“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it actually make a sound?”
“If a startup produces unmeasured impact, does it produce impact at all?” (the answer is yes).
In our search for viable impact investments, as well as in the judgement by the Investment Committee of both NIIF and MIINT, one of our priorities was measurable impact. Our advisor expressed hesitancy toward [STARTUP NAME REMOVED] because it was difficult to measure the impact of an organization that is creating broad, systems-level impact as opposed to easily measurable impact.
For example, while [STARTUP NAME REMOVED] had the goal of improving the financial management capacity and allocation decisions in public schools, a reusable straw company could express that they were looking to remove plastic straws and that their impact could be measured precisely by the number of plastic straws removed. Which company creates more impact?
I would feel comfortable arguing the impact case for either company. However, a cleaner “impact ledger” would belong to the straw company.
This doesn’t mean that the straw company is necessarily more impactful, just that it has easier to measure impact. Startups with difficult to measure impact are being overlooked by investors because reporting is difficult. Impact measurement needs to continue to improve so startups addressing large, systems-level problems are not overlooked.
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