Planetary Impact Ventures

Foodture - Food for our future, one of our portfolio companies, is raising a round to scale up production and launch new products. In Denmark, the official nutrition advices recommend 100 grams of legumes per person per day. Today, the average Dane buys 8 grams per day. We need to get to 100 grams fast to reduce our huge footprint from industrial animal production. Foodture does exactly this by fermening locally sourced legumes into tasty products.

At the Planetary office, we have created a small, trust-based bookshop, inviting guests, visitors, colleagues and partners to explore progressive perspectives on the regenerative movement and the ecological crises we are facing.    In collaboration with Forlaget Virkelig, everyone is now able to explore topics like regenerative agriculture, the human impact on geology, or a more philosophical take on nature through ecological integrity and nature criticism.    It is our goal to inspire meaningful reflections and conversations, creating a deeper understanding of our relationship with the planet. The bookshop is only open during office hours - at least for now.

Planetary has gotten a new visual identity – designed by 1508 and created in a collaborative process based on Planetary’s values and guiding principles. In this work, we have worked to ensure that our roots will remain deeply embedded in the ground.   Together with 1508, we have worked towards finding the expression that best reflects what we have been since the beginning and are still working every day to be: an investment fund and a community that invests in and nurtures courage to challenge unbalanced structures, in search of a truly sustainable being with nature.   You can find snippets here on LinkedIn: the font of our new logo, with ligatures and serifs reaching downwards and outwards, representing grounding and our connection to other parts of nature; and in our cover, part of an illustration of lichen to represent the inspiration we find in natures’ symbiotic processes and beings. Much more is to be found on our website, updated by Andreas B., using 1508’s design: www.planetary.dk   If you are a startup looking to contribute to a regenerative food and agriculture system, make sure to reach out.  We also welcome new investors in Planetary for our next closing in November 2024. Contact us to learn more.

Are you curious to learn more about impact investments? Koen van Seijen is doing an excellent job via his podcast Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food. Koen recently celebrated his 300th episode and that is a great place to start if you are interested; https://lnkd.in/dX7_AiUC Thanks for the great work Koen team and here's to the next 300 🍻 !

Vi glæder os til Folkemødet og håber vi ses! 🌞 Foto: folkemoedet.dk

We are happy to announce our investment in Novobiom from Belgium - our first international investment! 🍄   Novobiom can be a leading force in harnessing fungal biotechnology for cleaning up soil and managing waste in a way that’s more aligned with natures principles. Their innovative approach mimics nature's own recycling processes, converting waste into valuable resources and paving the way for a more sustainable future. Along with Noshaq and Circular Innovation Fund, among others, we took part in a EUR 2.0m seed round to allow Novobiom to further develop their organisation and solutions. Novobiom’s CEO and Co-Founder Jean-Michel Scheuren says about the fundraise: “With these funds, we will expand our innovative solutions in the soil remediation sector and drive impactful changes within textile recycling thereby further unlocking the potential of biotechnology to support the transition towards a circular and biobased economy.” Thank you for letting us into your company and important mission – we look forward to contribute.

Are you our new Fund Director or Senior Investment Manager? We have two new open positions At Planetary, we invest in companies aligned with our guiding principles. Companies with a focus on long-term solutions within planetary boundaries. We operate as an evergreen fund, investing patient capital within biodiversity, agriculture and food, and aim to provide a fair financial return. Our ambition is clear: To inspire and contribute to a restructuring of our economic systems, a redefinition of what value is, and a reconnection with nature and life on the planet. Being an evergreen fund with no carried interest, we are demonstrating the change needed in the financial industry for a more humble way of operating and investing.    We created the fund at the end of 2020 with 40m DKK assets under management, which has grown to 120m DKK in subsequent closings. We have a strong pipeline of both investors and investment opportunities, so we are looking to expand the team. We are really excited for the next phase, where we can expand the team and do more. Therefore: Today we are posting two new open positions: - Fund director, who can help us lay the groundwork for growing Planetary further. - Senior investment manager, who can run investment processes from sourcing to reporting. To read more and apply, see links in comments below. In these jobs you will have the pleasure of working with Morten Koefoed and Thomas Høgenhaven on a daily basis - assisted by a very strong line up of Jacob Jelsing, Silja Nyboe Andersen, Frederikke Aasted and Mikkel Palsby in the board. And with Annette Hartvig Bohé, Søren Ejlersen, Martin Moller in the investment committee. On top of this, you will get to work with progressive portfolio companies including Agrain by Circular Food Technology, Aurion A/S, Bioomix, Foodture - Food for our future, Fælleshaven A/S, Novobiom, nutrumami, RE-ZIP - Reusable packaging, Rock Flour Company, SoilSense - and many more to come. And maybe the best part: Our office is in Krogerup, so you can take a lot of the meetings walking past Rock Flour experiments in the field and into the forrest. 

We are proud to announce that we have invested in Rock Flour Company! A startup working with the thousands-year-old natural product of Greenlandic rock flour (GRF).   It’s founded by geologist Minik Rosing, who with his team is on a mission to use GRF to naturally fertilize depleted soils and by that same agricultural application activate its ability to capture carbon long term. GRF has the potential to boost farmers’ yield without polluting or disrupting local ecosystems and simultaneously, by being applied in warm climates, capture significant amounts of CO2 for up to 100,000 years. With this investment we are happy to join group of likeminded investors, like 2degrees and Look Up Ventures, alongside The Footprint Firm who also invested in this round 🌿 Learn more about how it all works at www.rockflour.co or watch the documentary “Magic Mud” – we promise it’s fascinating! The photo is taken in our back yard at Krogerup, where we had to try it out – even if the soil is good and the weather is "bad" – just to see a little magic happen✨

Thank you to DTU Science Park and all the good people there for letting us be part of the GreenUP Bootcamp Days. Exciting to see what startups will make it through to the GreenUP Accelerator Program 2024. Thomas Hebo Sparring Kathrine Fogh Albertsen Christian Bygballe Haahr Susanne Rydahl Drost Emilie Devantier Jan Rosenbom Emilie Dagmar Neergaard Timm

“Generelt ønsker jeg mere handling fra politikerne. Men i mellemtiden må jeg handle selv.” Sådan lyder det fra Jacob Jelsing, der er medstifter af biotekvirksomheden Gubra, som har gjort ham og medstifteren milliardærer. For med sin formue har han en plan om at stille risikovillig kapital til rådighed for grønne startups og bæredygtige virksomheder, der arbejder med noget, som skaber forandringer i samfundet. Med tiden har han fået et større personligt drive for at skabe forandringer andre steder, og for nylig omdøbte han sit personlige holdingselskab til Change Ventures for at signalere, at han nu målretter sine investeringer i den retning. “Jeg er født i 1974 og lærte om drivhuseffekten i folkeskolen. Vi har kendt til dette problem i over 40 år, og alligevel er de globale CO2-udledninger steget og steget. Vi har set en voldsom effekt på økosystemer og et kæmpe tab af biodiversitet,” siger erhvervsmanden, der oprindeligt er uddannet marinbiolog. Indtil videre har han investeret et tocifret millionbeløb gennem eget selskab, hvilket inden for “et par år” skal blive trecifret. Og det er bare begyndelsen, for som han siger: "Jeg kommer i hvert fald ikke til at gå i graven med de her penge stående på min bankkonto.” 📰 https://brnw.ch/21wIg2o 📸 Simon Fals