Our story
We were born in 2013 from the thought leadership of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which asked us a question that has shaped our work ever since:
How can we improve the lives of people and the planet?
The first years of our joint work were focused on experimentation and discovery, trying to find an answer to that question.
We learned that impact bonds are powerful instruments for driving better outcomes in social services, including education, employment, child services, and social care.
We were inspired by public, private and social sector leaders who developed a national strategy for impact investment and led Portugal to join the Global Impact Investment Steering Group.
We worked with the Portuguese Government to create Portugal Inovação Social, a €150m impact catalyst institution.
We pioneered data transparency with the launch of ONE VALUE which contains c. 80 indicators with the public investment in social issues.
We found that venture capital is a suitable product to support impact ventures scaling their solutions across Europe. We launched maze x to help founders prepare for their first fundraising and the MSM fund for the following stages.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is the common denominator in these initiatives and helped us mobilise an outstanding group of like-minded partners committed to the same vision.
As we head into the future, we are capitalising on our early experimentations and doubling down on what we learned from working with governments, ventures, investors, and corporates. Our ambition is to become a European reference in improving the lives of people and the planet.
We will not stop until we have a good answer to Gulbenkian’s question.