Rubio Impact Ventures

As the summer sun (finally!) ☀️ shines brightly and many of us take a well-deserved vacation, it's the perfect time to reflect on your future and explore new opportunities. Whether you're relaxing on the beach ⛱️ or chilling in the garden, take a moment to check out the job openings at our portfolio companies (link in the comments ⤵️). Your perfect opportunity to refresh your career and drive meaningful impact might be just a click away.   🔎 Explore the vacancies at Renewaball, HealthSage AI, Amber Electric, Cleverly, Valyuu, RABLE, E-magy, SOLASTA Bio, RIFT, Vytal | The reuse system, NOVAMEAT, Winc Academy, Sympower, Arborea, Wakuli, SkillLab, Microverse, Lingvist, DeWarmte, GoodUp, Olio • Share More, Waste Less, Sama, SkinVision, taylor., GoodFuels, OpenUp, Mosa Meat, Sympower, tiney, Incision, Prêts, Hero and…   🌍 Contribute to projects that make a real difference. 🤝 Collaborate with innovative, passionate teams. 🚀 Grow alongside companies dedicated to impact.   Seize this summer to reflect and act. 💪🌟💚 #jobopportunities #impact #career #impactinvesting #JoinTheChange #RubioPortfolio

Curious about how the new EU AI Act impacts WorkTech and EdTech startups? 🤔 We've got you covered! 🔥 In our latest blog post, Partner Ilonka Jankovich and intern Paul de Ruijter unpack the Act's framework and its real-world implications, featuring insights from our portfolio company, SkillLab. 🔍 Key Highlights: 🌟The AI Act's risk-based classification system 🌟Practical steps for startup compliance 🌟SkillLab’s strategic approach to aligning with the AI Act 🌟Discover how your startup can navigate this new regulatory landscape and stay ahead in AI innovation. 👉 Check out the full article for an in-depth analysis through the link in the first comment ⤵️ #AI #TechStartups #EdTech #WorkTech #EUAIAct #Innovation #Compliance #impactinvesting

We are happy to announce a new milestone for our portfolio company Vytal | The reuse system, who secured over €6.2 million new capital, enabling them to accelerate their deposit-free digital reusable packaging solution across Europe 💰💰💰 The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures through its Sustainable Packaging Innovation Fund, and includes contributions from VENTIS CAPITAL and existing investors Grazia Equity, Kiko Ventures, Chi Impact Capital and Rubio 🤗. Vytal is the largest digital reuse system in Europe🇪🇺, with Germany 🇩🇪 as its leading market. Recently, the Vytal team celebrated at fan zones in Cologne, Stuttgart, and Berlin during the European Championship. At these events, 60 stands served food using Vytal’s reusable packaging system. Vytal collaborates with over 7,000 partners across 17 countries to minimize single-use packaging and advocate for sustainable alternatives. Corporate campuses, universities, business districts, airports, city centres, shopping malls, trade fairs, festivals, and entertainment venues can adopt Vytal-powered reusable solutions. Every year, the EU throws away 66 billion 😲 single-use food and drink containers. Vytal aims to transform the packaging industry and eradicate single-use packaging with its reusable solutions. Using software and data analytics, Vytal offers efficient, cost-effective and sustainable packaging choices that benefit both businesses and the environment while creating a true circular economy. The new investment will enable Vytal to expand into new markets and enhance their software and data-driven solutions for stakeholders across the reusable packaging circular value chain. Congratulations for reaching this new milestone Fabian Barthel, Josephine Kreische, Dr. Tim Breker, and the rest of Team Vytal 🚀 And looking forward to our collaboration with Emerald, Grazia and Kiko Ventures! #impact #impactinvesting #serieA #sustainability

💥 Climate Clash @ Rubio 💥 If you’re feeling discomfort in climate tech at the moment, you’re not alone. With temperatures rising, planetary boundaries exceeded, climate politics regressing, and more cautious climate tech funding there’s plenty of good reasons to feel the unease.  But we say, embrace the discomfort! ❤️ That was the overarching theme of our 2024 “What the Heck, It's Climate Tech!”. Driven by curiosity and our own feelings of climate vulnerability, we tackled some of the most uncomfortable climate tech questions of 2024. Where and how should we invest our limited climate action funds 💰? When should corporations take climate responsibility? Is climate regulation our superhero 🦸 or merely a sidekick? Helmer Schukken called out that to be a VC is to be a "paranoid opportunist", making the case for Rubio’s True, Eager & Bright values keeping us focussed on true partnership and a Just Transition. Next Charlie Macdonald shared Rubio's take on climate tech, that embracing uncomfortable investing helps us find fundamentally transformative ideas beyond the hype. And we hosted two  “Climate Clash” debates on thorny topics with the experts. In the first, Mark van Baal (Founder, Follow This | Shareholders change the world) and Ernestien Idenburg (Co-founder, The Zoönomic Institute) shared contrasting models of steering corporate decisions from the courtroom vs the boardroom. And in the second, Jakop Dalunde (MEP) and Nancy Kabalt- Groot (Chair of Sympower, Partner at Windkracht 5! 5, and Board member of Fastned, Ennatuurlijk B.V., Better Energy) tackled how regulation like the ETS and CBAM from Brussels is playing out in the world. A huge thank you to all the guests who made this event unforgettable – a great mix of Amsterdam's start-up ecosystem and industry professionals from the energy, agrifood, and circularity sectors. We loved connecting with all the passionate entrepreneurs, operators, and investors dedicated to Climate Tech. Here's to many more exciting events! 💪🔥 #impact #impactinvesting #people #climate #tech #event

Last week we had the pleasure of attending and speaking on theTNW conference. Here are some of our key takeaways: 🌟 𝗔𝘁𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: As always, TNW had a fantastic atmosphere, although the Wi-Fi / cellular connectivity left much to be desired. 💼 𝗩𝗖 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀: It's interesting to see more and more VCs discussing longer holding periods, exits, and recaps, rather than bragging about the follow-ons lined up for their companies (with the exception of AI :-).  📈 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜: Just as people who know how to use spreadsheet software took over all the accounting roles, people who know how to program AI will take over roles in many industries. It's funny to hear "soft skills" now being rebranded as "durable skills."  🤖 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲: AI is paving the way for a shift from software as a service to services as a software, a concept that used to make many VCs uneasy. So the YC mantra of "doing things that don’t scale" still holds strong.  🎓 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲: Quoting the OG Jim Coulter of TPG here, the value chain of education hasn't changed much since ancient Greece. It's high time we debate what our societies should learn moving forward, rather than questioning the role of technology in education. 🔮𝗔𝗜 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗲: Is this time different? Yes and no. AI will continue to be overhyped in the near term, and yet, nobody truly understands its full potential. TNW was a fun thought-provoking experience, and I'm excited to see how these trends will shape the future. 🚀 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗕𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲: Despite the grey weather on Friday, our spirits remained high! Ilonka Jankovich was a member of the jury panel for the Sustainable Futures Pitch Competition, where ten innovative startups showcased their solutions. The pitches covered a range of topics, from nuclear fusion to EV charging-point sharing. The competition's winner was Ruben Brands for SeaO2, a project focused on Direct Ocean Capture, extracting CO2 from the surface of seawater to aid in the decarbonization. Congratulations to all participants for their inspiring contributions! Overall conclusion: TNW was a fun thought-provoking experience, and we're excited to see how these trends will shape the future. 🔥🔥🔥 #TNW #VentureCapital #impact #impactinvesting #AI #Education #SustainableFutures #Innovation #GreenTech  📸 Thanks for the pictures: Sophie Wynaendts, Carine de Meyere, Ata Şenkon and Paul de Ruijter

This week we joined the Impact Europe event at De Titaan in The Hague. An impact workout with a view, good discussions, indoor swings and impact people on all levels! 🔥🔥🔥 We joined the panel on Governance models for meaningful impact with Frank Wagemans, Casper Jones and Willemijn Verloop we explored how governance models can serve to maximize a company's positive impact. Deepdiving into the Tony's Chocolonely Mission Lock model;  linking impact targets to performance and remuneration;  Stewart Ownership; and the activist shareholder models for big corporations like Follow This | Shareholders change the world.   ⚡A great workshop to highlight was on #JustTransition with Carolien de Bruin from WBCSD – World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Maha Keramane (BNP Paribas), Judith-Laure Mamou-Mani (Mirova) and christophe poline (Schneider Electric) on the urgent need to combine environmental and social impact. How can energy transition solutions be made accessible and affordable? How can communities be involved and become active stakeholders in transition? Social transition is needed to make energy transition possible!⚡ Thanks Impact Europe for gathering this community and hosting this great event and see you in Bilbao! 👋 Ines Mertens de Wilmars, Saskia Bruysten, Roberta Bosurgi, Ilonka Jankovich #impact #impactinvesting #vc #energy #transition

Celebrating young innovators! 🎉 This week Philips Innovation Award (PHIA) finale showed an impressive cohort of student innovators with lots of impactful strategies (more impact every year!) Congratulations to all the finalists for their outstanding presentations: AlphaPace, LAYCO, Madglove Amsterdam, ANTENNEX, Accuselect, Algaenius, CupHub, and SoundCell. A special congratulations to SoundCell for winning the Innovator League award and AlphaPace for winning the Rough Diamond League award! Finding your "WHY" as a young innovator, and building amazing teams and strong scalable solutions where the themes of the keynote by Willemijn Verloop, followed by great insights by Michiel Muller &  Michael Musandu  in “fireside” chats  🌍 🌟 Super well organised event by Sophie Gehrels, Daan Rustige and team! And an impressive jury of corporate power, entrepreneurs & impact investors Roy Jakobs (CEO of Philips), Gillian Tans (Business Executive, former President/CEO and Chairwoman Booking.com), Pieter Zwart (Founder & CEO of Coolblue), Anke Huiskes (Managing Partner of NP-Hard Ventures) Ali Najafbagy (Founding partner 4impact capital) and Eline van Beest (CEO of Hybridize Therapeutics). Let’s never stop supporting and celebrating  young innovators who are shaping our future! 💪❤️ For those who missed it, you can still experience the event online via the stream at https://lnkd.in/evYFQRwc or on the website of the De Ondernemer. #Innovation #Impact #PHIA2024 #ImpactInvesting #VC #Inspiration

Taking the stage! 🙌 Our partner Ilonka Jankovich will be judging at the Sustainable Future Pitch Battles at TNW on June 21. Ilonka will join forces with Marc Wesselink, Co-founder venturerock, Claire Tange, Founder & General Partner Joanna Invests, and Pauline Wink, Managing Partner & Co-Founder 4impact capital, in an exhilarating pitch battle! Handpicked startups from the TNW for Startups program will showcase their disruptive ideas, innovative solutions, and growth-ready strategies. 🚀 But hey, it's not just about the pitches! If you're attending The Next Web Conference next week and fancy a coffee chat with Team Rubio and/or Ilonka, shoot us a DM. Let's caffeinate our conversations and fuel our commitment to driving impactful change together. See you there?! ☕️ #TheNextWeb #TNW24 #ImpactInvesting #VC #Amsterdam #PitchBattle #tech

💰💰Investment news!! 💰💰 Currently, more than 85% of sustainable home renovations are funded through cash savings, leaving the 40% of homeowners without sufficient savings out in the cold. At Rubio, we believe that making the energy transition accessible for everyone is key to enabling a Just Transition, and we consider our latest investment, Prêts, to be the missing piece here. 🧩 Prêts has developed a return on investment calculator and independent financing platform for sustainable home renovations. Their tool resides inside energy retailers’ websites and apps, focusing on demonstrating the potential returns and cash savings from investing in sustainable home renovations, personalized to a home���s specific energy usage patterns and family budget. It then assists the customer in identifying the right way to finance these investments and streamlining the overall application process. In short: Prêts is connecting the dots between energy conservation and eco-friendly home investments, simplifying the journey towards energy efficiency for homeowners and making it accessible to all.  🙌 Prêts was founded by serial entrepreneur Eugene Lubbers and Gerard van Swieten, with Peer Fisser as late joiner. The team has been rapidly developing both the product and partnerships and are expecting to launch an MVP with their first Dutch energy provider in the coming weeks. We look forward to working with them and co-investors Innovatiefonds Noord-Holland, Rockstart, and several highly relevant angels across the energy, fintech, and real estate world. Curious to learn more about Prêts? Visit their website (link in the first comment ⤵️) and start your journey towards eco-friendly home improvements! 🏡✨ #impact #impactinvesting #investment #energytransition #tech #energy

Thank you team Katapult Future Fest 2024! It was an amazing experience to join this community of like minded impact investors & entrepreneurs who were all eager to collaborate & share new ways of change making. 💚 Building a strong community is absolutely essential for creating a movement for change. We need more ecosystem building - and we need to create new strategies, language and tools to finance the transition of our economy to one that is regenerative & allows all life to flourish. To many KPP24 highlights to mention, but just a few: 💪 We loved the authentic discussion on female values in impact investing that created quite some tension in the room, thank you Hedda Pahlson-Moller & Tera Terpstra for your female power to create this session together. 💃 We loved the dancing & singing and the community dinners, which created amazing connections on other levels. 🍴We also loved our Rubio & Wire Group ladies breakfast where lots of collaborations were initiated. Mostly we loved the Katapult community of truly impact driven individuals, eager to share their learnings & inspiration to support each other in our missions and to search for new ways of approaching systemic change. 🙌 #katapult #impact #impactinvesting #vc #throwback