There is increasing evidence to support our initial investment thesis: that an investable market exists where supply chains and social sustainability intersect, driven by market forces, regulation and technology. In this section of our website we present evidence that we are having the impact we intend.
Working Capital Fund was established in 2017 with a highly-differentiated thesis about how to improve human and labor rights through investments in technology.
We invest in startups that can deliver three things:
- Impact against our theory of change
- Scaled implementation
- Sustained business growth
Each WCF portfolio company addresses dimensions of vulnerability and remains impact-aligned.
WCF portfolio companies promote human rights through innovative solutions in:
- Preventing forced, child, and migrant labor
- Improving gender equity
- Enabling a Just Transition to a clean energy economy
- Promoting fair wages and financial wellness
- Reducing workers’ exposure to physical risks
There is also increasing evidence that our Fund investments are creating impact by:
- Reaching over 1.9M workers in 2023 with information that helps them create safer and fairer conditions;
- Reaching 80+ countries
- Capturing 450M+ data points that help suppliers identify forced labor,
- 48% of our investment dollars go toward women founded/led companies (compared to the 2% VC industry average)
Some examples of our portfolio’s impact are illustrated by:
- Helping hundreds of multinationals avoid import bans or penalties due to the presence of forced labor or child labor in their operations or supply chains, by applying artificial intelligence to millions of data points about global trade to make supply chains more transparent;
- Finding ways to make supply chain responsibility profitable, by offering lower cost financing to suppliers that outperform on social and environmental metrics; reducing the cost of workers’ compensation insurance as a result of innovative computer vision safety practices; and engaging consumers with fact-checked claims that motivate purchases;
- Reducing the cost of labor migration, and thus reducing the risk of forced labor, by investing in recruitment agencies that commit to charging employers rather than workers for their services.
We enable multiple pathways to impact, including:
- Driving Corporate Adoption through
- “Return on Impact”
- Enabling Meaningful Compliance
- Engaging Workers Directly to enable self-advocacy and grievance resolution
- Enabling Responsible Decision-making
- Risk Assessment: enabling buyers to see their supply chains clearly
- Responsible Sourcing: and make affirmative decisions to source responsibly
- Generating Unique Datasets that are proprietary and impact focused
Our impact is embedded from the start of our investment process through company exits and we rigorously evaluate potential portfolio companies through a standardized process. We use a thesis-driven approach to identify frontier technologies with capacity to reduce labor rights risks, reporting against established metrics in common use as well as those specific to our portfolio.
Evidence of Impact
Each year, we share a detailed look at our Impact Management and Measurement processes and findings. Our 2023 Annual Report is now available and can be found under Reports.
