At BVP, the investment thesis starts with a simple but demanding premise: back companies that solve problems Europe cannot afford to ignore. The conviction behind it is that innovations addressing structural societal challenges are precisely the ones that generate durable, defensible returns.
That premise raises hard questions. How do you identify impact that is real rather than narrative? How do you measure it without losing sight of the business? And what does it take to back founders building in spaces where the stakes are high and the path is long?
These are the questions Carmel van den Berk and Roel van Wegberg explore in a recent conversation with Mark Simons on the Delfin Impact podcast. The discussion moves beyond the surface-level framing that too often surrounds impact investing — the screening criteria, the ESG checkboxes, the reporting frameworks — and into the operational reality of what it means to back early-stage companies in Healthcare, Agrifood, and Renewable Chemistry.
