GIANT BACKS
PURPOSE-DRIVEN FOUNDERS
SOLVING THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CHALLENGES
We believe the largest companies of the decade will be built using technology to tackle these problems.
We champion founders creating a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient planet.
We value courage, persistence, creativity, and ambition.
Giant’s mission is to build category defining companies and deliver systemic change.
Our team of former founders and global leaders will deploy $1 billion into purpose-driven technology in the 2020s.
IMPACT AT A GLANCE
Giant invests in companies whose core purpose is to solve a major societal or environmental challenge. We seek outliers who create simple and scalable solutions for a complex world.
Giant’s portfolio companies have the potential to create major impact by 2030 if they scale successfully.
3B litres of water saved
London’s daily water usage
130MT+ of CO2e abated
Annual emissions of 28M cars
10M people with improved access to healthcare
Population of Sweden
5,100TB new climate data to enable smarter action
10,000 years of music
Many of Giant’s portfolio companies are still in the development phase – producing no, or only a small, impact on CO2 emissions. As those companies scale, the carbon reduction potential of the existing potential may far exceed the number shown here.
GIANT BACKS PURPOSE-DRIVEN FOUNDERS
The scale and complexity of the challenges humanity faces require a truly diverse group of people to develop game-changing technological solutions.
We believe there is no mould for successful founders. Talent comes in many forms – not to mention genders and ethnicities. The qualities that define a 50 year-old, third-time, non-technical founder vary greatly from those that make a college dropout coder succeed.
The characteristics that unite Giant’s greatest founders are perseverance, resilience, and a burning sense of purpose.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the web
GIANT SUMMIT
THE WORLD’S LEADING EVENT FOR PURPOSE-DRIVEN TECHNOLOGY
We use our convening power to assemble global leaders to define how technology can be a force for good.
Speakers and guests at Giant Summit 2022 at London’s Tate Modern included: inventor of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee; the founders of 23andMe, ARM, Hopin, Owkin, Bulb, Lendable, Ganni, Koenigsegg, Casper, interactive investor, CVC, Onfido, Indeed and Babylon Health; double Olympic gold medallist Alistair Brownlee, former BP CEO turned climate investor Lord Browne, former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, founding Wired editor David Rowan as well as General Partners from Lightspeed, a16z, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Accel, NEA, TPG Rise, SoftBank, Goldman, Atomico, BeyondNetZero, Ontario Teachers and more.
Double Olympic gold medallist Alistair Brownlee & Hayden Wood, Bulb Co-Founder and Giant Venture Partner
David Goldhill, Sesame Co-Founder, Linda Avey, 23AndMe Co-Founder & Ali Parsa, Babylon Health Founder
Alice Steenland, Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer at Signify, Amit Gudka, Bulb and Field Co-Founder, Lord Browne, former BP CEO turned General Atlantic climate investor, and David Miliband, former UK Foreign Secretary
OUR COMMITMENT
DELIVER RADICAL, SYSTEMIC CHANGE
Giant commits to delivering our investors radical, systemic change alongside exceptional returns across three themes.
These themes have been selected because of their urgency for humanity, and their potential for radical innovation through technology.
CLIMATE
FOUNDERS WILL SAVE THE PLANET
The Problem
Climate change arrived on the Giant team’s doorstep in 2022. Droughts, floods, and heatwaves came again to Europe and North America this summer. The next 7 years are critical: the world must slash carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avoid catastrophic warming. If we are to address the challenges of climate change and decarbonisation, hard truths need to be confronted now.
Giant’s Thesis
Technology will create radical solutions in energy, waste, manufacturing, plastics, water, and food. Governments, corporates, and consumers must also rise to the challenge if we are to decarbonise the economy. We believe that the transition to net zero life is a tectonic shift in the arc of human history that will prove as significant as the invention of the steam engine or the internet. It is humanity’s greatest test, and founders will lead the way.
“With both our climate and our soils in a state of emergency, farmers who have historically been singled out to blame now have the opportunity to become the heroes of future generations – and get paid.”
IDA, CO-FOUNDER, AGREENA
OUR PORTFOLIO
GIANT’S CLIMATE TECH PORTFOLIO
Our industry-leading climate team identifies opportunities in the decarbonisation transition that are truly impactful and have venture scale payoffs and timeframes.
Our portfolio attacks the climate crisis from all sides. We follow the carbon, not the latest VC hype.
HEALTH
IT’S TIME TO RETHINK HEALTH
The Problem
Healthcare constitutes 18% of US GDP while tens of millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured. The NHS is the single biggest line item in the UK budget but is under immense strain. The pandemic, an aging population, and distorted incentives threaten our physical resilience, as we confront a still-misunderstood phenomenon: a global mental health crisis.
Giant’s Thesis
The increasing organisation of care online is one of the biggest investment opportunities and social priorities that exists. Healthcare systems need to further introduce technology, consumerism, and rational economic behaviour to improve outcomes, broaden access, and tackle costs. At Giant, we believe entrepreneurs, rather than governments alone, will be most likely to deliver this innovation.
“I love Giant’s mission. It’s very aligned with Calm and we’re delighted to have you as shareholders. Great to have you onboard!”
MICHAEL, CO-FOUNDER, CALM
INCLUSIVE CAPITALISM
TECHNOLOGY CAN DRIVE INCLUSIVE CAPITALISM
The Problem
Global wealth has grown overall but inequality is on the rise. The poorest half of the global population owns just 2% of total wealth. Millennials are the first generation to earn less than their parents, while the cost of health, education and other social goods have risen significantly, a factor in recent political and social upheavals. Meanwhile, the benefits of the web 2.0 tech boom have not been accessible to many underrepresented groups.
Giant’s Thesis
The next wave of technology startups have the potential to transform the lives of people who people who really need it, driving social mobility and reducing inequality. Novel financial products, open infrastructure, and ‘future of work’ innovation can help lower-income citizens and small businesses stabilize their financial lives, afford core services, increase earning potential and access entrepreneurship. Our inclusive capitalism thesis is centered on products rebalancing the relationship between labour and capital.
“Over the next 10 years, Kapu will save African consumers $1B. That’s a lot of additional disposable income and potential opportunity. For example, 5M children can be sent to school. It’s also a significant reduction in food waste.”
SAM, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, KAPU
HOW WE WORK
IMPACT IS AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING GIANT DOES
Giant has a founder-friendly but rigorous approach to ensure that we invest in the most impactful companies across our three themes.
From sourcing to due diligence, we think carefully about the company’s impact potential and scalability. We use recognised frameworks such as the UN SDGs and the Impact Management Project in our evaluation. Upon investment, we work with founders to set and track easy-to-understand Impact KPIs that help them access new pools of capital and attract talent, while offering Giant LPs transparency. We also provide early-stage founders with an ESG framework to serve as as a guide as they scale.
1. Deal Screening & Initial Review
Founders’ purpose & impact vision
Scalability of technology & impact
Core alignment with Giant theme and UN SDG
2. Due Diligence & Scoring
Score deal using our impact scoring framework
Formulate impact thesis including risk assessment
3. Post Investment Managment
Work with company to set and track impact KPIs
Intervene to course-correct any drift from impact thesis or emerging negative ESG outcomes
4. Reporting
Quarterly reports for Giant LPs
Annual Giant Impact Report
CASE STUDIES
The following pages elaborate on a select group of 12 case studies that embody the impact of our portfolio and the vision of the purpose-driven founders we back.
REGENERATIVE FARMING CARBON MARKET
Farming is responsible for 9% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Degraded soils have long-term implications on biodiversity and food availability for the world’s growing population.
Agreena works with farmers to mint high-quality, verified carbon credits from regenerative agriculture projects and sells these to corporates, creating a much-needed economic incentive for farmers. Regenerated soils also make for healthier crop yields, supporting the environment’s ability to feed the world.
RENEWABLE INFRASTRUCTURE STARTING WITH BATTERY STORAGE
As the world shifts towards greater use of intermittent renewable energy sources, from solar to wind, we are becoming more dependent on weather and seasonality. Battery storage will be a key technology to even out supply and demand discrepancies, without which the full transition to renewables will be impossible.
Field is providing full stack financing, development and operations of renewable infrastructure starting with battery storage and expanding to co-located solar and storage as well as carbon capture and storage in the future.
DECENTRALIZED MARKETPLACE FOR CLIMATE DATA AND APPLICATIONS
As climate change becomes ever more critical, the impact of improved climate data, both economically and academically, is becoming apparent. Climate data is an essential input in everything from climate change research and policy to risk management, innovation and more.
dClimate is making climate data more accessible for non-specialists, lowering barriers for research and development across a wide range of areas. We believe this layer of enablement will be key to develop innovative solutions to fight climate change.
WATER RESILIENCE SAAS FOR CORPORATES
Fresh water is a limited resource, and its continued overuse has a wide range of negative effects on the environment, economies, and health. Climate change is projected to increase water risk significantly.
Waterplan’s software helps large corporations measure, respond, report and monitor their increasingly changing water risk. By creating measurable analytics, we believe Waterplan will drive a meaningful reduction in water usage, creating a positive impact on the planet.
MAPPING THE WORLD’S OCEANS
The ocean produces over half of the world’s oxygen, absorbs 50x more CO2 than the atmosphere, and produces essential food and medicine. However, less than 10% of the ocean has been mapped. Society knows little of climate change’s effects on the ocean, nations lack the ability to protect the marine environment, and large industries lack important data to make business decisions.
Terradepth’s 3D ocean portrayal includes biological, topological, and environmental DNA that give key insights into the health of our ocean.
CROP RESILIENCE THROUGH GENE DISCOVERY
Climate change is a major threat to crop resilience. In response, farming practices as we know them will have to change. Avalo plans to enable much faster and cost-effective identification of desirable crop traits, which can be applied across agriculture to improve yields, enhance nutrition, and reduce the environmental impact of crops.
Greater crop resilience is central to the world’s ability to adapt to climate change, enabling countries to continue to feed their populations.
HOME ELECTRIFICATION MADE SIMPLE
Consumers are more motivated than ever to electrify their homes, but the journey is still opaque. Meanwhile, the growth of the US EV market is hampered by insufficient public charger infrastructure: data suggests that over 80% of EV charging happens at home.
Kopperfield makes it easier and more price transparent to buy and install EV chargers, heat pumps and solar systems at home – reducing key barriers to adoption. Kopperfield lets consumers access a vetted network of trustworthy installers and their software makes them 20-30% more efficient.
AMERICA’S AFFORDABLE HEALTH SUPERSTORE
Tens of millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured, with high deductibles acting as a major barrier to healthcare access. In the existing Direct Pay (out-of-pocket) market, there is no organisation negotiating on your behalf for treatment prices, resulting in very high healthcare costs.
Sesame connects under-served patients directly to doctors, cutting out insurance companies to drive costs down and improve access to affordable healthcare while improving the ease and transparency of medical bill payments.
VIRTUAL WARDS TO MONITOR HEALTH
COVID-19, aging populations, and reduced healthcare budgets have combined to stretch hospitals and healthcare systems to breaking points.
Doccla’s virtual wards allow patients to be sent home earlier and monitored safely from the comfort of their own homes, reducing healthcare cost by up to 35% and freeing up much needed capacity at hospitals. Virtual wards are vital to avoid the collapse of healthcare systems in periods of stress, from the annual winter peak period to full scale pandemics.
#1 MENTAL HEALTH AND SLEEP PRODUCT
Mental health problems are rising globally. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans experience mental illness each year. The WHO suggests that 35-45% of work absences can be attributed to mental health conditions. Up to 48% of adults suffer from insomnia, leading to serious physical health conditions, economic loss, and a heightened risk of severe mental health conditions, like depression.
Calm provides highly accessible guidance for meditation and sleep, targeting the large portion of the population who would otherwise not have sought help.
BRINGING DOWN THE COST OF EVERYDAY LIVING ACROSS URBAN AFRICA
Consumers in sub-Saharan Africa spend about 50% of their daily income on food and basic household essentials. In addition, these consumers pay 30-40% more than anywhere else due to lack of efficiency in the system: producers are sub-scale, and logistics expensive.
Kapu digitizes existing group buying behavior. Through economies of scale and increased efficiency through technology in the value chain, Kapu saves the consumer money, allowing more income to be spent on health and education.
3D PRINTED SUSTAINABLE & AFFORDABLE HOMES
The affordability of housing is a major issue in most major cities around the world. The UN estimates that by 2030, 3 billion people will need affordable housing in cities.
Mighty Buildings is building affordable and sustainable housing via automation and 3D printing. In addition to being more affordable than traditional housing, Mighty Buildings units produce 90% less waste.
NOTES ON METHODOLOGY
We recognize that impact measurement, as it relates to our portfolio companies, is a work-in-progress. Early-stage businesses are on a continuum of impact reporting quality. From due diligence to onboarding, we analyse and validate the impact methodology just as we scrutinize the economic aspects of the company.
Post investment, we seek continuous improvement of every company’s impact calculations. We have periodic quarterly reviews to challenge internal assumptions and develop more granular conversion and emission factors to more accurately reflect their footprints. We also develop new metrics as they roll out additional product offerings.
Many of Giant’s portfolio companies are still in the development phase – removing no, or only a small amount of CO2e, for example – but the investment that we make is there to help them accelerate their development and achieve their impact potential.
Each company has a unique set of impact KPIs. Because there’s a limited number of companies in the Giant portfolio, and impact KPIs are specific to each company, the highlghted KPIs at the start of this report often come from one or just a few companies.
Diversity and inclusion data is estimated and soured from portfolio companies. Metrics displayed in case studies are the company’s estimate of at-scale impact.
CO2e refers to the number of metric tons of CO2 emissions with the same global warming potential as one metric ton of another greenhouse gas.
