Adam Boutin

Capital One Ventures’ Investment in Goodr and New Impact Focus

Goodr

I’m super excited to announce our partnership with Goodr, which also represents our first “Impact” investment.

Jasmine and her team are tackling one of the most baffling paradoxes — 80 billion pounds of food is ending up in our landfills every year, meanwhile 40 million Americans are food insecure. While most of us are aware that food waste and hunger are massive problems (with both environmental and societal implications), the scale & complexity of the issues is astonishing…. Jasmine’s TED Talk and John Oliver’s segment on Food Waste are great primers for the uninitiated.

Goodr helps large-scale, corporate food programs (like F500 campuses, event venues, hospitals, airports) track & reduce food waste, while making sure surplus food is put to its best possible use:

• Delicious, edible food that has meets required safety standards is delivered to families in need, either directly or through non-profit partners
• Organic matter that can’t be safely consumed is delivered to a variety of composting, farming, or biofuel facilities

The benefits are powerful… not only can thousands of families enjoy healthy meals that require minimal (if any) prep, but millions of pounds of waste could be diverted from landfills, where they would decompose under trash and release methane (a greenhouse gas). For large companies, Goodr enables cost savings through more efficient ordering, and also automatically generates tax donation receipts and impact analytics.

I’m grateful to Jasmine and the Goodr team for letting us be part of their inspirational journey.

Impact at Capital One Ventures

I’ve spent most of 2020 getting our “Impact Investing” practice up and running within Ventures. Specifically, we will look to invest in mission-driven businesses in the following areas:

• Financial Wellness & Inclusion
• Environmental Sustainability
• Future of Work

I, like many others, believe we’re entering a new era of corporate responsibility, gradually away from the shareholder absolutism that marked much of our recent history. (Side note: for a great read on this, check out Accountable by Warren Valdamanis). As such, I am a firm believer that we are about to see a new generation of startups focused on “doing well by doing good”, or, generating long-term shareholder value through products that genuinely benefit humanity (hi again, Goodr).

I’ll have much more to announce on this front in the coming year, but wanted to share a bit about what I’ve been up to. In an often dreary year, it’s been uplifting through my research to meet so many entrepreneurs and investors who are dedicating their careers to changing the world. There’s a lot of good out there when you look for it!