Investment in Blockchain for Impact

Lately there is growing discussion around the ways blockchain can impact people’s lives IRL (in real life). What has been exciting for those of us who have been paying attention over the past 5 years or so are all the ways blockchain-enabled solutions are starting to transform the digital and virtual worlds for example de-fi (decentralized finance), NFTs and the metaverse.

The amount of money spent by crypto companies on Super Bowl adds last month further showed how far the industry has come as far as amassing capital and growing interest and ability to attract a more mainstream audience (so much so that the Coinbase ad resulted in overwhelming app downloads and crashing their app!).

While the primitives for enabling a more decentralized economy to flourish are continuously in development and deployment, so much of the core infrastructure required to change not only digital or virtual worlds but also the physical world for the nearly 8 billion people living on planet earth is now ready for prime time, with the help of Layer 2s, DAO tooling and much more.

A movement is growing to focus on leveraging blockchain for good. I like the way Kevin Owocki, the founder of Gitcoin, has framed it: Regenerative Cryptoeconomics. He is hosting a new podcast called GreenPill and leading the conversation on leveraging blockchain to improve people’s lives and heal the planet.

As Iomob was founded in 2018 with a strong focus on impact, we focused early on engaging with investors who appreciated our democratization, sustainability and climate tech angle. Our very first investor, David Lee is a leading global advocate for blockhain for impact. We also raised funding from Techstars and then a mobility investor, B4Motion, before securing funding from Creas Impacto, amongst the leading impact funds in Europe. Of course they are new to crypto and are only recently learning about concepts such as regenerative cryptoeconomics and how to evaluate such projects for their portfolio.

There is so much money flowing to existing and new VC funds to support the the next generation of blockchain tech, whether it is for Layer 1s, Layer 2s, protocols, dapps, metaverse or NFTs. But I recently set out to discover which blockchain savvy investors have a particular focus on leveraging blockchain to impact the physical world and create regenerative outcomes.

Here is the list of funds I have found so far that operate at this emerging intersection (in no order):

Blufolio: Blufolio are based in Switzerland and have a particular focus on early stage investments in blockchain and climate tech.

Our VC fund focuses on direct equity investments in early-stage companies at the intersection of blockchain technology and sustainability.

A100X: A100X is a boutique blockchain fund based in New York focused broadly on impact investing. Disclosure, they are a new investor in Iomob. a100x has 2 great founding partners, Nisa Amolis and Alex Bulkin.

A100x invests in companies that use frontier technology to solve real world problems outside of pure finance and speculation…Additionally, A100x will prefer solutions that generate social and environmental impact, as well as economic impact outside of speculation and gambling; and will strongly prefer diverse founding teams.

Bloccelerate: A Seattle-based blockchain fund led by Kate Mitselmakh and Sam Yilmaz with a laser focus on early-stage blockchain projects supporting traditional and emerging industries.

Enterprises will utilize distributed ledger technologies to offer auditable automation to their clients and stakeholders. Uniting around this thesis, we identify some focus areas (e.g. supply chain, trade & value chain finance, governance) that change with the maturation of the market.

LeadBlock: LeadBlock Partners is a UK-based blockchain fund with a focus quite similar to that of Bloccelerate.

Emerging Investors in Blockchain for Impact

I am sure there are others I have missed and would love suggestions to grow this list. What is also glaringly missing from this list are investmentDAOs especially those with a focus on impact (impactDAOs).

investmentDAOs already have an element of impact regardless of their thesis in the sense they democratize access to anyone who wants to invest in startups and projects that align with their values. Whereas most startup investing has been monopolized by large VC funds who manage investments from their limited partners (LPs), DAOs allow virtually anyone to join and contribute smaller tickets to join a collective of like-minded aspiring investors.

Here is a great list of emerging impact-focused DAOs with a wide range of focus areas.

What’s Next for Blockchain for Impact investing in my opinion:

1. A growing number of existing impact investment funds like Creas will gain exposure to and grow their portfolios with blockchain for impact startups
2. An increase in the number of new blockchain for impact funds like a100x and blufolio to emerge as blockchain investing will naturally diversify just like traditional venture investing has
3. We can expect the large VC funds with a crypto focus or dedication will increasingly diversify their portfolio to include projects with an impact angle. This seems particularly true in the climate space as climate tech is gaining investor interest at a rapid pace and this will certainly be true in blockchain investing
4. Based on our own trajectory and the above likely trends, I think we will see a growing number of blockchain startups who are able to secure funding from impact investors (blockchain and traditional), mainstream tech investors and vertically-oriented investors who can all bring value to a startup as we have discovered
5. impactDAOs will grow in numbers and size of funds and I believe will play an important role in supporting the ecosystem
6. Finally, an exciting area to consider as the space matures. How can regenerative cryptoeconomics principles be baked into code and the token itself? While mechanisms for codifying values into shareholder agreements and new legal forms like B-corps have grown in the past decade, there has been limited attention to how blockchain for impact projects can go a step further through token economic design.

About Iomob

Iomob Technologies is the first company in the world to offer a global decentralised, interoperable mobility marketplace network. Iomob’s world-leading solution enables businesses and governments to quickly and easily launch their own Mobility-as-a-Service solutions by adding individual mobility modes to their existing digital channels. Iomob has won numerous industry awards and has commercial customers in Europe and the US, serving millions of travellers.Iomob also has global partners who increase the reach of the IOM Protocol to more than 40 million daily users.