Helsinki-based deep tech startup Upright has raised €5 million in a seed round led by Berlin-based green tech VC Planet A Ventures and joined by First Fellow Partners, a fund founded by Risto Siilasmaa, ex-Chair of Nokia and Founder of F-Secure and WithSecure. The startup builds a new type of quantification model to measure the net impact of companies. The investment will help the startup scale its impact data engine with the mission to make net impact data openly accessible for all.
With the ongoing climate crisis, one question has remained central: how do companies impact the world around us? ESG reporting, the most commonly used method to assess this, solely focuses on the company’s financial risks associated with environmental or social issues. Upright brings new analytical rigour and comparability to companies’ impact evaluations by measuring the sum of a company’s positive and negative impacts on the environment, health, society and knowledge. Upright is on a mission to build the world’s first truly open impact data platform around its proprietary net impact model.
“The global ESG and impact discourse is in dire need of common sense and understanding of what is big and what is not. Currently, the largest impacts of a company’s core business are buried under masses of details on ways of working and reporting. Apples are compared to oranges and facts are replaced by opinions in Twitter feuds. We need a transparent impact data platform with comparable data that is accessible for all”, says Upright’s Founder and CEO Annu Nieminen.
While there are several providers for ESG reporting or carbon accounting, Upright is the first open-access platform to compare companies across industries not only based on their financial results but also their overall net impact. Upright’s net impact model is the first to contextualize the disclosures and sustainability targets of companies with estimates of the EU taxonomy alignment, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and Upright’s proprietary net impact quantification.
“With 42% of companies exaggerating their sustainability claims, we need a new impact course. Enabling powerful stakeholders, from boards and investors to talent and consumers, to understand the net impact of companies and make informed decisions will lead to a step-change in companies’ actions and their effect on our planet. Upright’s technology isn’t just `nice to have` but will become business critical.” says Nick de la Forge, Co-founder and Partner at Planet A.
“Upright’s goal is in their name: make impact assessments more honest and reputable. They are solving one of the most complex challenges businesses face by removing the blind spots in our current assessment of impact, while also democratizing it. When they asked me to invest I did not need to think twice,” says investor Risto Siilasmaa.
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