venture investing, and compelling thesis for delivering both impact and financial returns makes them an exciting partner for our work in impact venture. We look forward to building an impactful relationship with Eka over the years to come.
