Raaise was founded with one clear goal in mind—to turn the tide on the climate emergency by leveraging the power and potential of climate startups. It all began 3 years ago, on a remote beach in northern Mozambique...
Nestled between the wild African bush and the dazzling Indian Ocean, we built Guludo Beach Lodge. An understated, uncomplicated, tropical beach hideaway that lifted over 60,000 people out of the depths of poverty and created the blueprint for what was to become the future of experiential, regenerative tourism.
But, that paradise was under threat from the natural resource curse. In the midst of a climate catastrophe, a fossil-fuelled war was simmering.
Kenneth, the strongest cyclone ever to hit Eastern Africa, made landfall on our beach, wiping out 17+ years of blood, sweat, tears in minutes. Our boutique hotel—the OG of sustainable tourism—gone.
Another reminder that those least responsible for the climate crisis were bearing the brunt of it
It would have been easier to give up, but that’s not in our DNA. Motivated by the injustice we had seen and experienced first-hand, we had to act.
We can't count on governments and big business to save us. They're dragging their feet and protecting their own interests, at the expense of our planet. But, we’re optimists at heart and we had an idea—startups will save us!
We know that the solutions we need to turn the tide on climate are already out there, they're just not getting funded. So, what's holding startups back? We spoke to hundreds of founders, who said the same things over and over again.
It was clear, a bottleneck was choking the system. Too often, amazing climate startups were left to languish in the "valley of death".
We saw how critical this early-stage funding gap was and knew we could fix it. So we got to work.
Sonja, a friend and a lawyer with a background in social justice, joined the team. Raaise was officially founded.
In a fast-changing climate, we could see an ocean of venture opportunities out there, but our first priority was to build our team by getting more Raaisers on board. So we reached out to Ben Keene, a friend, entrepreneur and expert community builder based in the UK.
Quickly Ben was all-in.
Startups need different capital solutions at different times; there's no one-size-fits-all approach. We looked at what was working and what wasn't, what new ideas were out there to correct perceived imbalances, what solutions were gaining traction, and what work was waiting to be done. We absorbed, distilled, digested and put our own spin on it, setting the wheels in motion for a new non-dilutive funding mechanism.
They say you can't truly know another until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. So we decided to raise a pre-seed round, in order to feel the pain we'd heard so much about from other founders, and so we could experience the same frustrations. This would become invaluable later, while building our MVP.
We closed our pre-seed round with a handful of AMAZING strategic investors! We learnt a lot.
We set about building a community of amazing climate startups and hosted our first online events with the likes of Great Wrap, Oddbox, FEAT., and many others.
Working with our amazing lawyers, we finalised the Raaise SAFE—a non-dilutive funding tool for ambitious climate founders that allows them to remain captain of their own ship and retain more ownership of their company, while offering investors increased liquidity in addition to potential venture-sized returns.
It's an investment mechanism that's good for founders, good for investors, and good for the planet.
We scoped the tech and started to build our MVP, working with an awesome agency based in San Francisco. We also started hosting regular founders circles, private conversations with climate founders to share the ups and downs of building their startup. Unsurprisingly, a regular top topic of conversation: funding pains.
We onboarded our first founders and generated our first revenue— Huge milestone!
We launched our podcast, Startups Will Save Us, spotlighting awesome climate founders and hosted our first in-person meet, with 15 climate founders sharing their stories to an audience of 80+ people at x+why, a purpose driven coworking space in London. Oh, plus our platform went LIVE!
On the way to closing our first successful raise. The first of many.
Simplifying the investment process for founders and investors to help awesome climate startups get funded with as little friction as possible.
Amy’s the skipper; infectiously optimistic and passionate about creating impact. She’s at the helm leading the way and loves to meet founders and investors who are passionate about impact.
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Sonja ensures everything runs smoothly. With her legal eye, soft heart and razor sharp mind, not much gets past her, including misplaced punctuation or the occasional tautology!
Behind the scenes Neal’s normally building; a financial model, some tech, a brand asset... He’s the creative and strategic mastermind behind Raaise.
Ben heads up all things community and loves to talk to founders, investors and pretty much anyone about startups, the climate crisis and how we might solve it
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