Naturally Collaborative
The Natural approach is one of collaborating with the very best people and ideas that can generate and deliver the most sustainable impact. This approach is characterised by:
Collaborative advantage
Business looks through the prism of competitive advantage. Almost every book on strategy is based on the assumption that you want to compete with others in your sector and increase your market share, at your rival’s expense. While we do not shy away from healthy competition, we believe today’s problems are too complex to be solved by any single actor. The world becomes a better place when competent people and organisations collaborate to create a new reality. We look for collaborative advantage, partnering with domain experts across all phases of the investment cycle.
Abundance mindset
Effective collaboration requires an abundance mindset. We primarily tend to focus on the size of the pie, rather than our slice of it. When we win, we look to win big, and we look to win together. Concretely, this means we look for healthy incentivisation of management teams, and actively seek co-investment with high-quality investors.
Doing well by doing good
Impact investing is often treated as a trade-off between impact and returns. We believe that contradiction to be false. Outsized, sustainable returns can only exist when there is a significant impact, and the larger that impact is, the faster are the returns. Similarly, meaningful impact cannot exist without healthy returns.
Human-centric
Many a great technology has suffered an early demise due to mismanagement. The business model that got you started is unlikely to be the business model that gets you past your IPO. Venture investing means rapid growth, rapid pivots, and rapid organisational change. We focus on investing in the right people first, technology second. And we stay focused on developing those people – and others who join along the way – for as long as we’re invested in our portfolio companies.
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