CEO Duncan Grierson said that the changing economy and inflation were to blame for the end of the fintech.
Clim8, an investment platform focused on climate change, shuts down.
The app Clim8 for sustainable investing is going away.
The London-based fintech that was started in 2019 with the goal of making sustainable investing available to everyone and with a focus on investing in companies with climate impact solutions will close all accounts at the end of May and is no longer taking on new customers.
In a message to customers, CEO Duncan Grierson said that over the past few months, the company has looked into a number of options that have “a range of good interest,” but none of them have come to fruition.
Clim8 is financially stable and has enough money to cover all its costs. He also said that the company is currently looking for a buyer.
“The venture capital environment has completely changed in the last year and it’s extremely difficult for startups to raise new funding,” Grierson said.
“We started Clim8 to bring truly sustainable investing to anyone and we had strong portfolio returns in a challenging market, so proved that you can invest in companies with climate impact and still do well. Unfortunately we have not been able to scale our customer base fast enough to show strong enough traction to venture capital investors.”
Institutional investors like Channel 4 Ventures, the British Business Bank, Evergreen Fund, and 7Percent Ventures have given Clim8 £12 million.
It also let customers pay with Covid and raised more than £6.6 million from nearly 5,000 investors over three Crowdcube campaigns.
Now, everyone who uses Clim8 will have 60 days to decide what they want to do with their portfolios.
The fintech is working with account custodians called WealthKernel. These people will make sure that customers’ funds stay safe as they withdraw or transfer money, and all platform fees have been waived.
Clim8 has also teamed up with the online investment service Wealthify. When customers move their portfolios to their ethical plans, which aim to invest in a sustainable way, Wealthify will give them a sign-up bonus.
“We have seen a large amount of greenwashing in financial services around so-called ‘ESG’ investing and we wanted to offer a better product,” Grierson wrote on the Clim8 blog.
“Trying to disrupt an industry is a big mountain to climb. Coupled with dramatic changes in the economic environment and inflation, the appetite for investing in startups has changed over the last year.
We have been unable to secure further venture capital to fund the ongoing business.”
