DOEN Ventures uses loans and equity investments because an increasing number of people are starting businesses to achieve social or environmental goals. Examples include heat pump panels for household as an alternative to gas or a brewery that helps large numbers of people with a history of psychological disorders to get back to work.
DOEN Ventures funds pioneers with innovative ideas to make the world a better place. As a result, it indirectly contributes to the impact that these entrepreneurs have on our society.
PeelPioneers
PeelPioneers rescues citrus peels from the incinerator. From used oranges they create new ingredients for the food industry, such as orange aroma for summery drinks, peel pieces for chocolate or pastries and citrus fiber as a natural thickener. With support from DOEN Participaties, PeelPioneers built the largest peel processing factory in Europe.
Read more
MUD Jeans
It takes about 8,000 litres of water to produce jeans. By making jeans out of 40% recycled denim, four times less water is needed. MUD Jeans was also the first jeans manufacturer to introduce a leasing model: you pay a monthly fee and when your jeans are worn out you hand them in again, and new jeans can be made from them.
Read more
Fairphone
Fairphone is the first telephone manufacturer to come up with a modular phone: all parts can be replaced separately, making the phone last longer. But Fairphone has had an impact on the electronics sector in another way: by making parts of their production transparent, other telephone producers are also being forced to provide more insight into their production processes!
Read moreFinancial impact
The companies in which DOEN Ventures invests have the potential to achieve financial results in addition to major social impact. The financial results are in the form of profits distributed to shareholders or an acquisition of shares by another company. In these cases, as a shareholder, DOEN Ventures will also recoup financial resources previously provided to achieve the social goals. And if a company is doing very well, this can be considerably more than was ever invested.
All these revenues remain within DOEN Ventures and are redeployed to achieve DOEN’s green or social objectives. This way the funds received can be used many times. This greatly increases the impact that DOEN can achieve. In addition to the green and social impact that DOEN has achieved with investments, DOEN’s investments have also resulted in significant returns on average. The many tens of millions of euros that DOEN has generated in this way have in turn given many new green and social initiatives a chance. And also, the funds received back can be bigger than the initial investment, providing DOEN with fresh financial resources to do its work.
DOEN Ventures puts social benefits first, and takes great risks for these. Yet in spite of this, DOEN achieves very positive returns on its investments. In some cases, this high risk leads to a loss on the investment, but the successful companies more than make up for it. All proceeds are reinvested, so the portfolio grows organically. For example, between 2007-2017, DOEN received a total of more than €77 million income from its investments.