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Building a network before it’s useful: Junior Impact VC
Summary: What building a community of impact investors taught me about trust, generosity, and the slow compounding that makes impact possible.
What two and a half years of running Junior Impact VC taught me about community, patience, and the invisible work behind collaboration.
When I started Junior Impact VC, it wasn’t a project plan or a strategic initiative. It was a group chat. Four people on a video call, half of us muted, pretending to know what a “pipeline review” was. We spoke about founders we admired, investment processes we didn’t fully understand yet, and the shared confusion that comes with starting in a field that demands confidence before you have experience.
Fast forward two and a half years, and there are now close to 155 people in the community. Analysts, associates, and a few early principals spread across Europe. At The Drop this year, forty-five of us gathered for a meet-up. I was there, watching the conversations unfold, people greeting each other as if they’d known each other for years. Later, at another event, someone I had never met came up to me and said, “I’m so excited to join the community.” That was the moment it made sense. What began as a small chat had become something alive, something that kept growing even when I wasn’t looking.
It also made me think about how slow, patient work often looks insignificant from the outside, until one day, it suddenly feels inevitable. That is how most good things in impact investing seem to grow. Quietly, through repetition, trust, and the persistence of people who care.
Since then, Junior Impact VC has grown to 155 members across Europe. We’ve hosted 17 online meetups, written 19 newsletters, and organised eight in-person gatherings, from small breakfasts during conferences to the biggest one yet at The Drop.
Why it started
When I joined maze x, I was younger and still trying to understand what “impact investing” really meant in practice. Together with my colleague and dear friend Rodrigo, we were responsible for everything: scouting, screening, due diligence, preparing investment memos, supporting accelerations. All of it. It was exciting, but the pace was fast and expectations were high. Every day felt like a mix of opportunity and mild panic.
That kind of environment demands quick learning, and not the kind you can find in a textbook. The practical kind. The kind that comes from asking, failing, and adjusting. So I started reaching out. I sent DMs to analysts from other funds, booked calls with anyone willing to talk, and quickly found myself with more investor meetings than founder calls. It was fun and stimulating, but clearly not sustainable.
That was how the idea for a small group emerged. A simple WhatsApp chat with the people I spoke to most often. The goal was to make knowledge sharing more efficient and maybe even a bit more generous. I wanted a space where people could ask questions without worrying about sounding inexperienced, where we could share what we were learning as we went.
Looking back, I think I just wanted a sense of community in a job that can be oddly solitary.
Maybe that’s why this worked: because it came from need, not strategy. Communities rarely succeed when they start from branding decks. They start from a gap: in this case, the simple realisation that the early-career layer of the impact VC world had no real place to talk, learn, and grow together.
What I learned on the way
1. Build a good name, and start early
At maze, we often repeat this phrase: “build a good name.”
I would add one small detail to it. Start early.
It’s not easy to promote yourself or build relationships with senior people who already have a full schedule and a long list of priorities. Juniors, on the other hand, are usually open, curious, and happy to grab a drink. They relate to your struggles, and you to theirs.
Most of them will grow into more senior roles. Watching that happen has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey. I still remember people who were analysts when we first spoke. Now they’re associates, principals, “heads of.” Those early conversations build bonds that stay.
2. The energy in the room is always worth it
There were many times when I doubted whether it was worth organising meet-ups or side events during conferences. Thinking about venues, guest lists, name tags, and being a good host feels like a lot., and you always wonder if anyone will actually show up. But each time, as the room starts filling, that doubt disappears. The conversations take on their own rhythm, and I remember why it matters.
The energy in those rooms is hard to describe. It is a mix of relief and recognition: people who finally find others who understand the same challenges, who care about the same strange mix of finance and purpose. Those moments remind me that community isn’t built online; it only comes alive when people meet.
3. You will sometimes be too much
Running a community means sending reminders, follow-ups, newsletters, and messages that might get muted. I know, because I mute groups too. It is easy to start wondering if people are tired of hearing from you.
There have been many nights when I hesitated before pressing “send,” asking myself if it was worth the effort. Should I really spend more time tweaking open rates or worrying about engagement metrics, when this started as a side thing to my real work? It is difficult to know if people still care.
But I have come to see silence differently. It doesn’t always mean indifference. Sometimes, the message that went unnoticed ends up connecting two people who co-invest months later. The reward is rarely immediate, but it exists, and it is real enough to keep going.
And this has also taught me something about the nature of impact work itself: you can’t optimise everything. Some outcomes take shape quietly, long after the effort was made. Community building has made me a more patient investor, because it forces you to trust the process even when you can’t measure it.
4. Everyone wants a community. Very few want to build one.
This is probably the hardest truth. Many people open the newsletter or check the dealflow. Fewer share something back. And that’s okay. We all operate in a field where time is scarce and attention is currency.
But I still believe in the importance of giving first. The impact ecosystem talks a lot about collaboration, but someone has to make the first move. Someone has to keep sharing, even when it feels one-sided. That might look naïve, but I think it’s exactly the kind of mindset we need if we want to fund the right innovations and founders.
Many doubts along the way
There were moments when I thought about letting it go. Understanding the challenges that founders face has made me see the parallel: trying to keep momentum, not knowing if what you’re building is landing, questioning the return on time and effort.
There were days when I thought maybe no one would notice if I stopped.
Now that the community has grown, it sometimes feels too big. In the beginning, I onboarded every single new member personally. I knew everyone’s face, their fund, their interests. That is no longer possible. I had to automate the process, create templates for newsletters, and think more strategically about communication. It is less grassroots now, less intimate. But when people I’ve never met start organising meet-ups at conferences I’m not even attending, it makes me happy in a quiet way. It means it works. It means it lives on its own.
So where are we now?
Two and a half years in, the community feels less like a project and more like an ecosystem. It grew the way good things usually do, quietly and through people who keep showing up.
Today, the community has two main spaces. The WhatsApp group is the daily pulse. People share job openings, post when they are heading to conferences, or ask for quick tips on due diligence and deal structures. Then there is Notion, our collective brain. That is where dealflow circulates, where resources are saved, and where members can find each other.
The goal has stayed the same. To connect the people doing the heavy lifting. Analysts and associates are the ones meeting founders first, having the long calls, spotting the good deals that just do not fit their fund. Sharing those opportunities helps the ecosystem work a little better. But the truth is, what people find here goes beyond efficiency. It is a place to feel part of something.
When you start in VC, you quickly see that partners have built networks through years of dinners and conferences. Juniors do not. Junior Impact VC became a way to bridge that gap. To help early investors build their own circles and feel they can shape the future of the impact VC ecosystem too.
And maybe that is the point. We often talk about the infrastructure of capital, the funds and partnerships and platforms that make deals possible. But the social infrastructure matters too. The networks of trust and small exchanges that quietly hold the ecosystem together.
What is next, ideally?
The next step feels simple, but meaningful. To decentralise. To create city chapters, each one led by people who remember what it felt like to start out, who can now make the path a little easier for someone else. Smaller gatherings, more frequent connections, more chances for people to share what they have learned before they forget what it was like not to know.
The goal is not to scale or to build a brand. It is to multiply the spaces where curiosity and generosity meet.
Because maybe this kind of peer-led network is what patient capital looks like. Relationships that grow before they are useful.
If we want to build better companies, perhaps we start by building better communities.
Interested in joining or leading a city chapter? Reach out to alice@maze-impact.com or apply here.