Category

Hatchers

Nov 27
1

Being a Fellow in 2020

By | Hatchers | No Comments

This year’s program launch could be qualified as pretty unique, we’d say “due to those unprecedented times”, but we’ve heard it’s overrated. So, let’s just say that when Covid 19 hit around March 2020, we didn’t really know how it would impact our Hatch program, starting in September 2020. As months passed by, we knew our fellows’ health and wellbeing was our top priority and chose to adapt, shifting from an accelerating program based in Geneva, Switzerland, to a fully remote one! While not being ideal in several aspects, this situation allowed us to extend our venture panel way beyond Europe, welcoming onboard fellows coming all the way from Argentina. Despite a few adjustments, way too many “can you see my screen” and “you are on mute” moments and the transformation of coffee breaks into zoom parties, Hatch didn’t lose sight of its primary objective: Supercharging Impact tech ventures in order to solve Humanity’s Grand Challenges. 

And, If there’s one thing we’ve learned from 2020, it’s the need to never stop battling against inequalities and the crucial importance of innovative mindsets to build a better tomorrow. 

That’s why this year, we’ve worked twice as hard towards selecting impact tech ventures that would help solve Humanity’s Grand Challenges in the best possible way, and we couldn’t be happier with our selection! 

Meet our Fellows 2020

Our 12 Fellows 2020 are bold entrepreneurs, they’re tenacious and have one common goal: making an impact. They come from all around the globe and work in the fields of Education, Health, Finance, Government and Social inclusion.

Feel like meeting them? Let us give you a sneak peek of their impact:

A3BC

Biometric digital ID & data storage protocol® designed to simplify & secure your daily life.

Beekee

Improving teaching & learning everywhere

Civocracy

Fixing the relationship between citizens and their governments through digital citizen participation.

Digipharm

Implementing value-based healthcare agreements using emerging technology.

Inuka

Making well being accessible for everyone. 

Lifeed

Transforming life experiences into business skills and shaping a world of work where everyone can fulfill their potential.

ODEM

Transforming the Way We Learn, Work & Grow.

Revisely

Allowing teachers to give more and better feedback to their students.

StepEX

Providing the next generation of student finance, the world’s first regulated “Future Earnings Agreements”.

Sustainably

Enabling people around the world to have a positive impact every day.

Wikifarmer

Empowering and educating farmers across the world.

MuniDigital

Transforming the way you govern your city.

Over the course of the next 24 months, we will be supercharging our 12 ventures and providing them with all the tools and mentoring they need in order to strengthen their growth and journey towards impact. Stay tuned!

Do you want to join our impactful community or feel like learning more about us? Reach out to our Program Manager, Mickael (mickael@hatchcolab.ch), we’d love to hear from you!

 

Nov 20
6

Investing in an Impact Tech Venture

By | Hatchers, Impact Investors | No Comments

When it is up to investments in startups and new ventures, most people are inclined to think that all investors are only looking to maximize their return and profit, aiming at pushing teams to grow and grow revenue and margins, forgetting about employees’ morale or impact on the environment and civil society.

If this was true, and maybe still is true, for Wall Street investors and startup raiders looking like the characters depicted in “the social network” movie, there are other and different categories of investors who have always worked below the radar, and they did take care of more socially responsible opportunities they could fund.

We are not talking here about philanthropist or individual donors, even if it is true that even such individuals are looking more and more for “investments”, meaning that they expect their contribution will have a return: we are indeed talking about impact investors and traditional investors who have more and more felt the need for allocating their assets to initiatives which could bring some value not to them only, but even to society and environment.

So the impact investment trend is becoming more and more popular: many studies and research are now unveiling its potential, many investors and funds have starting to look at it, and many organizations are also looking forward to seeing if and how it can actually become mainstream.

It helped also the convergence on the importance of the SDGs of many actors and stakeholders of the civil society and political scene, recognizing them as the most complete and detailed set of goals we all, as human beings on Earth, should take care of. 

Notwithstanding this, still when you meet an entrepreneur who is pitching about what he and his/her venture is doing to tackle one of the SDGs, solving one or more of the Humanity’s Grand Challenges as we call them in Hatch CoLab, you can see some skepticism in the people listening, as they were thinking: “Yes, but will this be sustainable from a profit standpoint?”, “where these guys want to make money from?”, and, the most dangerous criticism….. “They are talking about impact, but how can they actually create an impact and measure it?”.

This is THE point we at Hatch focus on, on top of the amazing acceleration program we provide to Impact Tech ventures.

Getting the ventures to better understand how to transform their desire for change into a sustainable business model, producing measurable and repeatable impact, is more a kind of art-not-science thing, making them investment ready and conscious about the impact they can have in the world.

How do we do this at Hatch CoLab? We all come from direct, on field, entrepreneur expertise, and rely on a selected network of top-notch mentors from many of the most impactful organizations here in the Impact Valley in Geneva.

Apr 11
4

Demo Day, The Pitch is Real

By | Events, Hatchers, HGC's, Impact Investors, Mentors | No Comments


*mic, clicker, nerves, slides, Let’s Pitch!*

After months of planning, the first ever Hatch Demo Day is now Complete!

For our fellows, this is an adventure that started back in September 2018. Being 1 out of the 20 impact ventures selected to come and pitch in Geneva on the Finals-Selection Day, was the opportunity to showcase their ventures to a select audience as well as the chance to earn a place in the program. On that day, 8 ventures were selected to be the Hatch Fellows, going through a speed-of-light acceleration program until March 2019, where all the hard work and achievements were celebrated on the awaited Demo Day.


For the Impact Mentors that were present for the Finals-Selection Day, seeing the fellows again on stage on Demo Day was the reward for the many hours invested in mentoring, with a wave of positive comments and applauses filling up the room as the pitches went by. With a clear mission, impact results, business model and strategy, nobody could deny the impact of these organizations.

The secret sauce: Stage Presence + Clear Pitch + Impact & Business

The Audience: Network, Network, Network

Specially designed for the 8 fellows of this year, Demo Day had over 100 attendees from more than 60 different organizations including UN organizations & NGOs, Foundations, Corporates, Investors & Impact Investors. It was exciting to see so many people from different backgrounds coming together to meet and support out fellows. 

Demo Day is meant to supercharge the Impact Ventures by unleashing the power of the network. Leveraging this event to promote mentorship, partnerships, introductions and fundraising, the audience had the chance to meet the fellows, to network and engage with them in conversations that go beyond this day.

To the Fellows and Mentors: This is no farewell

The world keeps turning and we keep Supercharging!

Demo Day marks the halfway through the acceleration program for the Impact Ventures.

With the 6-month Growth Phase following, the fellows are now deploying the first steps of their strategy to meet their roadmap objectives for this year. Hatch and the Impact Mentors will keep supporting them in developing their ventures, advising them and connecting them to relevant people that can help them grow their ventures and impact.

On the horizon: sharing the milestones achieved in the first year – but not yet!

For now, we celebrate the first batch of Hatch fellows, the first entrepreneurs-colonizers of the ecosystem we’re building, that are paving the way for more #Hatchers to come.

A big thank you to Arcadia, The ECO Coin, Ellipsis, LOVE FOR LIFE, Project Access, the fair traveller, Sela and Uridu.

Demo Day, as Featured in:

Tech.eu and StartupTicker.ch

*drop the mic*