ESG & Impact

Pender Ventures seeks to invest in companies that positively impact the world. We see ESG as a framework for managing risk while remaining aware of how our decisions affect our communities and our planet.

At Pender Ventures, we use three UN SDG themes to guide our thinking on ESG and Impact.

Better Lives

Better Planet

Better Inclusiveness

Download the Pender Ventures 2022 ESG Impact Report

Tracking Our Impact

Our portfolio companies have significant impact in advancing seven of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Diversity

We believe diversity in our team enhances our investment process and leads to better decisions. We also believe that diverse companies have fewer blind spots, attract more talent and perform better overall. We are passionate about making our communities more diverse, amplifying diverse voices and improving access to capital for diverse founders.

Diverse Investment Teams

Gender-diverse investing teams are >3x more likely to invest in a female CEO and 2x more likely to invest in gender-diverse founders.¹ ²

Diverse Founding Teams

Gender and/or ethnically diverse founding teams are correlated with a 30% higher multiple of invested capital upon exit when compared to homogeneous teams.² ³

Better Returns

As a result of diverse teams, investing in diverse founders exits for US firms with female partners are 9.7% more profitable and internal rates of return in global emerging markets are 20% higher.⁴

  1. Diana Report: Women Entrepreneurs 2014: Bridging the Gender Gap in Venture Capital, Babson College, 2014.
  2. Kauffman Fellows Research Center presentation by Nihar Neelakanti to AllRaise Summit in Sedona, Arizona, Jan 2020.
  3. Kauffman Fellows Research Center, MaC Venture Capital: “Deconstructing the Pipeline Myth and the Case for More Diverse Managers,” Feb 2020
  4. “Moving Toward Gender Balance In Private Equity and Venture Capital,” Oliver Wyman, Rock Creek, IFC | World Bank Group, March 2019.