At Highline Beta we are committed to a high standard of ESG & DEI reporting and compliance within our portfolio. As a venture capital fund we are in a strong position of influence to help our portfolio companies establish their own positive guidelines towards ESG & DEI.
We’ve established three principles to consider and manage ESG & DEI factors when moving forward with a new investment and when tracking progress made by our portfolio:
Integrate: We integrate ESG into our investment process during the due diligence process. We’ve created an ESG Checklist that is used to evaluate each investment. For DEI, we ask founders to sign an LOI committing to recruiting diverse talent into senior management positions.
Engage: We engage our portfolio through regular interaction to promote change and nurture success in their ESG & DEI related initiatives. We endeavour to update our portfolio’s ESG & DEI metrics through the use of BDC’s checklists on a quarterly basis.
Collaborate: We collaborate with the broader venture capital and startup ecosystem to create a supportive and sustainable business environment. Highline Beta uses Carbonhound (a portfolio company) to measure and mitigate its own carbon footprint.
Currently nine of our fifteen portfolio companies support at least 1 of the United Nations’ SDG Goals. Examples include:
As of December 2022 (last reporting period), 31% of the management teams of our portfolio identified as female and 54% identified as diverse (of which 8% identified as female and diverse.)
