Mission
We are on a Social Mission
To advance human diversity and inclusion Umaputra invests in and empowers extraordinary entrepreneurs and artists that contribute to society with measurable social impact.
We believe that to sustain and upgrade people’s lives our portfolio of companies, at this stage, best do it by enabling people and businesses with new better everyday choices. Hereby our mission is social as we work with people to make an impact.
Our aim is to showcase a social design for how we may live wholesomely with ourselves, our communities and nature; thriving in prosperity and perpetuity. Demonstrating that what is truly advantageous for us must likewise be a boon for nature. In effect, our health and the health of the Planet will be more interconnected. Enjoying colourful produce, clean air, pristine water, sound sleep, stillness, and inspiring surroundings is not just a joyous experience but also, moreover, a vastly more sustainable and rewarding manner of living. Umaputra is the future of ourselves, our communities and nature.
Investment Philosophy
Humanism in our soul
Umaputra’s philosophical impact investing stance springs from humanism which emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. We therefore consider human beings as the starting point for our impact investing intentions. Umaputra promote and develop individuals who, espouses the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings, and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to our world and environment. The Umaputra investment portfolio focuses on improving human well-being by advocating for the progress of two main themes:
- Diversity/Openness. The spectrum of culture makes society magnificent.
- Inclusion/Tolerance. Every human being belong and symbiosis can be achieved.
These philosophies guide all of our resources, including financial, human, social and natural capital, so that we use them fully to contribute to our measurable impact on the reduction of:
Impact first
Umaputra is a long-term impact-first portfolio vehicle, and growing our impact is more important than growing our financial compound or preserving our wealth for generations. Being impact first means that we prioritise portfolio growth of our impact returns above the growth of our financial returns. Financial compounding is important but only as a tool to further scale our impact, not the other way around.
The Umaputra Incubator create counterfactual impact
To both drive counterfactual impact and to ensure mission, value and philosophical alignment, Umaputra seed and incubate early stage ideas, creative projects, prototypes and start-ups of visionary social impact entrepreneurs and artists. Many fail but the most promising evolve into independent companies that we continue to fund and actively steward via board participation.
A natural consequence of the incubation process is the counterfactual impact we generate as most of the businesses would not exist without such incubation, initial seed funding and continued stewardship.
The Umaputra Seed fund as Catalytic capital
High impact with high financial risk investments are made from our Catalytic capital cluster. Because we are risk tolerant, flexible and patient we can help fill critical gaps for social entrepreneurs, particularly in the early stages of development. Umaputra accepts reduced financial expectations from our catalytic capital cluster in order to bring about a greater social impact. Lowered financial expectations refers to not only higher risk or lower return profile, but also a longer liquidity window or subordinate positions in the investment structure benchmarked against more conventional investments.
The Umaputra Private Equity fund as flagship
The Umaputra private equity fund companies are our flagship vessels. They are our largest, most (current) impactful, most financially sustainable and best known companies. We try to ensure our private equity portfolio companies lead by example the earlier stage companies affiliated with Umpautra.
As public equity investor Umaputra invest in systemic changes
Umaputra seeks to support systemic changes by investing in disruptive innovation derived from technological first principles. We believe that systemic changes at scale are best achived by introducing new innovative science and technology.
Innovations. We seek broad exposure in disruptive innovation and invest in macro innovations centered around newest advances in science.
Such areas currently include:
- Artificial intelligence
- Robotics
- Energy storage
- DNA sequencing
- Nature tech
- Blockchain technology
which we believe will change the way the world works and deliver outsized growth as industries transform. Such actively managed public equity strategies target long-term systemic impact and capital growth.
Applications. Companies in Umaputra’s public equity strategy aim to capture the substantial benefits of new products or services associated with scientific research in DNA technologies, energy storage, the increased use of autonomous technology, next generation internet services, and technologies that make financial services more efficient.
Investment Principles
Investment constraints
Founder-led companies
We only invest in founder-led companies. As long term investors we seek to benefit from the long-term guidance of company founders. Executives who founded a firm often see it as their life's work, so they are highly motivated to think in the long term instead of about short-term milestones such as the next earnings report. Many founders have also invested a sizable chunk of their life savings into their companies, which means they have significant skin in the game. Investing such a large piece of their net worth into their firms also demonstrates that their financial interests are aligned with those of their shareholders. One other benefit of companies that are still led by their founders is the fact that they tend to know much more about the firm's business than other executives. They have a clear idea of where they want to go, and they will guide the business in that direction. While non-founder executives do know the company well, they might not have the vision that a strong founder would have.
Directed intentionality via thematic asset selection
All our investing is social impact investing and aligned around our mission, values and philosophy of humanism. To achieve long term compounding social impact synergies we prioritize theme focus over unlimited diversification options. All investments must therefore have measurable KPI’s that strengthen at least one of our family’s two social impact themes.
Measurable impact investing
All enterprises, regardless of tax status, produce both social and financial results, on a spectrum from positive to negative. Their financial and social performance is measurable and varies over time. The conscientious investor takes note of both. In addition to forecasting expected financial return, Borre Group aspires to evaluate social and financial performance using a “net contribution” framework in which the deployment of human, natural and societal capital is measured for each investee. We strive to work with outside vendors of indicators, metrics, scoring methodologies to determine the impact of each investment we make.
High risk tolerance
We have a high risk tolerance that primarily invests in alternative investments. Long term (>10 years) we do not believe that high social impact is derived at the expense of high financial returns. We believe that the new social businesses of today will capture the most value in the future via market disruptions. But in the short term (<10years) we acknowledge that the risks with alternative investments are higher and accept the associated risks.
Liquidity
As long-term investors, we are in the position to have a greater proportion of illiquid assets than the average investor.
Diversification via asset selection
Due to a clear mission with a narrow directed intentionality focusing on only two themes we seek balanced diversification in the following dimensions:
- Target revenue
- Asset type mix
- Liquidity
- Concentration
- Geography
- Enterprise stage of development
- Ticket size
Leverage
We have low experience with leverage and hereby current low tolerance for leverage as the associated risks and liabilities not only create exposure for the individual investments but for the portfolio as a whole.
Tax Concerns
No investment may be made that would affect the Umaputra's tax status or cause the group to incur penalty taxes.
Conflicts of Interest
The Umaputra Committee will take reasonable measures to assess independence and arms-length principles. Any actual or potential conflicts of interest possessed by a member of the Committee or any other trustee of Umaputra with respect to an investment must be disclosed and resolved pursuant to Umaputra’s Conflict of Interest Policy.
Ownership stewardship
Alternative investments
With our alternative investment Umaputra provides resources beyond capital (e.g. know-how, reputation and networks) that allow the impactful companies to grow or improve their social impact practices. From investment cycle to cycle we will prioritise fewer but larger positions in the companies we invest in. This strategy will enable Umaputra to continue to increase our influence so we can inspire and activate both co-shareholders, board of directors and executives to directly improve social impact KPIs, impact strategies and implement impact practices. As with shareholder voting, these should focus on social impact improvements that are both realistic and meaningful.
Listed equities
In listed equities, Umaputra is focusing on investing in disruptive technologies and first and foremost seeks to generate impact by scaling the net Research & Development budgets in the companies in which we have our positions. For publicly listed companies this is archived via sheer scale and belief in the future. Secondly by communicating and voicing our impact opinions publicly both in regard to successful implementations but also if and when companies do not align with our mission, values or philosophies. In matters where we differ in opinion we will actively use our voting rights and voting processes to try to steward in the direction of our mission.