The Sustainability Group, developers of sustainability management and ESG reporting platform FuturePlus, has closed its latest round. Overfunding in this round, the company secured a 5x increase in its valuation in just under 3 years, taking its total investment to £2.7 million to date.
Previously, the London-based sustainability management platform secured £750K last year.
The Sustainability Group will use the funds to continue to invest into the development of the FuturePlus platform and product portfolio, onboard new staff and sustain client growth through marketing and PR.
FuturePlus is rapidly expanding its global footprint, having established a presence in the USA, the Caribbean, Australia, Mauritius and Ukraine, in addition to its existing client base in the UK and EMEA.
What does the company do?
FuturePlus, founded by Alexandra Smith and Mike Penrose, is a sustainability and ESG management and reporting platform that makes managing social and environmental impact accessible, affordable, achievable and trackable for every business.
The platform deconstructs typical ESG measurement processes to focus on practical and realistic action plans that every business can follow successfully across the five themes.
Its indicators consist of 200-300 questions to educate companies and business leaders about how to make their operations more sustainable. It onboards companies from all sectors and sizes, while constantly encouraging and educating clients on not only how to be sustainable but also what to do to get there in a timely fashion.
The FuturePlus assessment consists of simple yet rigorous indicators that are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and built on recognised sustainability standards, ESG certification indexes, and industry frameworks.
New appointments
The Sustainability Group has also expanded its Board of Directors with Non-Executive Director, CEO and Founder of Ridgeback Partners, Ashish Devi-King, becoming Chairman.
In addition, Darren Smith, previously Head of Asia Pacific Consulting at Wood Mackenzie and a partner at CMAI (later acquired by US data giant IHS), has been appointed as a Board Advisor.
Ashish Devi-King, Chairman at The Sustainability Group, added: “After having met a plethora of poorly thought-through ESG concepts with limited data potential, FuturePlus demonstrated strategic rigour, forward-thinking tech architecture and an intuitive, data-driven UX that works with any company. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the month-on-month revenue trending was one of the best that I had seen, and that the valuation has grown 5x from seed to the current and overfunded round closing today.”
Darren Smith, Board Advisor at The Sustainability Group, concluded: “After many years in the consulting industry, I noticed a growing need in client companies for an achievable sustainability strategy. FuturePlus’ innovative platform married with the co-founders’ deep knowledge, passion and commitment for sustainability, made my decision to invest an easy one. I look forward to providing my experience as a board advisor in supporting the company to scale and access new markets.”
FuturePlus’ clientele
FuturePlus’ global clients are continuously managing their sustainability ambitions in the mission to become better organisations across five themes: Climate, Economic, Diversity & Inclusion, Social and Environment. Given the global demand for risk management procedures and policies measured against financial metrics, clients using the platform can actively address ESG concerns with accuracy, particularly as the burden of proof becomes ever more prevalent for all stakeholders.
Clients that have witnessed a positive impact of the platform include: Soho House, Moda Living Management, Lore Group, London and Regional, England and Wales Cricket Board, Football Foundation, Totally Money, With Intelligence, and partners such as Sustainable Ventures, CorpCare, International Real Estate Partners (IREP) and Sustainable Spa Association.
Over the last year, FuturePlus’ clients have collectively set over 4,200 sustainability ambitions and achieved more than 2,700 of these goals, demonstrating a continuous and significant progress in their ambition scores.
Alexandra Smith, Co-Founder and Partner at FuturePlus, stated: “Our growth momentum this year has been tremendous, and we’re set to continue on this trajectory thanks to the support of our investors.The importance of ESG data and insights being both verifiable and forward-looking will only become increasingly important, and we are thrilled that we are addressing this for not only our clients but the capital markets and the new community created by Virgin StartUp. They have all recognised the power of FuturePlus’ unique approach to sustainability for businesses of all sizes worldwide and the importance of enabling companies to consistently track, measure and improve their sustainability through incremental and ongoing improvements.”
Mike Penrose, Co-Founder and Partner at FuturePlus, added: “With our product development roadmap for 2024 and beyond, we are able to consistently enable customers to constantly manage the financial demands implied by ESG regulations both locally and internationally. Our platform empowers businesses to manage risk and assess how to address sustainability concerns effectively. Our expanded Board will help see the deployment of our products and the ongoing innovation to standardise the approach to managing and reporting sustainability for our global customer base.
What do we think about FuturePlus?
The company is poised to become a leader in the sustainability and ESG management sector, driven by its comprehensive and practical platform. With a global footprint and a growing client base, its focus on actionable and trackable sustainability measures aligns with increasing regulatory demands. The addition of experienced leaders and advisors further strengthens its strategic direction, ensuring continued innovation and market expansion.
