Impact investing platform Yova closes CHF 11 million round

Zurich — Carole Acker­mann and Chris­toph Sutter and the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund are inves­t­ing 11 million Swiss francs in the impact inves­t­ing plat­form Yova. Inves­tors can use the plat­form to invest in sustainable compa­nies from as little as 1,000 Swiss francs. The young company says: “You don’t have to be a finan­cial expert to invest with Yova. You decide which topics are important to you. We take care of the rest”. Yova was foun­ded by Till­mann Lang and Erik Gloer­feld. The launch in Germany is curr­ently being prepared.

Zurich — Yova, an impact inves­t­ing plat­form foun­ded in Zurich in 2017, raises CHF 11 million in a recently closed funding round. Yova is finan­ced by well-known inves­tors, inclu­ding Carole Acker­mann (CEO at Diamonds­cull; VR at BKW, BVZ, BNP Pari­bas Switz­er­land, Alli­anz Suisse and others) or Chris­toph Sutter (Axpo, foun­der of South­pole as well as mycli­mate) as well as the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund.

“Yova strikes a chord with the times, and espe­ci­ally with the youn­ger gene­ra­tion,” explains Carole Acker­mann. “Young people want to help shape a sustainable world, but don’t want to miss out on a trans­pa­rent and tech­no­lo­gi­cally state-of-the-art one.” Till­mann Lang, CEO and co-foun­­der of Yova adds, “These funds will allow us to move forward with our Euro­pean expan­sion in a timely manner and at full speed, in addi­tion to expan­ding our Swiss busi­ness. As a result, this funding round was almost three times the size of April 2020.” In the first four months of this year, the number of custo­mers has alre­ady almost doubled. Yova is growing prima­rily from its own custo­mer base: every second new custo­mer comes via recom­men­da­ti­ons from exis­ting custo­mers, i.e. from Yova’s own commu­nity. Yova is curr­ently expan­ding its team. In addi­tion to the exis­ting 30 employees, 20 further posi­ti­ons are curr­ently to be filled in the short term.

As a further step towards success, Yova reports funding from the Swiss Tech­no­logy Fund of 3 million Swiss francs. This fund, estab­lished by the Swiss Confe­de­ra­tion, guaran­tees loans to Swiss compa­nies whose inno­va­tive products enable a sustainable reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­si­ons. The promise of support from the Fede­ral Office for the Envi­ron­ment (FOEN) attests that Yova and its impact inves­tors are successfully doing just that. Yova’s strong growth has alre­ady resul­ted in a CO2 reduc­tion of more than 10‘000 tons in its port­fo­lios over the past year.

Sustainable invest­ments for everyone

Inves­tors can invest in sustainable compa­nies with Yova from as little as CHF 2,000. No finan­cial know­ledge is requi­red, as they are digi­tally guided through the port­fo­lio process. This gives consu­mers 100 percent trans­pa­rency into what they are inves­t­ing in and at what cost. At the begin­ning of the invest­ment process, they can choose from 16 themes such as “plant-based food”, “rene­wa­ble energy” or “access to educa­tion” and eight exclu­sion crite­ria such as “no nuclear energy” or “no animal testing”.

The custo­mer then crea­tes his indi­vi­dual risk profile and recei­ves sugges­ti­ons from a mix of 400 compa­nies in which Yova invests for him based on his previous infor­ma­tion and atti­tude. The user can addi­tio­nally indi­vi­dua­lize his company mix and add his favo­ri­tes from over 800 addi­tio­nal companies.

Yova invests only in publicly traded compa­nies, in large mid- and large-caps, from wind turbine manu­fac­tu­r­ers to Beyond Meat to Tesla. The final port­fo­lio consists of 30 to 40 stocks diver­si­fied across diffe­rent indus­tries, count­ries, curren­cies and company sizes. In addi­tion to equi­ties, each stra­tegy also conta­ins govern­ment bonds. The costs range from 0.6 to 1.2 percent, depen­ding on the invest­ment amount. The fee is an “all-in fee”, meaning that there are no other costs such as tran­sac­tion or balan­cing costs.