Including diversity and sustainability in investment - 9 April 2019

SSE Business Lab has recently added two new criteria in the selection process for the incubator: diversity in the team and sustainability of the product or service. On April 9th, MISUM, House of Innovation and SSE Business Lab jointly invited to a lunch seminar to discuss why this is important and how to implement it. This seminar was targeted at private and public investors as well as incubators, accelerators and other resource providers for startups - and anyone else interested.

93% of all funds raised by European VC-backed companies went to all-male founding teams in 2018, according to Atomico’s report on the State of European Tech. This is in spite of what research shows that more diverse teams are more creative, innovative and generate higher profits. Research shows that both corporate sustainability performance at large and diversity is positively related to corporate financial performance.

For the first admission in 2019, SSE Business Lab, the venture incubator of Stockholm School of Economics, added two more criteria in the selection process to the incubator. Not only is there now a focus on diversity of the team, but a business is also judged on the sustainability of the product or service. We believe the companies of the future will need to meet these requirements to be able to sell, hire and further grow. This means that our portfolio will only grow stronger by using these criteria in the selection. We also believe you can do the same.

This seminar was arranged to shed some light on how to improve. Together with our panelists, we talkes about how investors are implementing similar criteria today and how you can start doing it in your selection processes as well. Two of our SSE researchers shared their learnings from extensive research within their respective fields.

Program:

11:45-12:00

Lunch is served

12:00-13:00

Keynote speech: "Five reasons to integrate sustainability in investment" by Emma Sjöström, Manager for the Sustainable Finance Research Platform at Misum and Deputy Director of Stockholm Sustainable Finance Centre.

Panel on Investing in Diversity and Sustainability, moderated by Julia Delin, Interim CEO, SSE Business Lab

In the panel:

Mark Conley, Assistant Professor at House of Innovation (SSE), with a PhD in Psychology from Columbia University.

Janna Jarlman, Investment Manager at Norrsken Foundation

Emma Sjöström, Manager for the Sustainable Finance Research Platform at Misum (SSE), and Deputy Director of Stockholm Sustainable Finance Centre

Welcome to this Stockholm School of Economics seminar arranged by SSE Business Lab, Misum(Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets) and House of Innovation.

Contact person:
Tinni Rappe