"Impact is the greatest economic opportunity of our century"

As part of Better Ventures, Tina Dreimann has been investing in impact startups as a business angel for several years. In this interview, she talks about companies that actually have an impact and those that only pretend to.

There was a time when Tina Dreimann took care of turtles in Costa Rica during her studies. Then she went to work for the management consultancy Bain & Company. Only then did she move into the start-up world. Today, she is an investor and focuses on impact startups. In retrospect, all your previous stations prepared her for this role as a business angel, she says.

Ms. Dreimann, you co-founded the angel network Better Ventures with Christoph Behn and Cedric Duvinage in 2019. How did it come about?

We were already working together before the founding. I knew Christoph from my time at Bain and then ended up at his scale-up, Kartenmacherei - where, by the way, I was the first part-time executive. That's also where I met Cedric, our third co-founder. What all three of us have in common is that we have long been interested in the topic of impact, i.e. in business models that are not only driven by returns but also have a positive impact.

Better Ventures now includes almost 50 investors. How do you decide which of you to invest in which startup?

The nice thing about our impact angel club is that it's always an individual decision. It's also important on the investor side that you support the topics you're passionate about. Only then can you become a good angel. Currently, we already receive over 100 start-up applications per month. We make the pre-selection and then share one to two, sometimes a little more, investment opportunities in our community. The angels who are then interested are included in the investment call.

What sums do you typically invest?

We are early-stage investors, so we are mostly active in the first or second round. We have raised everything from 250,000 to almost a million euros from the club itself. The average is probably between 350,000 and 500,000 euros.

You rely on "Impact Only" as it is also called on your website. So you want to earn money by improving the world, why this focus?

That is my most important message. I am convinced that impact is the greatest economic and business opportunity of our century. We have already proven with our current investments that you can combine impact and making money. We are not philanthropists. We want to make money and that is the only way we will be able to live in this world in the long term: If we can reconcile profitability and sustainability.

For an investor looking to make a profit, that still sounds rather unattractive, doesn't it?

After all, the startups we invest in don't want to forego profit. The flaw in the assumption is when you imagine investments in a coordinate system in such a way that on one axis the possibility of improving the world is represented and on the other the probability of generating returns. That is exactly not the case: the two belong together.

Give an example, please, of such a start-up.

We have invested in Everdrop, for example. The start-up develops sustainable household products. All products completely avoid single-use plastic and unnecessary chemicals. Everdrop only launched in 2019, but is already turning over tens of millions of euros. So the start-up is helping to ensure that less plastic waste ends up in the world's oceans and fewer chemicals endanger the environment.

Basically, many founders are convinced that they have the next big thing, that they would improve the world or at least their industry. How do you differentiate when it comes to impact?

Business models have an impact when they have a direct positive effect on our society or our world. This means that every increase in sales must automatically lead to a measurable increase in this positive added value. What would not be an impact start-up for us is a SaaS start-up that exclusively records CO2 emissions for other companies. That is certainly a successful business model in the long term. But at the end of the day, it only helps companies to buy CO2 certificates and show a better balance sheet.

But the start-ups help companies to find the causes in the first place.

Yes, the first step is transparency. But it can't stop there: In our view, a company only delivers impact if it also provides levers for companies to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Everyone probably has their own ideas about impact. Flixbus can ensure that fewer people drive or fly, and thus perhaps less CO2 is produced. Does that make Flixbus an impact start-up that also has a return on investment in mind?

If Flixbus at some point ensures that A. only buses that don't emit CO2 are used and B. that fewer people drive cars themselves, the company solves many problems at once: It's good for the environment and it's good for our mental health, because then people will be less lonely and instead ride the bus together. And at the latest then Flixbus would be an impact startup, yes.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Personal details: Tina Dreimann worked for five years at the management consultancy Bain & Company before she was drawn to the startup world. First she went to Friendscout24. Later, she joined Cardmaking as a Business and Agile Coach. In 2019, she became co-founder of the business angel network Better Ventures.